What will the 21st century art gallery be like?

The 21st century will bring more changes to the art business than the last one thousand years. Art business will finally begin consolidating; i.e. there will be fewer players. During the last 6 years, that I have been in this business, I have seen the numbers of galleries shrink by at least 10% to 20%, in the most major Western cities and this trend will continue to accelerate.

The new gallery will be sophisticated and utilize the same tools and strategies as other retail businesses. Financial stability and size will become a key factor. Galleries will begin using branding strategies, become consumer friendly and start using new technologies.

We will commence seeing the “hobbyist” gallery disappear due to their inability to compete with real businesses. The trend of the wealthy housewife-turned-gallerist or the rich kid-turned-gallerist will begin disappearing, as galleries will begin to be viewed as businesses, that need to produce excellent shows and generate results for their artists and collectors.

Within the next 10 years, the small generalist galleries, working with 10 to 20 artists and exhibiting a mish-mash of paintings, graphic prints, video and photography will rapidly disappear. Eventually, there will be two types of galleries in the new era: the large generalist, who will serve the biggest possible audience and the smaller specialist, who will develop an extensive knowledge and recognition in a specific arena, say, video art or early modern art, and will be regarded as the expert in the arena.

- By Allan Majotra, Managing Director, PicassoMio