The year of virtual art. Elisa Hernando. El Cultural
Nov 16, 2021
It has been a difficult economic scenario for galleries, museums and auctions. A year after the last fair ARCO, the landscape has changed: online and multi-city sales, Viewing Rooms and an unprecedented race towards digitalization.
In February 2020 ARCO closed its doors with successful sales but 93,000 visitors - 7% - less than the previous year. Of the 300 international collectors invited to the VIP program, only 30 cancelled because of Covid-19. The main museums and institutions, the Reina Sofia, the Community of Madrid, DKV Seguros or the Helga de Alvear Foundation, confirmed purchases of artists like Victoria Gil, Anna Bella Geiger, Feliza Bursztyn, Belen Rodriguez, Miguel Angel Campano and Tobias Rehberger, and no one would have ever imagined the situation of the fair's 2021 edition.
The coronavirus crisis has meant a bad economic scenario for galleries, museums and auctions, which have had to close their doors and stop dead in their tracks, in a sector where the presential aspect prevails. The effects were not long in coming: unemployment, reduction of income and bankruptcy of companies. But it hasalso served to explore new ways of disseminating, promoting and selling art.
This is not the first economic downturn the market has had to absorb. Looking back over the last 30 years, between 1990 and 1993, coinciding with the first Gulf War, demand contracted and auction prices fell by half. The next crisis to hit the market was at the end of 2008, with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and the sub-prime mortgage crisis. However, although auction prices then fell by 27% and the number of works fetching more than $10 million fell by 75%, 2010 saw the beginning of a recovery in growth in the art sector, as Artprice points out.
Throughout 2020, the auction houses have weathered the lull in activity better than the galleries, mainly because they already had platforms in place to be able to hold their events digitally. Sotheby's, for its part, began its commitment to online in 2019 and by March 2020 had already sold 10 times more on its platform than Christie's. In April it generated $6.4 million, a record for its sales in this format and, throughout 2020, nine of the 10 most expensive works sold online have been through Sotheby's (including the Basquiat piece: Untitled (Head), 1982), auctioned for $15.2 million.
Christie's has been implementing new technological developments on its platform with the aim of increasing its online presence and sales in the 'high-end' art segment. Thus, on 10 July it held an international event entitled 'ONE: the global sale of the 20th century'. For the first time, an online auction took place in four cities at the same time: Hong Kong, Paris, London and New York, playing with time differences. Thanks to technology, 3D and augmented reality, it was possible to visualise the works both in the exhibition spaces and to simulate how they would look on a collector's wall at home. The live auctions were broadcast on the internet and were a great success, with 80
pieces sold and sales amounting to more than 420 million dollars.
Gordillo and Uslé up for auction
In Spain the auctions, in spite of postponing their events to May, have managed to recover, reaching interesting auctions such as the sale of the piece by María Blanchard, Bogedón cubista, for 220,000 euros at Ansorena, the painting by Juan Uslé Soñé which was sold for 140,000 euros at Fernando Durán (starting price 65,000) or the canvas by Gordillo sold at Segre a few days ago for 47,000 euros, when it was priced at 39,000.
With regard tothe fairs, the international trend has been the migration to an online format, which has sometimes been improvised, or the perpetual dance of dates in the hope that the conditions of the pandemic would change. The figures are discouraging, if in the first half of 2019 sales accounted for 46% of gallery income, in 2020 they were 16% (according to McAndrew's report).
In Spain, ARCO is scheduled for July, remaining as the first major international fair of the season after the cancellation of Art Basel in June. At this point, the celebration of other national fairs like Art Madrid, Estampa and Just Mad is also up in the air. These date changes are generating great uncertainty among galleries in a year that will go down in history for being the one that has shaken the foundations of the on-site market.
Art Basel, for its part , faced with the impossibility of holding its events, opted to a virtual fair in Hong Kong which was a huge success. It had 250,000 virtual visitors compared to the 90,000 physical visitors in 2019. Important sales were closed, such as the sculpture by Antony Gormley for 500,000 dollars at the Continua gallery or the painting by Marlene Dumas for 2.6 million at David Zwirner. Specifically, this American gallery is characterised by its great commitment to the online business with an exclusive department made up of 12 people. In mid-March, in the middle of the pandemic, David Zwirner said in The New York Times: "The art world is late if you compare it to other minority sectors".
With respect to the art galleries, both in Spain and internationally, they have embarked on an unprecedented race to digitalise themselves in a process, almost like madness, that should have been carried out over several years. More out of necessity than conviction, they have updated their web pages, they have strengthened their presence in networks, above all in Instagram, and have set up viewing rooms with registration and passwords to access them.
At the click of a button
Wanting to replicate the face-to-face model of art on the internet is not a symbol of success. For example, there is a maxim in the digital environment: products that do not have a price are not for sale, or access to information must be as simple as possible and at the click of a button. On the other hand, digital marketing and communication strategies can be very beneficial but also costly and unprofitable if you do not know how to implement and measure them correctly.
Habits in the art market are changing. There will always be collectors who need to physically see the work to make their purchase, but with the new generations and the technological scenario that Covid leaves us, it will be more and more common to see exhibitions in other countries in 3D format, Buy art online and attend talks by Zoom. Who knows what other applications will emerge. New audiences and new audiences to explore that will coexist with the usual ones.
Elisa Hernando, El Mundo
