This post is also available in: Spanish
Buying art online is an exciting bed
The massive range of offers, prices and artists can overwhelm a majority. Despite this, is an opportunity for anyone thanks to the Internet. Here I give some clues and links that can help. An example for beginners, you can buy an art sheet print for less than 100 euros or even a painting by a new artist for barely 200 euros.
Online art has made the works of world-class artists such as Botero or Damien Herst available to collectors, as well as emerging talents and thousands of anonymous creators who sell their work at affordable prices.
About ten years ago, it was normal for the collector to go to a gallery and establish a connection with the owner to acquire knowledge, meet new artists or go to certain events. But the collector of today is more informed thanks to the Internet and has less contact with the gallery, a place that has always been a forum for cultural debate.
Making the decision to buy art online, without having physically seen it appreciated it, has its complications: the web will not be able to replace the entire context surrounding the acquisition of a piece. It is a cultural consumption, hardly measurable and evaluable.
However, there are millions of Internet users who rely on the screen of their electronic device to buy art online, either without having seen it previously or after having gone through a gallery or an art fair.
‘The Art Market 2017’, prepared by art market researcher Clare McAndrew, reported that online art sales accounted for €4.9 million (9% of the global market).
Buy art online from virtual galleries
The store serves a little showcase. Then, when the customers arrive, they see the box framed and more sales potentially follow. Currently, many traditional Spanish galleries have had to endure the economic crisis and, in part, have their online stores to reach younger profiles and have a more accessible art catalog. Buying art online through a virtual store is more focused on serial art, graphics or lithography.
In recent years, unlike physical galleries, digital art galleries have emerged in Spain that reaches a younger type of buyer.
The idea of having something exclusive, something beautiful that no one else has is, in itself, seductive. In a society full of chain stores where people decorate, more and more people are choosing to invest and buy art online.
Investment is just a word since it is not necessary to pay large amounts of money to buy online. In return you will have an asset that will never stop having value.
Contrary to popular belief, we are not talking about an exclusive territory for gallery owners and people with deep pockets. Buying art online and collecting it (that is, literally taking a fancy in buying art and accumulating some works,) is at our fingertips.
It happens, however, that many times we do not know where to begin. To start developing an artistic sensibility of your own, it is best to immerse yourself in art in all its facets: seeing exhibitions in museums and galleries, consulting media libraries and fine arts libraries, visiting art fairs and surfing pages such as ´artsy´. The more you have seen, the easier it is to begin to recognize the kind of art that moves us and for which it is worth starting a collection.
In this sense, to start collecting you have to be more impulsive than rational. The experts suggest starting with affordable and accessible pieces, that is, not by investing a large sum in a single piece, but by choosing works from various artists whose purchase does not involve a great economic sacrifice.
In addition, they also recommend starting with works with which you feel some kind of link, either because you have contact with the artist, because of the subject that the work deals with or because the technique is familiar. It is a good way to decide on something without having to analyze it too much. Because in the end that’s what it’s about: the enjoyment of the senses.
Where to acquire these works of which we speak is a question that is often asked by those who do not have a prior relationship with that world. The art fair is not always within reach of everyone: they are almost always far from the city center, the price of entry is already a barrier in itself and buying is unthinkable unless you are one of the wealthy people we mentioned earlier. In addition, traditional galleries continue to be a place rarely frequented by passers-by. That is why, facing this prospect, new virtual places are emerging to access selected works and buy art online.
This is how the Internet (and in almost all sectors) has become an increasingly important tool for buying art online. One example that is gaining popularity is Atelier des Jeunes, an online art gallery that aims to promote young Spanish artists: This gallery realized that there was a lot of young talent in Spain which, as a result of the crisis, did not know where to aim or they had to emigrate – this was the trigger.
The promoters of this virtual gallery in particular felt that they had to congregate this talent in the same space and offer an opportunity to young artists and the public that demands art but often sees it as inaccessible. Do you want to know more about how you can start collecting works of art?