where the money is -- selling to the rich

Reading an article about how to sell art to rich people because they’re rich. This sure sounds practical but not perfect. The top twenty percent is where the cream is, where the dollars are, but not where art awareness, interest, and insight burn brightest. This incongruity causes wobble. 

When we visit the homes of the rich and famous, via video and magazines, where’s the art? Pictorial essays in the ‘architectural digest’ might feature expansive ocean views but interior walls carry nothing but screen-savers. Too much trouble to secure signed releases from actual artists, they explain, so they install catalogue ordered abstracts instead, or maybe that’s the art. Fact is designers don’t much care for art lest it distract from the balance and flow of fine furnishings, diminish their control and screw up the budget. The wrong art would just take over is what they think, and they’re professionals.

Original art is more potent than most of us expect, used to posters and prints of significant art. Its presence draws the attention and influences the space it’s in, setting a mood and tone in a room while making the metallic thread in both couch and drapes seem somehow beside the point. Art would actually better serve the less affluent for several reasons. Life seems more immediate as you move down the economic ladder to where a flat tire means late for work, and lease terms are inconvenient. This daily vulnerability imposes a kind of direct awareness that lends itself to the appreciation of art, as well as creating an appetite for its balm and solace.

In the long run art is also the most efficient use of the decorating dollar, something the less affluent should bare in mind. A good painting and a doily will make a worn place on the arm on a couch seem insignificant, and threadbare carpet becomes friendly and full of character in a room with well chosen art. Not just that. The decorator will have you changing out every ten years regardless of wear, ‘that dated couch has to go,’ while the art just gets better. Pro-rated over the rest of a lifetime even expensive art will turn out to have been cheap, easily transported place to place, and in the end significantly more valuable to its owner than the purchase price.