How should art gallery people spend their time? The Artlogic Gallery Report 2024 assessed

Research involving art galleries tends to focus on what they’re selling and how much they’re getting for it. 24/7 Art: The Artlogic Gallery Report 2024 is rather different, concentrating more on how they sell (and how long it takes to make a sale). Basically, the report is about how gallerists and dealers use their time.

The key insight: gallerists often feel time-constrained. Or to put it another way, just over half of gallerists say their work-life balance “leaves room for improvement”. There’s a real disparity across the Atlantic, though; 61 percent of respondents in North America report poor work-life balance, while for Europe it’s 43 percent. More than a quarter (27 percent) of North American gallerists say they take fewer than 10 days off per year; in Europe, just 9 percent take fewer than 10 days off and most get at least 16.

That could be because gallerists on the whole simply don’t feel they have enough time. Nearly half of respondents (45 percent) said they have less time now to complete essential tasks (such as planning) compared to 2019 (and more than half agreed the solution would be more staff). Most galleries report that sales take longer now compared to 2019.

And where are they spending that precious time? Given that the majority reckon it tales longer to make a sale now than it did in 2019, you’d think they would be dedicating more time to sales and negotiations; but when Artlogic asked where the time is going, the majority (44 percent) said it went on shows, exhibitions, and fairs, with just 16 percent spending most of their time on sales and negotiations.

Gallerists generally seem optimistic towards artist development, greater access, and innovation – technology saves times and facilitates growth. Nearly three quarters of the galleries are spending more time on online strategy now compared to five years ago, which seems reasonable; less impressive is the fact that 41 percent of respondents state that it takes more time to sell online (31 percent say it takes longer to sell in person, suggesting that both online and in-person sales strategies might have room for improvement).

Fully 89 percent reported that technology saves time overall at work (so who are the 11 percent who don’t save time?) and two-thirds see more gallery tech as a useful a time saving strategy. This is perhaps a predictable enough response, given that Artlogic is essentially a digital technology company that provides a platform for art galleries and dealers to manage their businesses.

Exactly how much tech they want varies by gallery size – smaller galleries seem keener on fostering relationships with collectors, larger galleries see new gallery management technologies (along with building artist relationships) as holding more promise for their future.

Deductions about the way galleries ought to conduct themselves are difficult to deduce from Artlogic’s snapshot statistics, especially given the fairly small sample size (333 respondents). And clearly there are geographic differences, not least in social norms (Europeans generally expect to have more holiday allowance and more time off work than North Americans, for instance). It also seems entirely reasonable that smaller galleries are keener to make sales and stay in business, while larger galleries may well have the resources – cash at the bank and deep-pocketed investors, inhouse tech support capacity, longer-term strategies – to take the more expansive longer-term view.

There’s also no direct correlation in the Artlogic figures between gallery size, modus operandi, and commercial success; it’s reasonable to assume that smaller galleries are less successful in gross terms, but maybe there’s an argument in favour of lean, nimble operations that can deliver for the artist, the collector and the gallery.

The Artlogic Gallery Report 2024 was based on an online survey of 333 gallery professionals and dealers worldwide during April 2024. The full report can be downloaded free here.


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