Sustainable development of art industry and a statistical analysis of the factors that influence the gallery prices of contemporary artworks

Although art industry has developed significantly, the factors influencing artwork prices and their specific effects are not fully known. With this research, to guide curators, gallery owners, collectors and art investors, as well as artists, first the factors that may influence artwork prices are determined. Then, using a data set from a contemporary art gallery in Istanbul, which of these factors are significant and in which ways they alter the prices are investigated. While previous studies are typically based on auction prices, promoting the economic sustainability of artists, this study employs gallery prices, and different from the existing efforts, it examines the joint impact of the artwork specific factors such as production technique and the number of editions, together with the artist specific factors including gender, education level and the field of study. Statistical findings suggest that there is no significant difference between the prices of artworks created by the artists who have a formal education in fine arts and those who do not. However, it is found that artists, particularly the female ones, can increase the prices of their artworks by having a graduate level education. Also, it is observed that increasing the number of editions negatively affects artwork prices, and the artworks created in print techniques have significantly lower prices than the artworks produced in other techniques. Though, it is detected that print artworks are less affected from the price reductions induced by the increase in the number of editions, compared to the artworks produced in other techniques.

Automated summary

This research investigates the factors influencing artwork prices and their specific effects using a data set from a contemporary art gallery in Istanbul. The study finds that factors such as production technique, number of editions, artist gender, education level, and field of study significantly affect artwork prices. Specifically, artworks created by female artists with a graduate level education tend to have higher prices, while increasing the number of editions has a negative impact on artwork prices.