I’m writing this (or rather dictating this to my phone – thank you Nuance), as I scratch Mollie’s head (my dog) as we drive up to Sonoma.
As I scratch hers, I’m metaphorically scratching my own. Mulling over what is art worth and how do you price it? Like the emotional response when you see a cute puppy in the window and you just must have it – it’s precious, it’s adorable, you know you love it already — but what is the real value? How do you put a price tag on emotion? Well, that is where the pet store owners come in – they know how to pull the emotional strings that are tied to your wallet.
And that’s where relying on experts (the gallery owners) in the art market comes. They have your “puppy” from the window and they are going to do everything they can to get people off the street to get that emotional connection to it to sell it.
So I’m still scratching my head because an artist I was working with for a show was just given a golden opportunity to have her work represented and sold and then utterly, completely blew it. I was so angry but now I’m down to just being pissed (and for any UK readers, no I’m not hitting the bottle). I’m working on an exhibition that opens next month in NYC and the gallery owner and director have been active participants in looking thoroughly through all the artists’ work and may end up representing some but at the very least – actively promoting and selling their work during the show.
This is such a unique opportunity because usually we just rent a co-op or nonprofit space for our shows and while we get a lot of “lookers” and appreciators, not many sales. And this gallery is working hard on the artists (and theirs too of course) behalf.
So – back to this artist. They loved her work but thought her pricing was way too high. It was–it was ridiculous. She priced it super high due to emotional trauma she personally experiencing while producing the work. People close to me know what my red and blue series are about – but should I price that work to make up for all the grief and to recoup the money from my IVF treatments? As much as that was a horrible, hard time – I don’t think so!
Gorgeous work and this was her first entry to the white cube. She admitted that she had no connections into the level of patrons that would pay the price she (arbitrarily) set. I finally got her to meet with the gallery and they offered her a solo show, but they needed her to work with them on pricing in order to get it out there. And we’re still talking almost 5 figures.
She wouldn’t budge a penny.
In one way I have to admire the hutzpah. Living in a delusional world. But she completely blew this opportunity for this show and a solo show and possible representation. WHY?!!!
What do you do with someone who would rather have their work sit in their mothers’ garage versus being represented by a quality gallery that wanted to sell your work?
I’m just absolutely amazed at the shortsightedness and flat-out stupidity.
You don’t price your work because of the emotional angst you experienced while creating it as if it’s some sort of payback. And you don’t price your work because of the amount of time it took or the materials involved.
You need to take the dog for a walk; walk around other galleries and see what like work is selling for, from similar artists at your level.
And you have to trust the “dog whisperer”, they’re the ones that know what to do, how to get that dog to do tricks i.e. getting your work into the hands of collectors.
I think Mollie is worth a zillion dollars but at the end of the day she’s just a mutt I adopted from the shelter. But if she does grab another dinner off the kitchen counter (yep, an entire chicken last week), maybe I will be looking for that pet store owner to fetch the biggest price!
