Other Business Commons^™

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 …