Supporting Artists and Accessible Collecting

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They're a healthcare company linking patient care and pharmacy services and using data and technology to drive the whole system so care is connected, not complicated, for patients and providers. Things like making it easier to get care that looks at the whole person, from primary care doctors to mental health support, and even in home care, and then using technology to make sure they all work together . Technology designed to help doctors spend less time on busy work and more time with their patients. And those prescriptions? Optimus bringing costs down, saving patients money and making it easier to get refills. Little by little, Optim is helping make healthcare work as one for everyone. Head to business. Optim dot com to see how it's a great time to support Make Me Smart because we are public media. That means we rely on your support to keep the conversation going , because when economic issues get tough or confusing or frustrating, we all deserve a place to vent, to share and to learn . These conversations are better when you're here by our side. Donate today at marketplace dot org or click the link in the show notes. Hello everyone. I'm Kimberly Adams. Welcome back to Make Me Smart where none of us is as smart as all of us in the years right after the COVID nineteen pandemic, the fine art market was booming , but then after things went up , they kind of came crashing back down . And since twenty twenty two, that industry has contracted . Overhead expenses became too much for galleries, collectors began to pull back on spending , and while there were some signs of a rebound late last year, the future of the market is still looking a bit uncertain . So here to make us smart about what's happening in the fine art market and why it matters to the broader economy is Julie Bellcove, an author and freelance journalist covering the art market. Welcome to the show, Julie. Thank you. It's great to be here. Now, first of all, what are folks generally talking about when they say the fine art market ? Ah, well, that's the sixty four million doll ar question because the art market is actually quite levelled and complicated and there is no one single art market . I think that a lot of people are talking about the auction houses and the major galleries and the major artists. But actuality, it's much more complicated than that . There's the primary market, which is new work that is being shown . There's the secondary market, which is old work that is that is already been sold and is back on the market There are artists at every level , artists coming right out of art school , those who are somewhat established in mid career , those who are in their seventies and eighties and ending illustrious careers. There are artists who are long dead. They're all different periods in those artists' lives . So it's really quite complex . So is buying this kind of art that we're talking about? Let's just say that we're talking about the art that makes the headlines like the expensive art, the stuff at the auctions, or even like the kind of cool new artists. Who's buying art right now? Well these days serious collectors are buying the bulk of the art . The speculators have been scared off a little bit and it's really a collector's market. So people who are truly, deeply, genuinely interested in the art that's being made , who have that collector's gene that once they start buying, they can't stop. It's a little bit of an addict ion and people who believe in supporting artists so that they can continue making important work. You mentioned the speculators. Who do you mean when you're talking about that ? Well, what we saw what you referred to during COVID , for example, but not strictly COVID. It's been going on for decades and increasingly really people who are trying to use art as an asset class the way that people would the stock market or bonds or real estate . They found that they could make maybe a better return with art . So they were buying art and quickly flipping it either at auction or in private sales to make a profit or holding on to it for a certain period of time with the confidence that it would go up in value. So walk me through the last year or two in the art market. How have things been going more recently ? In the last year, year and a half , many galleries have closed . This can be a cyclical thing, but it's not a great sign for the art market when both newer galleries showing kind of more of avant garde, younger work longtime galleries that have been around for decades can't make it anymore . I know I mentioned overhead costs at the beginning, but like why are all these galleries closing? Well , there's definitely been a slow down at the gallery level in terms of sales . Real estate prices are insane . The mega galleries, if that's a term, you don't know, I'll quickly explain that there are there are a few galleries like Hauserenworth, Gagozian , Pace to name a few that are massive and have scores of artists , you know, on their rosters. They have they have gallery spaces around the world . And , you know, they can offer their artists , you know, higher higher fees essentially and higher prices and as well as prestige and connections to museums and collectors . And so it's it's difficult when these mega galleries come swooping in and poach up and coming artists from the smaller galleries . It's almost like you can think of the small galleries like a baseball farm team, you know, they're kind of they're independent, but they're like AAA, like that's where, you know, the talent is being nurtured . And then they kind of, you know, go off to the big galleries sometimes, but that can really deeply, deeply hurt the smaller ones. I imagine a lot of folks might listen to this conversation and think, okay, these are rich people problems . We're not most of us aren't art here buying expensive art from galleries and things like that. But why do you think what happens in the fine art market matters to the broader economy? And I mean most people are worried about gas right now . I would say that art matters. I don't know if I would say art matters to the broader economy, although a lot of people, thousands and thousands of people make their living in some way connected to the art world , whether they're artists or they're working in galleries or at museums or for art transport companies or our framers . I mean the list goes on and on. It is its own ecosystem . But I think more important ly, art matters to the culture and to humanity. And it's true that we tend to associate collecting with extremely wealthy people and some of the works out there and the prices that they're getting. I mean that you know they're stratospheric and obviously there's a very, very small handful of oligarchs who can buy that . But there's also art that is accessible to many middle class people , you know, start out buying prints or photography that can sometimes be had in the hundreds of dollars or the low thousands, so it's not it's not entirely inaccessible . Okay, we are going to take a quick break but we will be right back Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Od u, the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all in one, fully integrated platform that makes your work easier. From CRM, accounting, inventory, e commerce, and more. And the best part, Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. This is why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you? Try Odoo for free at Odoo. com . That's ODO . com. This podcast is supported by even realities . Even G two productivity smart classes with teleprompting, conversation support, real time translation, AI assistance, and more help you stay on top of work and daily life. Learn more at Even Real ities. com and see how everyday smart classes keep helpful information insight so you can stay productive and hands free throughout the work day. 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They're a healthcare company linking patient care and pharmacy services and using data and technology to drive the whole system so care is connected, not complicated, for patients and providers. Things like making it easier to get care that looks at the whole person, from primary care doctors to mental health support, and even in home care , and then using technology to make sure they all work together. Technology designed to help doctors spend less time on busy work and more time with their patients. And those prescriptions? Optimus is bringing costs down, saving patients money and making it easier to get refills. Little by little, Optimus is helping make healthcare work as one for everyone. Head to business . Optim . com to see how. This sort of up and down , especially the volatility of the pullback in the market . How is that affecting the artists? And how are artists doing right now Well , I think that artists are still, you know, turning out incredibly creative, interesting intellectual work . You know, I've seen some amazing shows just in the last couple of weeks . But it's it's certainly a stress point because , you know , at some point , you know, something 's got to give. You know, artists need to be able to sell their work and new artists need to be able to have need support in order to make work in order to reach their potential . And they need places to sell that work. And if, you know, if they if they can't get gallery represent ation , for example, because there aren't enough galleries , you know, that's at some point, you know, potentially going to make it more difficult for them to, you know, for them to do their things. So , uh , it definitely has a ripple effect. It can just take time for that to show itself . You know, artists are also concerned about their prices because this might be sound counterintuitive to people not familiar with the art world, but when you hear about an enormous auction price for a living artist , that's actually not always a great thing for that artist because it's a benchmark. It's a benchmark and if they can't continue to meet those prices in a public way it can affect their reputations and their prices on the primary market . You know, for the most part, when, you know, if an artist work sells for, you know, fifty million dollars at auction, like they're not getting a piece of that . You know, that's going to , you know, the owner of the work . Now we do have data that the global art market did grow a bit in the second half of twenty twenty five . Do you see particular optimism for folks working in the arts in the months ahead or for artists in particular ? Some people I've talked to this past week I think are kind of guarded about it