In the middle of August, the Oslo based gallery “Galleri Gaalsa” arranged a three days Got It For Cheap project. The principle of Got It For Cheap (GIFC) is very simple, they sell art from the price of 300 NOK and more, depending on the size and if it is an original or not. The artist who participate on this project are young and up and coming. So, why do the artists engage on GIFC? Well, there are many arguments, both for the consumer and the producer, I will discuss in this blog post.
The que outside the gallery was long and full of people with various expectations. The cliental of the gallery was young and were not your typical customer, in which you would associate with the characteristics of an art collector.
Facebook informed us that there were 3.5 thousand interested in GIFC, the gallery informed that over 4000 artworks was being disposed from around 1000 different artist. What does this tell us? Well, we quickly understand that the exposure was big for the artist and for the audience it was an unmasked event. With an unmasked event I mean that the art is presented equal (the products are sold at the same price) and equally disposed for the buyers. GIFC is a great way for young artist to show their art for a big audience and it is a great step in the direction of democratizes the art industry. Or is it? It has already been revealed that art speculators have put the art at Finn.no. This again, means that the artist could have sold it at the same platform, only to gain more money. You will find the kind of speculators in any industry, and presumably we will have to acknowledge this. Maybe, in the long run, this project can help the artist to increase its economy. For some of the artists the GIFC project means everything, if they did not participate here, there is a chance that they would not sell any art at all.
It is interesting to discuss topics as democratizing of art and whether it is economic sustainable to buy cheap art. The question is, what does this project do with the value of the art? The different values of art can be discussed, and it has been discussed by some of the biggest economist in the world, like Adam Smith. He distinguished art as something someone want and the value of exchange. Others, like John Ruskin meant that the value of art was that it did not only would fulfil the artist who made it, but fulfil the owner of the artwork expectations and feelings too. Furthermore, he used this philosophy to argue why some artworks would have a higher value than others. With this in mind, isn’t it wonderful that you have the chance to buy cheaper artwork which will be highly valuable and attractive to you as an art collector?
Making sense of art and design industries 