I know artists often make art to try to get by, but you have to admit how high the prices would sound to outsiders, which is why I see people arguing over art pricing ethics all the time.
The arguments against pricey art: It is offensive to societal necessities to price art higher than that, and there comes a point in an art’s price where it doesn’t make sense to raise the price more based on what relative little went into making it.
The arguments in favor of pricey art: They help the artist and it’s up to the person buying the art how much they’re willing to pay.
Based on the arguments in favor of pricey art, what’s the highest you’ve ever priced art (both with haggling intended/involved and without haggling intended/involved) and were able to sell it for that amount?
You left out a core argument against high-priced art: A large proportion of transactions have the underlying intent of money laundering, illegal kickbacks, and tax avoidance.
True, yes. In fact, this is the majority of cases I have encountered. But for the sake of devil’s advocate, I wanted to represent the instances one might say are fair.
Manipulating the audience doesn’t encourage good faith discussion.
50 dollas
I’m a graphic designer so technically not an artist, but sometimes people ask how much they should charge for their design services, it’s a great question because there are many ways to go about it.
What i usually recommend, though, is
local minimum wage per hour worked on the project times 2; it’s straightforward and usually fair to both the designer and the client, the former just needs to adjust the final price to take into account the cost of operating their business.I’m saying this because it puts into perspective the cost of (design) art. For example, when I was a student, I drew a really nice shark, it took me about 40 hours. With my maths, it would cost around 500€.
I’m certain my drawing isnt worth half a thousand, no matter how proud I am of it, and how beautiful it could be for a potential buyer. But thinking about art prices in terms of remuneration per time spent sometimes help understanding why a certain piece is expensive.
The problem with this, is that it does not take into account the effort spent on that piece, among other things. In the end, an art piece value remains deeply personal and it reflects on the price a person is willing to pay.
I once charged 2k for a week worth of work on a boring corporate 60 page report/document, that’s way overpriced, but that company was in a rush because it was in summer and all their designers were in vacations, so they were willing to pay that much for my urgent help.
You should charge more. If you look up renumeration for contract Engineers by province or state the list for contract work typically starts around $100 per hour and scales with autonomy and responsibility to the $300+ per hour mark.
Consider your skills contract art. Don’t sell your work short. :)
Oh definitely, my advice is usually directed at people starting out, the average freelancer in my country charges around 300 euros per day, nowadays I switched on a per project pricing, which is easier to explain to clients
My partner is an artist and decided to try it as a business for a short while. I think they sold a small painting for 250 USD and another for 180. They really hated doing art as a job and shut down the business.
Art as a job means catering to what other people like instead making what you want to make.
Occasionally it is the same thing but more than often not.
Art is subjective, so numbers are hard to fix.
There is an artist i know that makes things for a local gallery/store, the pieces are near $2500-3000 for abstract painting, or piece of clay sculpture. They look amazing, but out of my price range. But if it speaks to some rich people they seem to have no issue spending $3000 on a painting.
Some of those rich people would pay 3000 for a painting but not 300, because they’d not want a “cheap” piece in their pricy living room. If one manages to catch the attention of those people it’s way more healthy to dedicate yourself into making your stuff a little more eye-catching to those eyes and sell less often but of a pricier value, imo
