As if things weren\u2019t bad enough for art galleries, do they now need to model themselves on their traditional industry rivals, the auction houses?<\/p>\n
Last month, L\u00e9vy Gorvy Dayan held its first formal LDG Hammer event, an auction of one work\u2014Willem de Kooning\u2019s Milkmaid (1984)\u2014for a handful of selected bidders who could fork out at least $10m.<\/p>\n
The project is, says gallery co-founder Brett Gorvy, a response to client needs, both on the sell side and the buy side. For the seller, having a\u00a0stand-alone work rather than be one of the hundreds in the traditional evening sales (plus a few De Koonings), grabs more attention. Gorvy says too that sellers are attracted to the relative \u201ctransparency\u201d of avoiding the often-hidden intermediaries\u00a0within a private sale. Plus, he observes, sellers are more willing to start enticingly low when it comes to auction than when selling privately, in the hope of upside.<\/p>\n
For buyers, \u201cthey like the competition\u201d, he says, a reminder that art collecting is meant to be fun. There\u2019s also the reassurance that other people visibly want the same work as you\u2014a psychology that has long underpinned auctions. Then there\u2019s the VVIP aspect, with one work, one select group, and at one glamorous event, something that increasingly appeals to the super-rich. It has been proved effective\u2014witness the swift top-level sales at the Art Basel Paris<\/a> pre-pre-preview.<\/p>\n For the gallery, it\u2019s another option they can offer to today\u2019s hesitant and picky client\u00e8le and comes with a sweet 16% cut in the case of the De Kooning. Businesses in the higher leagues already have swanky, pricey spaces, so why not use the real estate you already have? And for the likes of LGD, two of whose co-founders come from high-level auction backgrounds, it\u2019s a straightforward segue. \u201cIt hasn\u2019t been something that we proudly put out there in the past, but we realised it\u2019s our secret strength,\u201d Gorvy says, of himself and Dominique L\u00e9vy.<\/p>\n Raising the bar<\/p>\n Things are never win-win-win though. The move is a sign of how much the industry has to keep on their toes, responding to a client\u00e8le that is increasingly calling the shots. Reluctant sellers and selective buyers are not the ideal ingredients for an international market of discretionary goods.<\/p>\n Pace Gallery\u2019s three-way business arrangement with dealer Emmanuel Di Donna and Sotheby\u2019s previous private sales guru David Schrader referenced a \u201cnew path\u201d. Auction houses too\u2014from where these private sessions originated\u2014are relentlessly reinventing, and with much higher overheads to cover. It is no longer \u201cgrow-or-go\u201d, more \u201cadapt-or-die\u201d.<\/p>\n Sure, it\u2019s getting confusing. Galleries have auctions, auction houses sell privately, artists curate fairs and everyone in the industry now seems to be an art adviser. But thinking outside of the box, in a strained market, is no longer just the preserve of new entrants. Whether it\u2019s enough of a solution to host an occasional high-end auction, leaning on one of the oldest exchange mechanisms out there, seems unlikely. But when market veterans start shifting their strategy, it\u2019s time to listen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As if things weren\u2019t bad enough for art galleries, do they now need to model themselves on their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":668485,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[10346,6225,6485,6486,67354,1120,96,223883,56,54,55,223884],"class_list":["post-668484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-art-market","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-auctions","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-levy-gorvy-dayan","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-willem-de-kooning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=668484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668484\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/668485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=668484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=668484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=668484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}