In the digital age, anyone can try to predict art market prices.
ArtTactic website hosts a fun game for art market enthusiasts that allows forecasts of auction prices ahead of sales. Among many other online art market tools, the game stands out for its playful approach.
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ArtTactic Forecaster website. Screenshot by Art Radar.
As the virtual world becomes ever more ubiquitous in every aspect of our lives, an increasing number of online tools are available to help us deal with our busy days and cater to our interests. Art market enthusiasts, art professionals, collectors and even artists can follow developing trends in the art world by sitting at their desk and browsing a variety of websites that provide comprehensive information.
Knowing where art prices are
To keep up to date with art prices, indices and past auction results, ArtPrice is the global leader, providing information on more than 550,000 artists around the world. Blouin Art Sales Index allows for a free search through five million auction records, while Mutual Art is a useful platform for collectors and professionals with customising tools. Artfacts gives statistics on “which artists are trending where now” and also has a free-to-use artist ranking tool.
Meanwhile, Artnet collects records from over 1,600 international auction houses and eight million sales results, and informs you via email when favourite artists are presented at auction. Moreover, its Analytics Reports allows subscribers to gain insight into art market performance by benchmarking it against financial indices, such as the S&P 500 and Dow Jones, or specific assets such as gold. Going into even more complicated financial territory, the Mei Moses Index provides a tool that helps to understand the movements of the art market by pitting art indices against major financial benchmarks.
All these online resources are useful for investors to research and decide on what and when to buy and sell artworks, and to know how the art market is faring.
There are other tools that are less intimidating, such as ArtRank, which uses an algorithm to place emerging artists into buckets including ‘buy now’, ‘sell now’ and ‘liquidate’. The website has been criticised before by artists for encouraging speculation, but it might nevertheless provide a lighter, fun way to try and make sense of the art market and its fluctuations.
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ArtTactic Forecaster website Skills Rankings. Screenshot by Art Radar.
Forecasting the art market
ArtTactic beats them all with the game it released in early 2014: the ArtTactic Forecaster. The web resource avoids the daunting finance-savvy element to open the possibility of trying to forecast the art market to more than just professionals. Anyone interested enough in the art world and in how artists might be doing on the international market can sign up for the game.
Rewards are provided for participants, who can move up the ladder through five positions, from the basic ‘Art Researcher’, to ‘Art Market Analyst’, to finally gain the highest title of ‘Art Market Expert’.
The game is simple, easy to use and open to anyone. It has periodical art quizzes on artworks at auction, before the sales take place. Each quiz comprises five lots, on which players can predict the selling price. Higher scores will move you up in rank, but it is advisable to continue playing regularly in order to keep one’s rank and for the game to maintain its trust on a player’s ability as a forecaster.
In an interview with AMA in April 2014, Anders Petterson, Founder of ArtTactic, said:
We created a quiz game which is an opportunity for people to test themselves in terms of predicting the final hammer price of individual lots, in different categories across different auctions. […] The idea was to create a training ground in which people had to adapt to different issues and values […] It is about using analytical tools, processing information and making the best use of the information available to inform your analysis. […]
Learning is all fun and games
In the Skills Rankings section on the website, it is possible to see how the various players are faring in the different categories of the game. As the ranking system provides competition, players can be seen vying for the best positions across the categories. Many of the names appear in different places, which reinforces the idea that only those who are genuinely interested in the art market – and perhaps also work in the field – are going to play regularly.
Additionally, the Forecaster also organises competitions, which keep players interested. Still seen in the top five of many categories on the Forecaster website, a recent winner tweeted:
Artinsure’s Gordon Massie is second in @ArtTactic forecaster. It’s not everyday you win a Damien Hirst. Get playing!!pic.twitter.com/Oyno9bSKnj
— Artinsure (@Artinsure) November 17, 2014
Petterson also told AMA:
Something which we didn’t realise was going to happen was a certain competition which grew from the ranking system, creating a dynamic amongst the higher-ranking players. Instead of spending only a few minutes on each quiz, people were starting to do research and approach the prediction from an educated viewpoint. […] The game is based on meritocracy and is constantly evolving. [...] There is a group of people that have started to play that are consistently a level above everyone else, and we have been talking to them to understand their methods: the answer is that they all invest time in research and many of them have developed an intuition of how the market works.
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ArtTactic Forecaster website. Screenshot by Art Radar.
An artist’s prediction of art trends
Amsterdam-based artist Joan Lund came up with a project entitled “The Fear of Missing Out” (2013) that used data to predict artistic trends in order to create artwork that would appeal to collectors at a given point in the artist’s career. While ArtTactic’s game is used to predict art prices, Lund’s project went in the opposite direction, to give the tool of forecasting to artists for them to become ‘winners’ in the art world.
Using an algorithm designed by himself, which taps into a vast database of information on top-ranking curators, works, galleries and artists, Lund created pieces for a show at the Showroom MAMA in Rotterdam. Each of the algorithm’s answers involve three elements – title, materials and instructions.
The project proved popular, but Lund is not confident enough in the data he used to release it to the public. Moreover, it was felt that such a tool might be used unfairly, and discourage creativity by gauging potential success through predicting tastes and trends.
C. A. Xuan Mai Ardia
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Related Topics: resources, art market watch, art and the internet
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