Other Business Commons^™

Artsino: Art Exhibition In An Immersive Casino Setting, Jiajie Jade Wu

MA Projects

In large cities such as NYC, there are a great number of individuals have good tastes in art. Many of them, such as wall-street bankers and traders, also like to seek risks. They are smart enough not to gamble too much although they still feel excited in the uncertainties. This venture provides an opportunity for artists to showcase their casino theme artworks in an immersive AR casino theme experience. The audiences have an opportunity to view and collect art in a setting that feels like casino, with drinking services, music, and various casino games using playing chips. Potential revenue generation …

Za'a Demi-Fine Jewelry: Cultural Representation Through The Use Of Wearable Crafts, Maria Canedo Gomez Ortigoza

MA Projects

Za'a is an e-commerce demi-fine jewelry brand that gives its wearer the ability to explore, connect and give back to indigenous Latin American cultures. Za'a pieces are made with 14k gold, sterling silver, vermeil (solid gold electroplated silver), and semi-precious gemstones while incorporating traditional craftsmanship; incorporating elements such as woodcarving, embroidery, and painting. What makes Za'a's products unique is that they are designed and fabricated in conjunction with the communities, ensuring fair and ethical practices. This close collaboration turns the pieces into a cultural bridge of communication, an exchange of ideas, and an appreciation between consumers and the indigenous communities. …

The Social Art Club, Beatrice Giuli

MA Projects

The Social Art Club will be a creative hotspot where leisure, art, culture and work come together in one place. The goal of this club is to expand on the idea behind the traditional social club concept. While members will still have access to use the space in whichever ways they prefer, this social club goes beyond. The Club will be a center for art exhibitions, food discovery, music pleasure, and culture renaissance while promoting a multi-sensorial experience and a long lasting communal atmosphere. Recreating the social aspirations of international and luxury clubs such as Soho House, the Social Art …

The Private Art Collector’S Foundation In France: Issues And Implications For The Cultural Landscape, Milena Berman

MA Theses

The last two decades have witnessed an explosion in the number of private art spaces worldwide. From Bentonville, Arkansas, to Naoshima, Japan, hundreds of impressive structures built by star architects have been funded by private individuals and corporations to house collections of modern and contemporary art, often in unlikely places. The famously-termed “Bilbao effect” in which a grand museum structure is set up outside of the established art capitals of the world, thus putting the city “on the map” of cultural tourism, has become a widespread trend. The examples vary greatly and range from small private “home museums”
made to …

Paris Is Always A Good Idea: Study Into Paris’ Potenial To Regain A Place At The Top Of The European Art Market, Laura Bishai

MA Theses

The objective of this thesis is to come to an informed conclusion, although
inaccurate it may be, about Paris’ potential for growth, and for regaining its place at the top of the European art market given the current context. Through examination of its history, as well as of the current market through art fairs, auction houses and galleries as well as looking at the impact of Brexit and the French approach to culture, it aims to demonstrate the possibility that Paris can regain ground its lost over the years and recognition as the European capital of the art market.

Looking South: The Increased Visibility Of Modern Latin American Art, Sofía Festa

MA Theses

This thesis aims to identify and analyze the main factors behind the increased visibility of Latin American Modern art today. I intend to examine the role played by American institutions, private collectors, and the top auction houses and how they are driving awareness in the global art market. The research will focus on artists whose works were made from the 1920s through mid-1940s and are currently breaking records in the auction world. These are the same artists that are being showcased in prominent private collections and American museums, which in turn serves as a way of validating those artists as …

More Than Just Middlemen: The Legacy And Influence Of Art Dealers Joseph Duveen, Peggy Guggenheim And Leo Castelli On Shaping Art Collections, Valencia Tong

MA Theses

The purpose of this study is to examine whether art gallerists are replaceable in the current climate in which the plea for removing the middlemen has been growing. The speed and ease of art transactions through digital platforms provide an alternative to the relationship-based in-person elements of the art world. Before the pandemic, the art market was seen as notoriously opaque, and gallerists have been stereotyped as middlemen who take high commission from art sales. However, art gallerists have played an important role throughout art history, not only buying and selling works of art like traders, but also shaping the …

Tailormade : Fine Art Merchandise, Mirabelle Alan

MA Projects

This Master’s Thesis Project proposes a three-year business plan for establishing TAILORMADE, an online platform that develops fine art merchandise through accessible means to combat intellectual property theft from emerging artists. It analyzes how merchandise is used as a method in transforming the ways we create, buy and sell art. It also addresses how fast-fashion stores use their mass-produced merchandise as to copy artworks from emerging artists without consent or compensation. Through this analysis, TAILORMADE proposes a company that sells merchandise made by the artist, for the art lover, and that maintains artistic integrity.

TAILORMADE also taps into an emerging …

Intelligent Art, Lindsay Covington

MA Projects

This proposal outlines the development of software, composed of a network of machine learning algorithms, which aims to eliminate risk associated with investment in Post-War and Contemporary art.

While art funds employ specialists to inform decision-making, there still remains an unsettling level of volatility in the art market, especially in the Contemporary art sector. This program will inform art fund specialists on what to buy and sell based on a variety of factors. These factors, which the program include economic predictors, changes in political climate, art news, celebrity sales and social media trends. Sentiment analysis of articles will be used …

Connecting Art And The Public Through Digital Marketing And Brand Collaboration – Co-Art, A New Art Marketing Agency, Qing Su

MA Projects

Traditional art marketing often focuses on physical exhibitions, in-person networking, and the endorsement of the art world “gatekeepers.” The making of a “star” artist relies not only on the quality of the art itself, but also on how galleries (the art marketers) orchestrate the complex power dynamics in the art industry – critics, curators, institutions, and collectors. This long-lasting mechanism leads to the elitization of the art world and disconnection with the mass public as it targets only a niche number of audiences that might make an influence on an artist’s career, price, and portfolio. COART is an agency that …

Relational Accountability In The Art Business : A Study Of Ethics, Theodore Soliman

MA Theses

The artworld's unethical practices are ubiquitous amongst its stakeholders, with a lack of moral responsibility that allows for continuous sexual, emotional, and racial abuse. As an industry that is unregulated and resistant to change, these issues have been passed down from one generation to the next, forming a vicious cycle of predatory behavior. By investigating various stakeholders' roles, this study critiques the handling of these moral injustices and proposes relational accountability as a solution. The art world’s traditional understanding of accountability only focuses on the aftermath without challenging the agreed-upon ethical standards that stakeholders hold each other to.

The Old Masters Market And The Salvator Mundi: What Did It Do, What Can Be Done?, Mary Sullivan

MA Theses

On 3 November 2017, within the Post-War & Contemporary Evening Sale at Christie's auction in New York, nestled between a Vija Celmins and Jean-Michel Basquiat, was a painting attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, the Salvator Mundi (1490-1500.) The work quadrupled the estimated sale price of 100 million USD, hammering at 400 million (for a total of 450.3 million with buyer’s premium.) This work, setting the record for the most expensive work of art ever sold, at auction or private, creates a curious case for the Old Masters category. What appears to be a shrinking, potentially dwindling category of art, now …

Business Interrupted : Covid-19 And Its Impact On Auction Houses, Carolina Sagardoy

MA Theses

This study aims to thoroughly analyse how auction houses are coping with the conditions imposed by the Coronavirus pandemic in the short-term and what the virus’ long-term impact on the business will be. The study will look at upcoming marketing campaigns and the quick migration to online sales, and will analyse the data within those sales. The study is unique in its aim to also analyse buyer and seller psychological behaviours and how they will be impacted as a result of forced or voluntary distancing when live sales return. Overall, the thesis aims to address the question: Can the auction …

Re-Thinking Risk Management Of Auction House Guarantees And Third-Party Irrevocable Bids, Nathan Krasnick

MA Theses

This paper addresses the question of how deviations between expected and actual art auction results impact the auction guarantees made within an artist’s market and among multiple artists, and whether those impacts can be identified and quantified. To do so, I use a theoretical pricing model based on datasets of historical auction records going back to the earliest available date for a specific artist but no further than 2010. I find that, in comparing the model’s expected and actual results to empirical price deviations at auction, we can identify and quantify the impact of those deviations on guarantees.

The Art Of Marketing Luxury, Aiho Tan

MA Theses

Luxury businesses face the paradoxical challenge of growing a business whilst upholding an aura of exclusivity. The objective of this thesis is to examine the key marketing strategies employed by leading luxury brands ranging from fine art to real estate. This paper examines whether luxury brands need to embrace digital innovation and technology in order to remain leaders of luxury. First-hand insight from industry leaders and case studies reveal that luxury brands need to embrace digital, utilize the power of experiential marketing strategies, invest in creative talent, strategically partner and collaborate with brands and individuals, and craft an authentic narrative …

Koda: Business Plan, Klaudia Draber

MA Projects

High costs of real estate prevent artists and social entrepreneurs from unleashing their curiosity. Secluded working spaces limit inspiration and the ability to cross-pollinate ideas. Traditional entrepreneurship is often disconnected from local realities, and fails to address the pressing societal and communal challenges. KODA provides space for collaborative work and enables synergy. It is a laboratory of creative concepts and a platform to advance the careers of artists and social entrepreneurs in an experimental manner to enable mutual learning and co-creation.

KODA will launch in two locations. The primary exhibition and co-working space will open in 2021 in Crown Heights, …

Should I Invest In Art?, Alexandra Eldridge

MA Projects

One of the more interesting ways to consider the perennial is art a good investment? question is by looking at the various ways that the art market does or does not behave like other markets. When comparing art as an asset class to more traditional assets, we first need to ask ourselves – are the two even comparable? This article explores the idiosyncrasies of the art world, compares the claims people make regarding art's investment potential to the available research studies, discusses some non-monetary motives for buying, and may even have an answer for the nagging art-as-investment question.

Have Traditional Auction Houses Been Affected By Online Ones?: The Case Of Phillips And Paddle8, Heejae Chung

MA Projects

There is always a strong demand for high quality art and collectibles. With the analysis of the case study and the interviews with experts from different auction houses, this paper will show whether the traditional auction markets have been affected by online ones.

Phillips is taking a strong hold over the middle market. In particular, Phillips’ Contemporary art department is known for focusing on younger artists, which represents lower prices than other areas. To compare in a fair way in terms of price and genre of artworks, Phillips’ Contemporary Art Day Sales in New York from 2006 to 2016 will …