Are there fine art bargains to be had in lockdown?
Everything you need to know if you're considering investing in art right now - and why it's not as clear cut as it seems
ByGreg Rook4 May 2020 • 7:00am
The arrival of this pandemic has seen the art world scramble to both survive and respond. We have seen schemes supporting health workers, and others focused on preserving the art world. But how about investing? Is this the time to snap up a bargain? The various offers differ wildly in terms of financial attractiveness…
Several auction houses and galleries have set up charity sales. These have tended to be fairly populist in content – as they probably should be in that they’re trying to attract the widest possible charitable audience.
As a result, many of the lots are offered up by celebrities and more accessible artists like Noel Fielding at Maddox Gallery or Antony Gormley at Bonhams. As investments, we know that most work bought at charity sales will sell for more than its actual worth.
Print editions by the relatively obscure graphic artists Sara Pope and Bambi sold at the recent Bonhams Blue charity auction for many times the value at which other works from the same edition sold only months ago. And that’s as it should be - the point is the gift to charity.
As a donation to worthy causes, these works are worth buying, but as an investment, as a canny purchase, they just don’t add up. Other galleries have launched Covid-19-related sales offering healthy discounts.
On the whole, though, it seems to me they are simply works that would have always been quietly discounted and they will never repay the investment. Combine this with the fact that there will probably be a realignment and reassessment after all the pandemic is put to bed and the prices are even higher than the real worth.
As the cliché tells us, you should buy what you love and not think of the investment. Perhaps when you buy art for charity, you should think of the charity and not worry about the art. It seems difficult to imagine that anything made with reference to Covid will benefit in value from that association.
Of course, we don’t know how or when this period will end. We don’t know if things will get significantly worse or soon be over, but I don’t believe that a painting celebrating the efforts of the NHS will be worth more because of that association.
I can’t see even the limited edition prints of Damian Hirst’s butterfly posters being worth much in the future as they’re not great examples of the artist’s work and time will judge them accordingly. Neither are Hockney’s iPad drawings which are interesting explorations of new technology but are not as accomplished as his paintings.
At some point, our future selves will value the aesthetic interest of the work over the reminder of this strange period. That said, though I’m not at all cynical about Hirst’s motives, the floating of his butterfly motif throughout British culture might be beneficial in the long term to the value of his more serious butterfly works.
However, beyond giving generously through direct donations or by buying work at fundraising art sales, it is also important to try and support the UK’s fine art ecosystem. It seems to me that there is an unprecedented opportunity for new collectors and old to step in, help the artists survive and collect some really credible art at ridiculous prices. This is as strange a time in the art world as everywhere else, but it seems like decades of art market distortion are beginning to be realigned.
Over the last few decades the international art world has essentially consisted of 300 billionaires buying the work of 300 hundred artists like Yayoi Kusama, Gerhard Richter and Peter Doig. The balance has needed to be redressed for a while and there is some hope that one small benefit of this destructive pandemic is that there will be that much-needed realignment.
There are genuinely talented artists at the top end of the firmament who will see their prices remain strong, but many will fall by the wayside – they will be re-evaluated and found wanting, or not worth saving. And that is not really their fault - it is the fault of a rapacious market that has thrown them forward and raised their prices beyond all justification.
Collectors are all waiting for the prices of established artists like Kaws and Jeff Koons to drop, and it hasn’t happened yet. I have quietly had individual pieces offered to me for much less than would have been asked for the same items just a month ago, but this is more to do with particular works from particular dealers being used to fill particular financial holes.
Across the board, or across any individual artist’s output, prices are yet to be reassessed. Some will crash when no one buys the work, some will just drop 10, then 20, then 30%. In the last analysis, at the higher end of the market, we really can’t expect prices to go up in the near future. Contemporary art just cannot be more expensive at the end of this.
Money has been far too powerful in contemporary art - and art and money are not good bedfellows. The pressures of the market, the idiosyncrasies of collector’s tastes and the pull of more accessible work, has led artists to make pieces they otherwise wouldn't have and to an unnatural focus on whichever artist is currently the market darling.
Certainly, artists need financial support in order to continue to work and sales do provide that, but ultimately the feverish demands of the market have distorted the work that is made. After the credit crunch there were many artists like Richard Prince who saw their prices fall substantially, and though this sorting of artists happens continuously, these broader shocks quicken the process and make it more apparent.
Nearly every artist will see their stocks rise and fall, their work move in and out of fashion, their prospects of making a living come and go. Ask a group of artists to play one-downmanship and you’ll hear a litany of horror stories of cancelled shows and lost opportunities.
But, over the last few weeks we have seen a steep rise in artist-led initiatives. Throughout the last decade we have seen the majority of artists post their work on Instagram – marketing themselves and finding sales through the platform.
We have also seen artists setting up their own websites and curating their own shows, beginning to cut out the galleries as a middle man. The galleries have now had to move online only and so now the artist who doesn’t have a gallery and is simply selling via social media is closer to being on a level playing field with the one who’s represented by a big behemoth gallery.
What artists really needed galleries for in the past was access to clients and a physical exhibition space. The lockdown has seen the creeping online move of the art world fast forward decades in days.
The good news is that at the emerging end of the market there are some incredible deals to be had on brilliant work. Look at Phil King and Joana Galego’s work, amongst others, in the ‘Help Fight Covid-19’ sale at Aleph Contemporary.
We are seeing a burst of creativity from isolating artists. Locked in and without their normal space and materials, artists are rethinking and re-tuning - creatively re-imagining what they do in these new physically restricted circumstances.
The drawings of Kiera Bennett at Charlie Smith Gallery are beautiful examples of fresh lockdown work that is really affordable at the prices offered. And there is the Instagram hashtag #artistsupportpledge, an initiative set up by the artist Matthew Burrows, allowing artists to support one another by buying each other’s work - all priced at under £200.
As buying is open to non-artists too, there is some amazing work to be had as artists offer work they’re prepared to sell for under £200 – usually which would have previously sold for many multiples of that price. Not all the work is of great quality, but there are dozens of really exciting emerging artists on there - try the intriguing plaques by @frances_drayson or the beautiful abstract paintings of @andrewgraves67 - you can find them from their Instagram handles or if you search the hashtag #artistsupportpledge.
The world’s focus is, rightly, currently on carers, nurses and doctors, but studies have estimated that under 10% of artists make a living from their work. There are signs that this period will lead to a broadening out and instead of the spoils going to a few hundred artists, there will be many more making a living. In the meantime, there are opportunities out there for artists and collectors alike.
Greg Rook Advisory
