By now, you’ve probably perfected the art of the Zoom meeting, including finding that ideal digital background or well-lit bedroom corner.
You may not have given any thought to what was hung on the walls of that bedroom corner before COVID. But pandemic-related trends, including increased remote working and home-buying, have sustained the art market—if not buoyed it—depending on where you live.
In the Berkshires, these trends have caused local galleries to do fairly well this year.
“There is a greater level of appreciation for art now,” said Rachele Dario, director and owner of Greylock Gallery in Williamstown. “With so many people being quarantined through COVID, they have had a lot of time to refocus on their home space and reevaluate what they have surrounding them.”
Global art and antique sales fell 22 percent in 2020 according to The Art Market 2021, Art Basel, and UBS’s 5th-annual art market analysis, but new buyers accounted for 33 percent of overall sales and 45 percent of sales for smaller galleries with turnover of less than $250,000.
“I’ve taken on more new clients this past year than I ever have,” said Lauren Clark, owner of Great Barrington-based Lauren Clark Fine Art. “Second homeowners have been here all year, and new people moving here need to buy art for their walls.”
Clark, who has operated her own gallery since 2006, pointed to the area’s shifting demographics as a particular opportunity. “The best thing to happen to me and anyone else in the art world is to find those younger clients,” she said. While some young people who came to her gallery this year bought artworks, many more utilized her framing services, which she said have gone through the roof. Framing costs have also skyrocketed, but that did not deter these customers from paying for just the right frame.
“A lot of people are working from home; they’re not going on vacation,” she said. “They are able to use their disposable income in a new way.”
Although Baby Boomers hold more than 10 times the wealth of Millennials, they did not invest as much money in art through the pandemic. The Art Market 2021 report, which surveyed 2,569 collectors in addition to hundreds of galleries, found that high-net-worth Millennials have larger collections and outspent Boomers on art in 2020 despite collecting for a shorter period of time.
The pandemic forced many galleries to close, at least temporarily, and art fairs to cancel or move online, but collectors — mostly Millennials — followed these companies into the digital space. Sotheby’s reached $575 million in online auction sales in 2020, with Millennials making up over 30 percent of its clientele between January and July, although young collectors would still rather make art purchases in person.
According to the Art Basel/UBS report, 76 percent of Millennial collectors favored buying offline, and the most preferable buying channel for all high-net-worth collectors was from a dealer’s gallery or physical premises.
Sales were slow at Greylock Gallery for most of 2020, as the business closed from March to June and summer foot traffic was down by two thirds, so Dario found herself reaching out to clients more directly. She sent monthly e-blasts when her artists created new work, and drove artworks to collectors’ homes to allow them to see the objects face-to-face.
“Some artworks just don’t translate online,” she said. “People feel more comfortable purchasing a piece online after seeing it in person so they know the style, color palette, and scale.”
Time will tell whether digital transactions will remain a critical sales channel post-COVID, but physical exhibitions, including art fairs, may be the best way to expose collectors to new work. Although she did not mount many shows last year and the few she did were lightly attended, Clark has developed a closer-to-normal summer 2021 exhibition schedule to introduce her clients to more artists including Ron Ronan of South Egremont and Easthampton-based painter and photographer Karen Iglehart.
Leslie Ferrin, director and owner of Ferrin Contemporary, held exhibitions at her gallery on MASS MoCA’s North Adams campus since reopening last June. “Hardly anyone came in, but those that did had a purpose,” she said. “[Gallery associates] would schedule phone appointments to discuss projects and ongoing work, and to arrange virtual studio visits.”
Ferrin, a renowned contemporary ceramic art dealer, has cultivated a specific clientele of nationally and internationally based collectors, so she employs multiple sales channels including an online store where collectors can buy select artworks, exhibition catalogues, and artist books. She also found new clients through the website Artsy, a popular search engine of available art that experienced a 300 percent gross merchandise value growth since the pandemic began.
“The silver lining of COVID is we now use physical partnerships paired with virtual programs,” she said. In addition to leaning on online sales, Ferrin continued to engage with museums and galleries across the United States; she celebrated the New York opening of “Melting Point,” a joint exhibition with Heller Gallery last Thursday and hosted remote events which were well attended.
“We were able to talk to people all over the world,” she said. “It wasn’t something we could have done before COVID.”
Ferrin saw “a lot of resiliency and tenacity” from the artists she works with through the pandemic, but the same can be true for gallery owners, collectors, and the art-viewing public. “We did experience a roller coaster year but, in the end, it was a good year,” she said. “I think we’re going to see amazing art coming out of this, and people who just want to get out and see art in person.”
