Art Print Issues by Barney Davey

How to Become a Corporate Art Consultant

You read about corporate art consultants. Perhaps, if you are an artist, you might wonder if meeting one could help you sell your art to businesses. Or, regardless of what you do to earn income in the art marketplace, you might have at some point asked yourself, "How do I become a corporate art consultant?"

The best answer I can give you is to read Barbara Markoff's book, Becoming A Corporate Art Consultant. It is a slim volume full of big ideas. More importantly, it gives the reader the complete low down on what it takes to become a corporate art consultant.

You will find this book useful, practical and to the point

The book is chock full of practical advice borne from years of direct experience in the field. Markoff has successfully worked as a corporate art consultant for nearly 30 years. She and her husband, Rob, also operate a topnotch retail picture framing business in San Diego, California.

Markoff, I'm sure, would be the first to tell you that the market for corporate art is soft these days. With the slowdown in the economy and the commercial real estate market, there are fewer jobs to pursue. I am also certain she would tell you the healthcare market is faring better than the commercial real estate market.

Timing is over rated - this book is highly rated

Should that news deter you from reading this book and deciding if you should get into the business? Not at all. As Mary Engelbreit, whose art licensing business has done more than $100 million in sales say, "Timing is over rated." She started her business on the kitchen table when she was six months pregnant. I believe this book should be "must reading" for anyone who wants a better understanding of how art gets chosen and placed in all those buildings, offices and medical facilities.

Picking up Markoff's tips of the trade make the book a must read

Certainly, you may first be an artist in your heart and soul, but if your bank account tells you that you need to find another way to make ends meet, then working to become a corporate art consultant may be just the ticket for you. It worked for my good friend Dick Harrison. He spent 20+ years in a similar business as an artist's rep. He carried his own work, but signed it under the pseudonym, Claude, who was was his cat at the time. You can learn more about him from his podcasts at: www.SalesTipsforArtists.com.

Information and insight are keys to becoming smarter at art marketing

The point here is you can read this book and become better and smarter art marketing. The reality for most artists is they are ill-prepared to succeed when they launch their careers. There is no formal training for how to make a successful art career. I always recommend studying the habits and traits of other successful artists. Because if you add to your knowledge a deeper understanding of the intricacies of the people and business models who can benefit your own career, then you are that much more competitive and prepared to become successful.

So, whether you want to get valuable insights to help you decide if you should pursue becoming a corporate art consultant, or whether you should more aggressively pursue corporate art consultants to help further your own art career, then you should read this book. Either way, I highly recommend it!

What Is the Secondary Art Market?

In order to address the question of what constitutes the secondary fine art market, you must first know what makes the primary art market. The answer, as with many things in the broad art market, is complicated. Since the broad secondary art market includes very expensive work by contemporary masters to relatively inexpensive four-color offset lithographs, you will find the terminology is used differently depending on circumstances.

The essence of a primary sale is the first transaction where art is sold, in most cases. However, complexities arise when you study the distribution chain.

It is simple when a deal is made between artist and collector. The situation is less clear when an artist makes a wholesale sale to a gallery that then offers the work at full retail. In this instance, the retail transaction made by the gallery is considered the primary market transaction. Of course, there are other methods of first sale to consider.

Defining a secondary market sale

A secondary market sale occurs when the original buyer decides to put the work for sale a second time. Whereas this sale is most often initiated by a collector seeking to sell the work, there are cases when a gallery will put pieces directly into the secondary market. This usually not good because it means the gallery has too much inventory and too little demand for the work. No gallery is going to sell through the secondary market when it has buyers for pieces in the primary market.

The venues for the secondary art market range from the toniest auction houses and private dealers to established brokers and galleries all the way down to eBay. In November 2009, The Economist ran a piece titled “New or Secondhand?” that accurately depicted the upper end of the market. The information and concepts the article discusses do not apply to most readers here. Alan Bamberger has an useful illustrative article, "Retail Gallery Prices May be More Than Art is Worth," on his ArtBusiness.com Website.

The art print market is divided

For our purposes, we are here to discuss the secondary art market as it pertains to the art print market that includes selling reproductions as prints. In the art business, there is a bifurcation in the print market. That is, there are those fine art prints made in time-honored fashion which, by the nature of their creation, are limited. These would include etchings, woodcuts, aquatints, engravings, serigraphs, stone lithographs and so forth. See Wikipedia for more details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printmaking.

The other component of the print market primarily is made up of reproductions of original art. Some would call this the decorative art market, while others reserve that term for the open edition and poster market. How you describe it has as much to do with what end of the market you derive your income as anything.

If you are an artist, dealer or collector involved with etchings, your view of a giclée is likely to be a decorative reproduction. On the other hand, if you make your living selling giclees, or some other form or fine art reproductions, you may take issue with your work being called decorative art. Unfortunately, you can only control how you market your work.

Different processes create different perspectives

If you study the work and promotional information offered over the years by artists and galleries at the New York ArtExpo, I doubt you would find one exhibitor characterizing their work as decorative art – especially those who sell limited editions. It completely natural they would use descriptions designed to help sell their work.

The International Fine Print Dealers Association (IFPDA) also holds an annual show in Manhattan. You will find this small, but important, group of dealers generally eschews representing much of the work found at shows such as ArtExpo New York. Most will contend, as Kathryn Markel does on her Website, that the work found there is “wall decor."

While not stating wall decor is necessarily a bad thing, dealers, such as Kathryn Markel, would not encourage buyers to participate in paying the set prices for much of the higher priced work at ArtExpo. Their reasons are the works primarily are reproductions and that much of it these days is digital art. And, there you have the bifurcation in the art print market.

The diminishing secondary art market

When it comes to the secondary market, there is an active market for many artists whose work is found at shows such as ArtExpo New York. You will also find many other artists whose work has transcended the "wall decor" mentality. In other words, it is a mixed bag. Arguably, the best example of a secondary market player is Art Brokerage. It carries a huge selection of work from a wide range of artists, including many who have exhibited at ArtExpo over the years and many others who have never set foot inside it.

There is an implication that art reaching the secondary market will have appreciated in value having become more collectible along the way. For some artists, this is accurate, but for the few who enjoy seeing their art selling well above initial prices, finding an active secondary market for most is not a reality, especially in their lifetime. It is one of the reasons I have argued for not having limited editions of fine art digital reproductions.

There is a bit of a conundrum here

In today’s market, if an artist is productive and continues to put new editions in the market place, it tends to lower the resale of earlier pieces. Although in the boom years of limited editions prints, this dynamic was not always the case, and is not now for select artists. If artists combats the problem of lowered prices on the secondary market with small editions, of say 200 or less, they cap their income for that work and need to either generate higher and higher prices for their new work or put more editions in the pipeline to maintain a steady income, both actions have consequences.

Should artists be paid a resale royalty?

When it comes to the secondary market, artists do not participate in the inflated prices. Only California has droit de suite laws where artists are legally ensured a cut of the proceeds when it is resold in the state. The legislation is known as the California Resale Royalty Act. This type of law is more common in European Union countries. I doubt they will ever move beyond the borders of California.

Until the past few years, you could go to the back of Art Business News or Art World News and find several pages of small ads from dealers in the secondary art market. In a very telling sign of the times, those publications are today much smaller in overall ad pages and secondary market ads have nearly vanished. Coincidentally, in another telling sign, if you research art prints, particularly giclée prints on the sites of secondary market art brokers, you will find many pieces being offered well below their original price.

In the art business, more than secondary market is hurting

Another factor in the market that has diminished with trade magazine ad pages are secondary art market  Websites offering works while having very little inventory. Attorney, Joshua Kaufman, a long time columnist for Art Business News, wrote, “The Online Secondary Market: Resource or Parasite?” It is an informative piece detailing how some rouges operators business methods were having a negative effect on the market place. It also warned that much of the way they were operating was illegal.

While we like to think it was the industry policing itself that drove many of them out of the market, it was eroding market and economic conditions that took away their incentive. What remains to be seen for the industry is whether the market will return to a point where artists using the giclée medium will see an active market with rising prices for their work on the secondary market.

Where is the print market headed?

My estimation is it will be very difficult for the market to bring us back to the old days of a booming profitable secondary art market for several reasons. First, most artists working in multiple these days are using the giclée or digital printing format. I do not believe the public clamors for limited edition giclées. I think it would rather pay a little less and get to enjoy the art. This notion is supported by evidence some longtime publishers in the giclée market are moving away from creating limited editions in this market. Lastly, once there is a widespread established pattern of digital prints not increasing in value, it will be very difficult to reverse such a trend.

This may be a market with a beautiful creative product, but it also a business that follows trends. If the trend grows stronger to open editions, it will depress the secondary market for fine art print reproductions. That is not all bad. I think it will force the art to be sold for its enjoyment rather than the implied notion it will increase in value. Buyers of giclees found before the current economic crunch they could not recover close to the sale price of prints they bought when they tried to take them back to galleries, sell them on eBay, or through an art broker. Things surely have not improved in recent years.

How should an artist thinking about getting into the print market proceed?

I think giclees are a wonderful medium to help sell more work. Rather than looking to maximize the sale of a limited edition, I suggest keeping the edition open. There is no reason the pieces cannot still be numbered using your own open numbering convention. If the artist’s work does become collectible, then the lower numbers will likely have some higher than retail secondary market value.

For those who feel a need for limited editions, I would consider producing a small edition of 200 or less that is hand-embellished by the artist. I believe if it is clearly stated the edition will be accompanied by lower-priced open edition pieces, there would not be conflict with buyers. Certainly, recently retired artist, Terry Redlin, was able for decades to sell both open and limited editions of the same images without creating a problem for his self-publishing company or the dealers who carried his work. I am guessing and would suggest that in such a situation the limited edition have exclusive dimensions.

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ArtExpo New York 2010 - New Venue Debuts with Cautious Optimism

If I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere,
Come on, come through, New York, New York 
"Theme from New York New York" - lyrics by Fred Ebb

For the past 30 years, Art Expo New York has stood at the pinnacle of the commercial fine art print market. The list of past exhibitors is a veritable Who's Who of visual artists, including Andy Warhol, Peter Max, Robert Rauschenberg, Robert Indiana and Leroy Neiman.

ArtExpo is a market maker

To illustrate ArtExpo's past market making prowess, there are bona fide reports of established publishers representing a single artist who have taken in well more than $1.5 million in two weeks with pre-show and at-show sales. Whether such robust buying power exists in today's market is open to debate. If there is one constant with the show, it is nothing remains the same. The show's move of venue from the Jacob Javits Center to Pier 94 on the Hudson River is a perfect example.

The famous song lyrics above apply as much to ArtExpo New York as any other artistic endeavor. That is if you make it there (at ArtExpo), you can make it anywhere. During the past three decades it has been a given that if you breakout or stand out at ArtExpo New York your ticket was punched for bigger and better things, both nationally and internationally. 2010 will put its history to the test as never before.

Revolving door ownership has taken a toll

Throughout its interesting colorful history, which includes its ownership passing through a long list of art entrepreneurs and media companies, the show has been challenged by any number of competitors. In the end, it beat them all back to remain the focal point of the commercial fine art and print market.

This year, the show is facing its toughest challenges yet.

They include:

• An industry with fading forces in the wake of tumultuous changing market conditions and consumer buying habits
• An ambiance downgrade move from the magnificent I.M. Pei designed Jacob Javits Center to Pier 94 on the Hudson River
• The most difficult economic conditions in the show's long history

Meet the new boss ... same as the old boss?

Under normal conditions, any one of these significant factors would make producing a successful profitable show a demanding test of marketing and management skills and considerable industry goodwill. The good news for the show is, while the ownership has changed hands in mid-2009, it was sold to a group headed by Eric Smith. He has been responsible for producing ArtExpo for many years and his tenure has made him one of the most experienced art show producers in the industry.

If there is a downside to Smith's stewardship of the newly formed company, it is the negativity from many in the industry who felt the shows were poorly managed and unfairly on not put the blame squarely on him. His is the sort of job where results are easy to gauge. You can review to come to your own conclusions.

It must be mentioned that with ArtExpo, Smith was saddled with successive investment banking owners operating with a spreadsheet management mentality that ultimately took a toll on the shows. Moreover, the dramatic change of fortunes and conditions within the industry and overall economy made producing knock 'em out of the park grand slam events virtually impossible for any show producer.

How ArtExpo fares in 2010 will affect your business in the future

If you are a show veteran, you surely have your own thoughts on past show management performance. Regardless, if you put the success of the show above any personal feelings or past history, you realize this is all there is. Like it or not, Art Expo New York has no peer or viable alternative. This means focusing on making this show successful for yourself is more important than ever. Basically, you have to make it here (AENY) because your second choice for a tradeshow does not exist right now.

A glimpse from the past with some prescient predictions

In March 2008, I wrote a post titled ArtExpo New York - The Show Must Go On. Here are the bullet points from that piece with current comments in [brackets]:

• ArtExpo New York is the industry's most important show [It still is, there is no where else to go.]
• Despite problems and smaller size ArtExpo New York (AENY) 2008 delivers [The 2009 show followed with worse results and dimmed hopes.]
• AENY transcends ALL constituencies that rely on it [See the first point, where are we without this show?]
• Further contractions will put the show on a slippery slope [The economy and market conditions have made this a reality.]
• AENY's contraction in size is beyond a show management problem [See above point.]
• Keeping the Javits and optimal dates is not a sure thing - room nights are the coin of the realm [The Javits is history, the dates are not optimal due to the proximity the Jewish celebration of Passover, which starts January 29 at sunset.]
• Can you imagine our industry without AENY? [If the show is important to your business, you need to have a solid Plan B for this potentially disastrous outcome.]
• Show success is not based on management and exhbitor activity [Without buyers with an open-to-buy budget and mentality, no show can survive.]
• Tradeshows such as ArtExpo live and die on word-of-mouth (WOM) - Critical mass keeps the WOM buzz going [Heed the subject line of this post: ArtExpo New York 2010 - New Venue Debuts with Cautious Optimism.]
• The industry needs to come together to reinvigorate AENY [More true now than in 2009. The huge question marks regarding buyers and exhibitors' willingness to commit to the show will be answered in March.]
• Leadership from AENY's corporate owner is paramount [Will The Who's immortal line, "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss" prevail, or will we see something new and refreshing from the new/old owners?]
• Take a personal interest - get involved - it's your show and your future [This has always been the case. In past years, one could exhort participation for the good of the industry. These days with survival on the minds of many companies for the first time ever, decisions are cold-blooded and calculated on whether the return on investment is there for both exhibitors and buyers.]

Look upon this bright spot and use it to bolster your confidence and recruit attendance

A very good sign is ArtExpo New York 2010 will follow the Architectural Digest show on Pier 94. That indicates buyers are already pre-conditioned to seeing a show on Pier 94. If one of the most important and influential magazines covering the prized audience of high net worth income consumers can deem to have its show in this location, it makes moving there far more palatable for ArtExpo.

The slippery slope was mentioned above. We are on it right now. I believe we have some firm hand holds and potentially can climb our way up the slope to less treacherous ground. To do so will take a concerted optimistic effort from all involved. The ultimate test of success for any show is did enough buyers come and did they come to buy. When those conditions are met, the results we all desire ensue.

If you do not make it here, the chances for making it at show elsewhere dim

If you plan to make it there in future years, you cannot sit on the sidelines and hope other more intrepid companies and buyers will pick up the slack. Without robust participation this year, the future of ArtExpo New York may be nothing more than nostalgic memories. I am not ready for that outcome and hope neither are you.

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Start your year off with the learning and inspiration you will get from the 2010 SmARTist Telesummit in January!

If you want more help on you career from me, I will be one of the eleven speakers the 4th Annual SmARTist Telesummit. Click here to sign up now or to get more information about the topnotch panel of presenters who are ready to help you catapult your career this January. With the impressive lineup Arianne Goodwin has put together, you are sure to get a very positive career boost from your investment in time and money.

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HDExpo Puts Art in the Hospitality Picture

Changes in the tradeshow scene regarding the art business have been frequently reported here. The traditional industry shows such as ArtExpo and Decor Expo are well off their peak years in size, as are the publications that support them. And, the total number of shows serving the industry are at lows not seen in decades. No matter what factors you use to account for the downward trend, they are sadly there and showing no signs of resurgence.

Tradeshow Woes Are a Problem Across Many Industries

It's not just art and picture framing shows that are on their heels. You needn't look hard to find evidence of contraction in all kinds of industries. Given such a multi-industry trend is surely a cause to wonder if there are alternative shows worth either attending or exhibiting for artists and publishers.

There Are Bright Spots To Be Found

One growing show growing increasingly important to many art publishers and self-representing artists is the HDExpo. It is the sister tradeshow to Hospitality Design magazine, which also is growing in size. These entities primarily serve complete design needs for hotels, restaurants and corporate centers.

Gaining traction in this market is a way to create a steady cash flow from a distribution source outside the gallery and online channels that are top of mind for most artists. Not to say the field isn't competitive. It is, but I have always maintained there is ample room in the most crowded fields for artists who bring a fresh perspective to the scene.

Hospitality Design Magazine Publishes Largest Issue Ever

As a former trade magazine rep, I drooled with lust when I saw the most recent at-show copy of Hospitality Design. At 448-pages plus cover, it resembles a mid-size city phone book. I hadn't seen a trade pub that size since the heyday of Decor magazine's show issues for New York or Atlanta many moons ago. The combination of growing importance of the HDExpo show and the size of the magazine puts an exclamation point on their momentum and the market they represent.

Las Vegas Is a Boom Town for Home Furnishings & Hospitality Design Shows

Las Vegas is also home to the World Market Center. It is the host site of the Las Vegas Market, which also is bucking the downward trend as a huge fast growing international home furnishing marketplace. The common wisdom for decades was no venue could successfully compete against the IHFC show and the concurrent shows in High Point, NC for the home furnishings market.  In just a few short years, the Las Vegas Market has proven there can be a viable alternative to the IHFC.

To Be An Effective Marketer in an Industry, You Must Be a Student of It

Effective marketing is a multi-year strategy. The first stage is to become educated about potentially lucrative markets important and new to your business. If you have your own designs on seeing your originals and reproductions used in the hospitality industry, learn all you can about the shows mentioned here and the markets they represent. You likely don't have the budget to tackle them all. But spending time studying them is a great first step towards getting your foot in the door at one of them at the appropriate time.

On the HDExpo Web site, go to Expo/Exhibitor List/Product Category Search. Start with the Artwork: Prints/Reproductions/Photography category and work your way through all the other appropriate categories for ideas on companies to approach, or to see what those exhibiting are doing on their on Web sites. It will be time well spent to study this terrific resource. And, of course, if you can actually go there, all the better. This year's May 14-17 conference and May 15 -17 exhibition dates are upon us. If it's too quick for this year, tickle it as a must for 2009.

Surtex Offers Artists Yet Another Alternative to Galleries and Selling Online

The Surtex show runs May 18 - 20 at the Jacob Javits Center in Manhattan. Surtex bills itself as a licensing show for original art and design and offers a different kind of distribution and income from the hospitality business. Surtex is a terrific venue for artists who want to license their work. It's a show to walk the first year and then to decide if paying for exhibit space makes sense. Many artists are able to make connections there by respectfully and tactfully approaching publishers and licensors when they are not otherwise busy in their booths. The better you prepare for these shows, the better your experience will be.

ArtExpo Las Vegas & Decor Expo Atlanta Shows Mirror the Market - Part Two

The New Millennium Brings Change and New Challenges to the Industry

The early years of the 21st century set the stage for major changes within the industry. For example, against a trend of declining trade magazine ad pages, the industry witnessed the largest shows ever. There was the demise of the PPFA (Professional Picture Framers Association) shows as stand alone entities, and the rise and success of the industry’s only regional framing and art show in the form of the West Coast Art & Frame show. 1999 brought the sale of the Commerce Publishing Company's ABC (Art Buyer's Caravan), Galeria and Frame-o-rama show and DECOR magazine to Pfingsten Publishing LLC.

The Commerce Publishing Company sale to Pfingsten Publishing LLC led to its acquisition of Advanstar Communications' ArtExpo shows, Art Business News magazine and other related media and show properties. The Pfingsten's ownership also brought the end of CPC’s regional art & framing tradeshows. Deemed marginally profitable and contracting in size, the new investment firm owner cancelled shows in California, Orlando, Dallas, Louisville and rotating shows elsewhere. The closing of these shows was an early indication of both changing market conditions and different management philosophy.

The Secondary Art Market - Bev Doolittle's Beyond Negotiations Sold Out & The Lunacy of Limited Edition Giclees

Brad Greek, a longtime supporter of my book, consulting and blog recently notified me Bev Doolittle's latest limited edition piece, Beyond Negotiations, was sold out at Greenwich Workshop, her publisher of many years. No surprise in that news really. When I blogged about the work last month, the larger canvas giclee 350 piece edition was already taken. It was only a matter of time before the smaller canvas edition of 3,750 would also be no longer available at the publisher level. Together, the two editions represent $4 million in retail sales for unframed work. (Erratum, the edition of 3,750 was identified on my previous post as being on paper. That is incorrect, it is also a giclee on canvas.)

There may be other artists selling out large editions like Doolittle's, but I doubt any are doing it as quickly as we've seen with Beyond Negotiations, which is her first limited edition published in eight years. Obviously, her fans, collectors and speculators remain enthusiastic about her work. The new piece is already active on the secondary market. The secondary art market and unlimiting giclees are the subject of this post.

Artprints.com Announces a Wholesale Division

ArtPrints.com, an online retailer of primarily posters, announced it has launched a wholesale division. I can't claim any knowledge of this company's business activities or reputation. It could be solid gold, it's just not one that has reached my consciousness. But then, there are supposedly more than 100,000 sites selling art these days.

What caught my eye was the company's foray into the wholesale consolidation business. Consolidators take small orders from retailers who don't want to order the minimum numbers required by many poster publishers. For instance, a retailer might need one piece from Haddad's Fine Arts, one from Wild Apple Graphics and two from Winn Devon. Rather than loading up on more prints than needed in order to meet the minimum, a retailer can go a consolidator and get a small order, or batch order placed with one-stop shopping.