Can I buy artworks? Disintermediation levels app.
Sometimes, as an art lover I just wonder about the possibility of buying artworks, of spending a fortune in order to furnish my living and, of course, I suddenly realise I can’t afford this kind of “shopping”.
However I like to browse around about auctions - for I also have a thing for the process of bargaining, and the art world is amazing on that.
Not many days ago I was checking my following instagram stories and I saw Sotheby’s ones about a pretty much interesting auction.
Sotheby’s, as one of the main influential auction houses worldwide, (established in 1744 in London) has no small name on the luxury and art marketplace. Let’s introduce a little gossip and say that, as any self-respecting character, it has an equally valuable enemy named Christie’s, an auction house founded in London 22 years later.
Focusing on the amazing auction held last 6th July: 85 sketches by the iconic fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld sold for a total amount of 350.406 euros. When I first viewed IG stories a detail caught my eye: bid started from 500euros and everyone was invited to join. I always thought one had to be bilione in order to even think about buying something similar.
Thinking about auction houses, lots and bids appears so aristocratic and unreachable but I found myself so astonished when -trying just for fun- I understood that I could actually be part of the elite seated at the bargaining table.
A marketplace such as eBay or amazon, where you can place a bid and wait until it to be yours or won by someone else. Sotheby’s for instance has its own app, I just had to sign up and I could buy Karl’s sketches placing my bid, starting for the modest amount of 500 euros.
Actually, I didn’t -let’s be honest and admit that for a student who has to provide for herself spending this amount isn’t that clever.
However I thought this kind of disintermediation is astonishing: we live in a world where you can spend something like one million or more just using a well designed app.
I attended a Karl Lagerfeld auction and saw buyers spread worldwide spend my single room renting fee for a piece of paper and there’s the possibility I also wander to be them.
And I’m not talking about money or affordability but I’d like to focus on the connection, on the ease of trade. We basically live in a society always connected, where everyone is none, where everybody can do anything, no limits - not even the sky.
What comes to my mind is that nowadays we can really do anything, and devices allow us to be so multitasking that it almost scares me.
Here the focus is not on the affordability but rather on the chance of doing something that I’ve always seen so far from my lifestyle since all you need is an App (and no, not love)
Disintermediation has given everyone the possibility to sign up for an auction for which 10 years ago you had to be invited to. And shall we not open up on the new idea of art has risen with NFTs - those digital artworks now recognized by the majority of art society even if we’re speaking of something immaterial, non fungible indeed.
Not necessarily required -my opinion is that this new reachability could be a false friend. I mean: it’s amazing that you don’t need anymore to be in a place order to be part of something, and that this allows a lot more people to join, but as a lover of the particular, the momentum and the exceptionality of things I find it as it detracts from the value of the current.
However - as a low budget daydream - I am convinced that it’s possible to find art in a writing on a wall or in a shade in the sky too and I guess I’ll take pictures of them for a little while longer.
.png)
