Beans of faith

A few weeks ago I wrote an article ("London is calling") in which I generally outlined a few trends I felt the modern art market was starting to experience, all based on personal experience and my own limited knowledge in the art business. If you read the post you might have gathered (hopefully) that I was compelled by the way that the traditional experiences of collecting artwork had been taken over by the EWorld, almost making the salesmenship of a gallery and the presentation of a museum obsolete in comparison.

Since then I have found and begun to use an amazing online source called Expresso Beans, which is an online community (think Facebook or Myspace for art) made up of casual art buyers, appreciators, and enthusiasts with a very versatile and innovative method of collecting art. Within the interface, members of the community are able to buy, sell, and even trade artworks to each other without paying any fees, dues, or commissions to Expresso Beans, or anyone besides the other members of the community. Yes, free service.

The way it works, as you might imagine in a perfect world, is each member has their own "collection" of artwork in which other members can view entirely and then contact the owner of the works to inquire about availability, pricing, and other information. And in turn, each member of the community has several options while attempting to buy/sell/trade artwork. If selling artwork, an owner can post that certain items in their collection are available for "sale", "trade", or simply unavailable. If buying artwork the shopper is allowed to post the he or she is looking for X item, which will come up anytime a member of Expresso Beans views that item. In addition, while viewing any particular artwork, you can actually check the already provided data records of past sales prices - which includes the first time it was sold and at what price, followed by the particular artwork's history of being sold and bought and for how much money and when, along with an average sale price over the period of the piece's commercial life. What this means is that the "homework" aspect that many art buyers find overwhelming while attempting to start a collection is virtually handed to you on a silver platter. You have all the information you need to know about the piece - including artist name, date of creation, sales trends, availability, and direct access, without having to pay a single dime more than for the artwork itself (I might be out of a job soon)!

Furthermore, the site provides convenient browsing capabilities that can help members bypass the "search" issue that is often a complaint of art collectors. Meaning you can literally browse thousands of artworks from different artists, amateur and famous, without having to take a shot in the dark by exploring gallery after disappointing gallery.

Now, all of this being said, there are a few issues with the site (Dun, dun, dun, dun!):

The first issue is that this site deals primarily with prints and not typically original artworks. Not that "prints" are a problem, I love prints and printmaking is genuine form of artmaking that has been done for thousands of years, it is just that the site is not the Ebay of the artworld, where you could ideally get anything you want for the right price. Expresso Beans is a site for a certain genre of artwork and is probably not suited for your average Picasso enthusiast trying to cut out the middle man.

Secondly, a lot of what makes this site great is also what makes this site vulnerable: convenience. Again, not that there is anything wrong with convenience - of course it is great to be able to view prints at the leisure of your own home while sipping coffee in your underwear! However, buying artwork from a computer means you are putting your faith in the seller; faith that the artwork is in good condition, faith that they will ship you the artwork safely, and faith that it is legitimate and not simply a copy or poster or scam altogether. Now this "faith" issue has been taken care of pretty well by sites like Ebay or Amazon, but keep in mind Expresso Beans is a non-profit organization, meaning they probably do not have a team of Johnny Cochran-like lawyers charging $600 an hour to make sure their client's business is run smoothly. So, in this case, faith is actually a legitimate step of the collection process (Of course faith is always a step of the collection process. It is just easier to have faith in a purchase when you can view it in person and inspect its condition. It is also easier to trust a reputable business that can be held responsible for its actions, rather than a person online who is selling something for the first time in his life).

Lastly, I think as this site continues to grow and add more members, collectors, and onlookers, there could be issues with the data collection I mentioned earlier. The data comes from two primary sources: Ebay sales and Expresso Bean members' information. Because of this, the artwork's values seem to be judged only through online transactions between two people. Again, faith plays a heavy hand. Would you be comfortable paying $500 for a print you have never seen in person just because last week the same exact print was bought by Joe "crack-smoking" Shmoe and sold by Jill "poppin-a-pill" for the same amount? A heavy hand. Of course if there is a large pool of data, which is often the case with the more popular prints (say 20+ sales), it is easier to see trends and averages in the pricing. Otherwise, I think it would be a great improvement for Expresso Beans to somehow incorporate other sources (such as original retail prices, auction sales, and so on).

All in all, I would recommend Expresso Beans to anyone who is interested in buying some great artworks for fair prices because they genuinely like the images, and not necessarily for art buyers with the motivations of investing a lot of money in a major collection. Taking the first plunge might feel like a bit of a gamble, but you can rest assured that this is an art collector's dream come true and certainly the best online community for a print junkie.

So just take a line from George Michael...

"You gotta have faith."