Art existed since the dawn of time, but the majority of people don’t own art due to prohibitively expensive cost of it. It’s viewed as a luxury. Private collections and public galleries existed for centuries, but the mainstream ownership of art never quite happened.
As the Internet became mainstream, various forms of entertainment became digitized: notably books, music, publications, and movies. As a result, in many of these industries, the power shifted from old guard like Warner Brothers to new guard like Netflix.
Art ownership didn’t quite become mainstream in its digital form, partially due to the lack of digital scarcity. As younger generation artists try to utilize new digital channels (Instagram) Artsy) to monetize their work, the Internet still feels like a place to advertise your offline work. It’s bizarre since it feels like we are not in 2020, and instead 25 years back.
As it might be obvious, the younger generation is showing less affection for physical art and museums. Museums are attracting audiences 35-44, but not connecting with younger audiences, 18-24. There was a 16% increase in visitors between 35 and 44 and a 23% decrease in visitors between the ages of 18 to 24 recently.
On the supply side of the market, it is very hard to become an artist that can get paid well due to a lot of issues with high priced art not being liquid.
How can you enable the mass market ownership of digital art while providing more sustainable livelihood to artists?
April 24, 2020
