I was already a fan of Adam Ruins Everything, a popular web series of 5 minute videos that show why conventional wisdom around various topics are wrong. Yesterday, they released this glorious video.
How the Fine Art Market is a Scam
The video is really short. I highly suggest you watch it. They highlight, in a hilarious way, the reality of the totally unregulated fine art market.
They also source their facts, referencing several high profile articles, which I dug up and linked to below.
High-end art is one of the most manipulated markets in the world (Quartz)
Valuable as Art, but Priceless as a Tool to Launder Money (NY Times)
They also reference the book The $12 Million Stuffed Shark, which is a fantastic, if chilling, read.
One other resource that I will add to the mix is the book Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art, which estimates that between 20% – 40% of all art on the market is forged.
What Individual Artists Can Do to Avoid These Scams
As an artist, the best thing you can do to avoid falling victim to art world scams is to cultivate your own following. Ideally, that is a mailing list, so that you have their actual contact information. Instagram and other social media are great, but you’re still playing by someone else’s rules there.
I can’t tell you how many successful artists I’ve spoken to who spent decades selling their art through galleries that then abandoned them or went out of business, leaving the artist with no one to sell to and no source of income.
Cultivating your own following does NOT mean becoming a scammy, spammy marketer. It means developing real relationships with potential customers, talking to people about the ideas that underpin your art, and being an approachable human being who cares about others, who is also unafraid to ask people to pay for your work.
It’s not glamorous. This is not what will get you into the big parties and written about on Page 6 – but it might get you into the MoMa, pay for your kids’ school, and help you make a difference in your own way.
There’s not a lot that an artist can do about wealthy power-brokers manipulating art prices. I’ve seen individual artists do is just completely refuse to play the game at all, or, as Mark Grotjahn did, play the game until you become famous, then begin forcing the dealers to play by your rules or stop producing art for them.
You can absolutely make a living from your art without the big dealers. You may not sell your art for millions of dollars, but you can make enough to live comfortably and be happy. Its not easy.
We talk about that a ton here at TAA. Long time readers already know that we offer hundreds of blog posts, podcasts, and other free content on making a living as an artist, including interviews with successful artists and art professionals.
We also built The Abundant Artist Association as a way of connecting artists who want this other path. Our members support each other, get access to business training and courses, as well as access to things like group health insurance discounts and legal help.
We built the Association precisely because so much of the fine art world is a scam. They don’t work in the interest of the artists – they work in the interest of wealthy collectors who are flipping art to make more money.
It’s about time artists take back control of their own industry, one artist at a time.
This video is a bunch simplified crap while making fun of artists and galleries. It does not address 99% of the art world. Galleries and artists should be the best of business associates, working together.
Most artists are dedicated, work hard and take risks…. guess what, most galleries are dedicated, work hard and take risks.
The video is an entertaining joke, like a lot of the reality TV world.
Create good art, work with good people, enjoy a good life.
What are your sources?
bro. I myself am an artist and most real artists sell of the internet or the streets not fine art markets. it isn’t 99% the fine art market is about 10% of todays art world
The art world has a bottom a middle and a top. I think this video reflects the top and bottom but there are Galleries operating in the middle as well… many start out with good intentions and they do take big risks especially if they take on unknown artists. Those galleries should be honnored for their efforts. That said opening a physical shop comes with considerable financial strains and the gallery may soon loose it’s idealistic vision when the money starts running low. However there is a bigger lense in which to ciew the gallery and artworld system This univers self constructs via hirachies across all things. The good news for creatives is we can now smash through the artworld elitest bottleneck via the internet creating our own way forward. Its more work and can be distracting to your art making…but nature is made up of positive, negitive and ballancing feedback loops. Nature sets the rules. This means we can use the internet as a (ballencing) feedback loop as a key leverage point and build a completely new way for collectors and creators interact. The best skill any living thing can have is the ability to ADAPT to change. Does this mean better art will emerge from this new way of selling art? Well I think different art will emerge with different values. I dearly hope there will always be artists making art outside of any artworld influence be it Gallery or Internet platform. Some things are worth more then all the money in the World.