There has been a broad cultural or societal shift to engaging in online transactions, reflecting a greater familiarity with and trust in the online environment. With this shift comes expanding avenues for the purchase and sale of all commodities. However, even as recently as a few years ago, it was generally felt that the internet would not be an appropriate medium for the sale of fine art and that, although success had been achieved with selling low-value collectibles, fine art was a unique category and one which required a physical auction space.

Lawson's and Grays Auctions are two firms that have responded to an increasing demand for purchasing art online by extending their portfolios to include fine art internet firms. But one ponders what impact this development will have on the aesthetic value of art and whether the online auction is indeed a viable vehicle for the sale of fine art.

While Sothebys.com's foray into the online world a few years ago purportedly was unsuccessful owing to its focus on high-end art, Lawsonsonline.com has already achieved good results with relatively expensive art, while prints and other lower-end items priced less than $3,000 have not sold well.

Lawsonsonline.com was launched last October, aiming to focus on selling works in the $10,000-$50,000 bracket. With its inaugural two-week auction, it broke "Australia's online auction record in the arts and lifestyle segment", achieving turnover of more than $100,000 by value, with the top price of $40,000 obtained for an indigenous art work. Andrew Bond, CEO of Lawsonsonline.com, thought that the success in the more expensive bracket may be owing to the fact that the Menzies Auction Group's (including Lawson's and Deutscher-Menzies) existing customers were used to purchasing at the high end of the market and that the sale was saturated with low-value prints. Bond says that the firm is leveraging its brand name into people's homes and that the sale of higher-end items has been a "safe extension to the physical business".

The board of Lawsonsonline.com has made a decision not to discuss specific works or to reveal prices achieved, but indicated it would be more forthcoming in a couple of months. Therefore, it is impossible to undertake an analysis of the comparative success of the works in this sale.

In the online world, there are graver concerns regarding authenticity and provenance, whereby brand becomes more essential than in the physical art auction environment. Two types of provenance play an important role in buyer confidence and hence sales results - the brand or reputation of the auction house itself; and the brand of the vendor/s (eg. a prestigious single-owner collection). These forms of provenance will virtually vouchsafe or validate the quality of the work for most collectors.

Another drawback of online art auctions in the past has been the lack of value-adding. In a physical auction, firms generally engage specialists to place the works in context and to make certain judgments on their aesthetic merits.

At Lawsonsonline.com every seller is vetted, will have an existing trade reputation, will allow viewings of the works at their premises and will have a dedicated account manager at the firm. Through offering additional services such as this, Lawsonsonline.com is able to value-add and control quality. Moreover, "security of brand name" is being touted as a selling point. Bond described the enterprise as being "like a boutique-upmarket auction house in an online environment". However, it remains to be seen whether the costs associated with this value-adding will have a marked impact on profits.

The traditional role of the auctioneer does not exist in cyberspace, nor does the element of spectatorship. One could conjecture that there are would-be collectors who find the saleroom an intimidating environment and prefer the relatively subdued atmosphere and anonymity of the online environment. Younger, more technologically-savvy buyers and/or investors may also be attracted by this mode of acquisition. Most of Lawsonsonline.com's buyers are investors - the firm's target market - with the highest proportion of bidders around 30 years old and in the over-50s demographic. The firm's emphasis on investment will surely have ramifications for the aesthetic value of art.

GraysOnline recently appointed Amanda Benson, the biggest vendor of original art works on eBay in Australia, as its art specialist and is seeking "...to reach a broader buyers' market", according to Mark Kehoe, its director. GraysOnline is part of Grays Auctions and was founded in 2000. It holds weekly art auctions which regularly include works by coveted artists including Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, whose Yam Dreaming attained $10,059 (inclusive of the buyer's premium) at a recent sale. In a strong indication of changing times, GraysOnline's forecast for online art sales this financial year is more than $2 million.

As with Lawsonsonline.com, GraysOnline engages in quality control and only sells on behalf of major companies. It auctioned the John Barrie Loiterton collection of more than 50 art works for almost $360,000 (estimate $200,000) in May 2006 with prospective buyers able to inspect the works at a Sydney gallery. According to the firm, "this sale broke Australian art auction records for the number of paintings sold online from one individual's private collection and the value achieved for them".

The highest price at the Loiterton sale was for John Coburn's 1986 oil painting, Abstract Trees, which sold for $47,541. This is also reportedly an Australian online auction record. Ray Crooke's Islanders and Fruit and Islanders in a Garden achieved $45,572 and $33,198 respectively and a 1977 limited-edition etching by Brett Whiteley, The Back, sold for more than $9,000. It appears that these works attained a similar price to comparable works at physical art auctions. This signifies a paradigmatic shift in the manner and success of buying and selling fine art.

This recent success in the online environment may also signify the further commodification of art because, as art is traded over the internet like stocks and shares. It will become, as Judith Benhamou-Huet said in E-business and art business (Art Press, April 1999) "...a fully-fledged commercial product, an economic sector in its own right".

Art on the net
June 2007 | Shireen Huda

Source : artreview.com