In looking at Magnus Resch’s shall we say interesting notions of how galleries can succeed, it is also worthwhile to consider, two years after launch, his website ‘Larry’s List’. With the objective of becoming the Dunn & Bradstreet of prominent collectors of all stripes, it seeks to provide galleries and dealers a compendious resource to allow for focused marketing.
Hmmm… I wonder who and to what extent dealers have been taken in by any idea that direct marketing to the highest of the high end can be successful? In our experience, nearly all of the exclusive collectors are also the most elusive, and they like it that way. If it were any different, if their collecting interests were widely known, this would also provide significant insight into their own net worth, and every Tom, Dick, and Harry would be keen to market everything including car flocking directly to them.
Mind you, there are a few flash types whose high profile spats with auction houses, or those with names on the side of public galleries make it apparent to anyone with eyes to see that they are, on and off, buyers. But these people are, despite some well-publicized exceptions, also on matey terms with salerooms, the artists’ themselves, and a very few dealers whose transactions with them are highly confidential and typically involve a thin margin of profit for the selling party. Trust me on this- in an age of litigiousness, the high profile executives in the financial markets, the backbone of the buying cadre, do not wish to have their compensation packages called into question when they are seen to be splashing out in the 7, 8, or occasionally 9 figures on a work of art.