Some of the best news I’ve heard on the art market came across my alerts this morning. No, it’s not another record from a 12 million dollar stuffed shark. It’s the fact that the prices for affordable art are rising-at least in the UK where the information originates.
This gets back to something close to my core. In order to bring back the consumer art market, and the antiques market, we have to get regular people buying again. To do that we have to stop selling investments and start selling stuff- art and antiques. Why? Because they’re great, they’re original, they’re unique and they say you a lot better than stuff that’s mass-produced or made yesterday. We have to love the stuff and not the money.
If everyone loves the money, then everyone wants to sell and no one wants to buy. It’s that simple folks! If more people love the stuff, then the price goes up.
The report came from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and finds that prices for affordable contemporary art are going up because consumers are buying for decorative rather than financial reasons.
Urban Art & Antiques 
Successfully expand the market for antiques within the greater general public (and yes, decorative is ok) and one could turn the tide.
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Yes, artworks, collectibles and other tangible items of passion have an innate, inherent and intrinsic emotional value to their owners/creators. And yes, if they merely changed hands through inheritance or gifting, ther would be no economic “taint” to breach their pristine emotional value.
Once any transactions take place in any markets, economic value attaches itself to that item, then perhaps to other similar items. So long as there are willing sellers, willing buyers and a marketplace to facilitate their exchanges, there will exist a commoditization impact. History tells us that “command economies” which attempt to limit, constrict or outlaw all or any portion of those transactions are, at best, temporarily successful.
The fact that we are conducting this free exchange of ideas in a forum which carries commercial messages tells me that this wonderful world of collecting, selling/buying and appreciating fine items of passionate physicality will only ever be limited by the free, open markeplace of commercial trtansactions.
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What would Ayn Rand say?
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/modern_art.html
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