Setting up an Art Gallery – the art of big profits
Every day, people are turning more and more to Art in its multiple manifestations. Fortunately for the artist, the spectator has long since abandoned his passive role and has become an active spectator, taking part in the process of appreciation from another perspective, not merely from vegetative “observing”. The observer now interprets and appreciates the creations from a participatory role. For all these reasons, setting up an Art Gallery is a very profitable business.
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Requirements for setting up an Art Gallery
After you have been legally registered as a merchant, you will have to find a place to stay. In this type of business, the premises are as important as the products you offer. The requirements for this will be: spaciousness, space to move freely, clean, healthy and impeccable (you don’t want a damp spot to affect the art you want to sell), excellent lighting (not excessive, but from the bottom up and its intensity should stand out without being dazzling). The area should preferably be central, where many people converge (we will explain this when we talk about potential customers).
Artists: you will need artists to provide your Art Gallery with works to sell. Make an arrangement with them so that they leave you their best works on display.
Define what you will sell: the classic for an art gallery are original paintings, already framed, and sculptures.
Buyers I will have when I set up an Art Gallery
Here’s why it’s important for the area to be central: it turns out that many tourists are avid art buyers when they visit a country, and it’s very difficult for a tourist to go shopping in an area far from the city center.
Of course, collectors and art lovers in general, born in the same country where you have decided to set up an Art Gallery, will also buy what you exhibit.
Where do the profits come from when I decide to set up an Art Gallery?
Very simple: from a commission that belongs to you when the artist sells his work. The artist exhibits and sells through you, so that he stipulates the price and, on this, you add a percentage more or, failing that, you arrange in advance with the artist so that from that price he stipulates, he sets aside a certain percentage, which you will determine, for your commission.
How to promote it once I decided to set up an Art Gallery
There are a number of methods for generating movement in an Art Gallery. Our ideas and your creativity and imagination, will have your gallery very busy:
Promote new collections: when you receive new collections from one or more artists, publish them on the radio or through flyers and you will see how your Art Gallery fills up.
Guest artist: you can invite an artist, with a career or new, to receive the people who come to the Gallery on a given day and sign autographs and/or give a talk about their work and career.
Setting up an Art Gallery is a fascinating and very profitable business because of the sums of money involved. It is also as creative as the works you will sell in your gallery, so put your imagination to work and produce a new strategy every day to make yours a very profitable business.
Advantages of Setting up an Art Gallery
The art gallery business is based on three fundamental principles, which are the key to the gallery’s success, the artistic aspect, in which, all the efforts to execute the programming are compensated when the approval of the different agents of the art market is achieved, in particular, the artists, collectors and conceptual mediators, so, without its validation as an artistic community, consolidation is not possible.
In the economic aspect, the aim is to maximize profit in order to assume the costs of the business and obtain a positive result. While, in the social aspect, the gallery is considered an industry based on reputation and interpersonal relationships, in order to achieve credibility, acting with ethics and responsibility.
Tips for Setting Up an Art Gallery
Fundamentally, galleries are looking to exhibit and sell, without the promotion of the artist being fundamental because in general when an artist arrives at the gallery, he is already known.
Another requirement that must be followed is that in many countries of the world there is a right of compensation that is acquired by the artists on all the sales that are made of their works.
This is called the Droit de Suite, and the person making the sale is obliged to pay it. Likewise, it should be taken into account that the gallery owner’s commissions also differ greatly in the market.
In the primary market, the commission is divided between the artist and the gallery owner, and each one is
is generally 50%, while on the secondary market the percentage of the market is
Secondary the commission percentage is smaller, ranging from 1%-2% up to about 20%, it could even be more. However, the profit margin is higher in the secondary market, because the works do not have much rotation and can be many years without going to market between two transactions, so the price can increase significantly.
Problems that can occur in an Art Gallery
One of the problems of the art business is that it is not governed by the same criteria and parameters as other markets and this is due to the peculiarity of the object of exchange, because it is unique and the production of each artist is limited in time.
The work of art has its own aspects, which distinguishes it from other products, since when it is valued, both the emotional and the economic aspects are involved, due to its artistic condition. Therefore, when the product is valued, it is done taking into account the consideration of the artist within the art world and the criticism made by experts of the work in the market.
Another problem to consider is that, the art trade is one of the least regulated economic activities in the world. Therefore, it is often considered a market that is not very transparent, imperfect and sometimes difficult to access, yet it is the only mechanism that gives value to art.
In this sense, supply and demand are largely conditioned by the subjectivity of the agents that make up the market, which is why they do not follow the usual rules when setting the price.
A third problem to consider is that the process of objective certification of the work of art is usually complex, and both auction houses and galleries are the main validation agents of the system. Auction houses have experts in each of their areas and gallery owners are the most familiar with the
artists they represent.
Success stories of this business
A successful art gallery in Madrid is the Parra & Romero gallery, which is based on the investigation of new forms of expression in contemporary art within the limits of conceptual and minimalist art. This gallery mainly supports young and established artists in mid-career, without specific means. The gallery is the laboratory for questioning new dialogues in contemporary art.
Bacelos is another successful gallery that opened in 1990 in Vigo (Galicia), which is dedicated to the promotion of contemporary art. It has a trajectory in the balance between consolidated artists and emerging authors presenting an innovative language. It has another space opened in 2012 in Madrid, renewing its exhibition line by incorporating international artists and collaborating with curators.