When the going gets tough, commercial galleries get going
As the enormity of the impact of Covid-19 sinks in, observers are wondering what the art market will look like when the pandemic dies down. What and who will have survived?
Particular concern is reserved for the smaller galleries which, if they are not making sales, cannot pay rent or afford sophisticated digital technology to attract online buyers. But the art trade has proved resilient in the past; look how it bounced back from the 2008 banking collapse, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and the early Nineties global recession.
Many commercial galleries have displayed impressive levels of inventiveness. One strategy has been to highlight items in their collections with a Covid theme.
So, for example, medieval art dealer Sam Fogg, who is recuperating after contracting the virus himself at the TEFAF fair in Maastricht in March, has drawn the attention of his newsletter subscribers to a 13th-century German aquamanile in the shape of a ram.
Aquamaniles are hollow, quadruped animal vessels with tail-to-neck handles on their backs. They were cast in metal and used to pour water for the washing of hands. Nowadays they are sought after by collectors, and this one is priced at $250,000 (£203,000).
Meanwhile, another TEFAF exhibitor, Asian art dealer Paul Moss, is trumpeting the healing properties of a serene, bejewelled and gilded 11th-century carved wood Japanese Buddha which he calls the “Medicine Master Buddha” (note the medicine jar in his left hand).
“This Buddha attracted a mass following in Japan because of his ability to heal what is beyond human control,” says Moss, who believes the exhibit protected him and his staff in Maastricht. “There are no other examples in the West on this scale [over 6ft high] and he specifically guards against epidemics.” Priced at $1.2million (£980,000), it’s just the thing for a wealthy hypochondriac.
Other galleries are trying to generate business by offering discounts. Photography gallery Atlas, which was midway through an exhibition of Fifties fashion shots by Lillian Bassman, is offering 15 per cent discounts to clients who will write, in a few words, what a favourite image bought from the gallery means to them. John Mcenroe’s art adviser, Josh Baer, is recommending galleries drop prices by 70 per cent to stay liquid.
Others are promising percentages of sales to medical research. Hauser & Wirth, for instance, is giving 10 per cent of proceeds from an online exhibition of drawings by the much sought-after figurative artist, George Condo, to the World Health Organisation. Condo is a favourite in Asia where signs of life are beginning to re-emerge, and his drawings have sold for up to half a million pounds.
All are exploring social media. One of my favourite Instagram posts last week was by glamorous New York dealer Marianne Boesky, who lives above her gallery and is taking followers on a tour of her latest exhibition dressed in her bathrobe. “Proves I will really do anything for my artists and my team!” she writes.
And what of the gallery that spent a year preparing a new site in St James’s for a grand opening on April 1? Not to be deterred, David Messum has pressed ahead with the first London exhibition for 121 years for the French Post-impressionist Lucien Monod (1867–1957). Although Messum could not stage an opening party, he sent out a catalogue in advance and invited clients to view by appointment. The day after the “opening”, he reported selling 10 pictures for £100,000.
Messum is clearly a survivor. In this century’s overpopulated and event-saturated art market, though, a cull is under way. Sotheby’s, for instance, is cutting or furloughing 20 per cent of its staff. More casualties will emerge in the weeks to come.