Alexandre Lenoir's Petite jungle

Sotheby’s opens a major market channel where it sells artwork directly from studios of artists.

15% of the proceeds from each work sold will be donated to the artist’s preferred charity or organisation, but will the new sales method upset the dealers?

Banksy, Damien Hirst, and now Skepta. Sotheby’s has been gradually gaining ground in the main market by offering items for sale straight from artists’ studios for some time. With the introduction of a new primary market sales channel for artists and their galleries, the auction house is now solidifying those actions.

On September 30, as part of the Contemporary Curated auction in New York, Artist’s Choice will debut. Seven lots have been donated by artists such Alexandre Lenoir, Atsushi Kaga, Katherina Olschbaur, and Kevin Beasley, all of whom have just left the studio. The range of pre-sale estimates is $15,000 to $120,000. All significant sales in the future might eventually contain items from the primary market.

Will the new sales channel so upset dealers? Since ancient times, the major market has been their domain.

The creator of Artist’s Choice and global head of Sotheby’s gallery and private dealer services, Noah Horowitz, disagrees. In order to benefit both Sotheby’s and our collecting audience, as well as artists and their galleries, this issue was approached with a win-win mindset, according to the expert. The artist and the gallery “consigned directly by the artist and the gallery in cooperation with each other” for the seven works in the initial auction, while Sotheby’s is not aware of how the proceeds are divided.

Mothers Tankstation, Casey Kaplan, and Jeffrey Deitch are among the artists on board for the initial edition, which is targeted at mid-sized galleries rather than the megas who frequently consign and participate in the auction market.

The fact that artists get little to no money from the resale of their work, which can occasionally be flipped for exorbitant amounts unnaturally early, is one of the major complaints of the secondary market—and auctions in particular.

Horowitz claims that the new endeavour “empowers artists who have started to observe a rising, blossoming secondary market around their work to grab the upside that auction can uniquely deliver” on a business level. “Gallery pricing is fixed, whereas we may be able to exceed that through the bidding process,” he continues. I believe that giving that control back to the consigners will appeal to both galleries and artists.

On the other hand, where an artist may not be as obviously successful financially, primary market prices can occasionally be far higher than auction prices. As a result, newer purchasers are “increasingly looking to auction records to assist justify what they’re spending in the main market,” according to Horowitz. The goal of Artist’s Choice is to offer some degree of pricing parity. He suggests that dealers with lengthy waiting lists for particular artists may then advise collectors to purchase at auction as a substitute. “If it works effectively, it can help establish a more steady market for the artists in a more holistic approach,” he says.

Horowitz also points out how the new business model gives artists complete control over their markets, including the ability to choose which pieces are put up for auction. There are numerous galleries and artists who have received a good number of pieces through the auction system that they aren’t always completely happy with, he claims. “Ignore the details of how they get there. They aren’t always happy with the level of quality or how a piece of work fit into their career. Therefore, this model says, “Here is a path for you to do so if you wish to take charge of that.

In recent years, galleries have cottoned on to the fact that giving to artists’ charities has helped woo them to their rosters, so one of the most compelling aspects of the new initiative, aside from the commercial benefits, is that 15% of a work’s hammer price, jointly paid by the artists/galleries and Sotheby’s, goes to a charity or institution of the artist’s choosing.

According to Horowitz, artists are now far more socially engaged than they have ever been with causes in a variety of shapes and forms.

But in Sotheby’s situation, Horowitz notes that it would “be desirable if such were the case,” even though the channel’s benefactors are not exclusively non-profits.

The first sale will benefit the soon-to-be-opened Sedabuda School in Ghana, which Todd Gray and his wife Kyungmi Shin created. In 1992, Gray made his first trip to the nation of West Africa as a commercial photographer to take pictures for Stevie Wonder’s album cover. In 2006, with the aid of 15 locals and a grant, he discovered a three-acre area close to a fishing community and started construction on an adobe house. As Gray said to Musée Magazine, it is now a remote residence that serves as “a place to read, contemplate, and be in the rhythm of nature.” The school’s construction started in 2017 and is still going strong. The print, titled Atlantic (New Futures), is being consigned by Gray and David Lewis Gallery and is priced between $30,000 and $40,000.

Meanwhile, the L9 Center for the Arts, which was established in 2007 by New Orleans-based photographers Keith Calhoun and Chandra McCormick, will get 15% of the sale price of The Red Banana Tree (Forstall), a mixed-media piece by Kevin Beasely (estimated at $40,000–$60,000).

Beasely established his own organisation in the Louisianan city more recently. He bought a piece of property in the Lower Ninth neighbourhood of New Orleans that had been unoccupied and overgrown since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, cleared it, and planted a garden in instead of creating an artwork for the Prospect New Orleans biennial in 2021. For the time being, the garden is “a resource that will provide free internet, a place to relax, and in time, veggies from the raised planters and fruit from the citrus trees,” according to Beasely in a New York Times article.

Artists will be allowed to donate their 15% to one of their own future projects in addition to humanitarian endeavours. “Artists and galleries have a lot of fees related commissions and participation in biennials and exhibits,” writes Horowitz. An effective way to gather funds for those initiatives is through Artist’s Choice.

Horowitz, who served as the former director of Art Basel in the Americas, recalls the countless discussions he has had over the years regarding the challenges facing dealers, particularly smaller and midsize galleries. “It’s how the system works, but it can get tricky. It may be funding catalogues for an exhibition, or the production of works that they have to either pay for out of pocket or go to supporters of their gallery to fundraise, in which case there can be guarantees against future work.”

“Fundamentally it’s about trying to develop methods to help artists and their galleries,” Horowitz says of the new endeavour, which hopes to lessen some of those pressures.

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