Why contemporary art collectors should pay more attention to small galleries
The term ‘global city’ was coined by Saskia Sassen who is a Dutch-American sociologist and thought leader on the subject of globalization. Global cities are the urban metropolises of our world that are fused with one another through corporate and financial business structures thanks to major advancements in telecommunication over the last few decades. Think New York, London, and Tokyo and how corporate entities based in either compete with one another on the global scale. Or how and why Mcdonald’s needs headquarters in major cities across the globe. The 1980s are accredited for the inception of global cities due to the capability of international calling, so the concept is recent but not entirely new. However, companies like Mcdonald’s, Apple, and Toyota have become as massive as they are thanks to more recent advancements like email, text messages, WhatsApp, video conferences, and so on.
So how is this relevant to the art world and to collectors? And why is it important now? The global city used to apply mainly to financial infrastructures and larger corporate institutions, but the more recent advancement of digital technology and increased visibility of virtually everything through social media has brought the art world and other cultural industries into the global arena. Art galleries are reaching unprecedented sizes and success and while this may seem like a good thing, many speculate that it is having a detrimental effect on the art ecosystem.
The international earnings raked in by gallery giants like Hauser & Wirth, David Zwirner, and Gagosian are undisclosed which makes accurately measuring the global art market impossible. So, in consequence, it’s difficult to back up the notion that the visibility of global giant art galleries is having a negative impact on local galleries and emerging artists with real data. However, industry experts have expressed concern based on their experiences and professional intuition. At the end of 2019 acclaimed contemporary art collector Anita Zabludowicz, art advisor and contemporary specialist Lisa Schiff, and Omayra Alvarado-Jensen, the executive director of Instituto de Visión in Bogotá, met for a panel at Art Basel in Miami where they discussed how owners of smaller galleries should go about finding and acquiring new clients and collectors. All three were in agreement that the current state of the art ecosystem is in disarray because of the incredibly disproportionate influence of major galleries and that this should be concerning to small and mid level galleries as well as collectors and most up and coming artists. Schiff mentions that a trait of large galleries today is that “attention is no longer on the collector but [entirely] on the artist — it turns into a bottom line situation with a sales force that is now selling to you and not advising you or placing work with you.” This compromises the mediary relationship between artist and collector, and ultimately cripples the integrity of artistry. Collectors are easily persuaded by the salesforce-like experts at major galleries because regardless of how they go about selling pieces, these galleries have major power of influence over taste and the success of the artists they promote which adds considerable speculatory value to the works they sell. Tempting.
While WAX isn’t here to tell anyone how they should or shouldn’t collect, our two cents is that straying away from the larger galleries and building relationships with smaller art galleries could be a more gratifying way to collect art. The extreme visibility of major galleries overshadows small galleries who are then forced to compete with these same galleries as the art market continues to globalize. Instituto de Visión is not only competing with neighboring galleries for new collectors in Bogotá, because Bogotá has become a market tappable by Gagosian, Zwirner, and others. Building a relationship with smaller galleries keeps them alive and able to generate an environment where new artists can emerge organically as opposed to a select group of artists who are ‘discovered’ and then promoted and marketed as products to be consumed. Collecting with smaller galleries puts discretion back into art buying.
No one is to blame for the current state of the art gallery, and we wouldn’t want to discredit the hard work, personality, and innovation that led to the success that put the Zwirners, Gagosians, and Hauser and Wirths into a position to be magnified by modernity. The current state of contemporary art and art galleries is a product of a culmination of external factors like timing and social media. But this does not make us hesitant to acknowledge that the contemporary art world is in an unbalanced state where taste discourses aren’t being evenly emanated, a problem that we hope gets corrected.
Food for thought:
A large majority of gallerists who own galleries that are currently dominating the global market are reaching retirement age or have already retired. This means that a large portion of galleries that control a significant percentage of the market are in succession mode. This is the first time any one will be seeing galleries of such an immense scale fight for survival beyond the lifespan of their creators. We are eager to witness what occurs and how it will determine the future of art and collecting.
