Celebrity Death Match: Supply vs. Demand

August 15, 2012/Robin Rile

By Reed V. Horth, for ROBIN RILE FINE ART

In speaking with a client yesterday regarding the enormously popular works of French sculptor NICOLAS, the gentleman asked me, “Why are his prices so high. I’ve never heard of him”.

Fair question.

Why would prices be high for someone who is a relative unknown? The background goes to the very heart of NICOLAS’s works and serves as a microcosm of many artists around the world. But the background goes to the very heart of French law and the idea of scarcity driving market forces and speculation.

NICOLAS, as noted, is a French sculptor living and working in Europe presently. According to French law, limited editions are not to exceed 12, with few exceptions, without being remarqued “reproduction”. You see, according to a 1978 French law, only the first 12 of an edition can be considered “original”, all others are considered “reproductions” (although there would hypothetically be no noticeable difference between #12 and #13). While 12 is an arbitrary number (i.e. It could have been 20, 50 or 100), this limited production creates market scarcity rarely known of in the United States where artists create ad nauseum editions of 350, 500, 1000, 10,000, etc. Therefore, when an artist in France decides to do an edition, and that edition becomes popular overnight… They never make it to the US at all, being snatched up by Europeans or Asians on first glance.

When NICOLAS launched his first series of 9 Fetuses with recognizable faces, he called them his “Predestinates”. Each was an iconic image, mostly of well-known superheroes “Superfetus” (Superman), “Spiderfetus” (Spiderman), “Wonderfetus” (Wonderwoman), “Hulkfetus” (Hulk), etc, but he also added in “Hitlerfoetus” which, despite its controversial form and message, created wonder around the collection itself. A colleague of mine in France, with whom I had done considerable business over the years and knew of my proclivities toward comic books (See Blog: https://robinrile.com/blog/?p=241), contacted me at the start of the project and said, “Reed, I have an artist you will love”. I was his only dealer in the US and they were an instant hit. I sold my first set within 24 hours and various individual works in the days that followed. Given that there were only 12 examples of each image ALL sold out in short order and production of orders that were placed were backlogged. Most popular destinations were throughout Europe and Asia. Very few examples of NICOLAS sculpture ended up in the United States.

Obviously, when an artist strikes a nerve and experiences great success overnight, this will have an effect on his prices. We found that collectors who owned the works from the first series would be willing to sell if we could get them a price above their original purchase prices. We could. And this established a pricing baseline for the next series of Fetuses, “Larafetus” (Lara Croft), “Cleanfetus” (Mr. Clean), “Thingfetus” (Thing, from Fantastic 4), “Astrofetus” (Astroboy), “Bibendumfetus” (Michelin Man), “Gabrielfetus” (archangel Gabriel),“Vaderfetus” (Darth Vader), “Yodafetus” (Yoda), etc. Again, despite escalated prices, these works sold out nearly immediately, never really breaching the US shores despite my continued efforts to establish a broader collector base here. There simply were not availability in an edition of 12 to have a broad-based campaign in the US. Rumors then swirled about a major US gallery buying the entire inventory of NICOLAS sculpture. No longer maintaining a physical gallery-space after 12 years of managing galleries, I was not in a position to offer to purchase the entire collection outright. So, I was stuck only emailing a few key clients who I knew were predisposed towards NICOLAS’ works. They would inevitably snatch up any works I could locate, whether on the primary market or secondary market, which was already trading actively.

NICOLAS then launched his third series whose prices echoed the secondary market works were then commanding. These images included “Alienfetus” (from the movie Alien), “Jokerfetus” (Joker), “Mariofetus” (Super Mario), “L’Amourfetus” (Death with scythe), “Ironfetus” (Ironman), “Yurifetus” (Yuri Gagarin- first man in space) and others. Once again, demand trumped supply. (Do you see a pattern emerging?)

Therefore, the rationale behind NICOLAS’ pricing is based upon myriad factors, not the least of which is that they simply CAN command it. NICOLAS encapsulates a microcosm of the art world at large. A popular artist from a producing nation, unknown in a consuming nation. Bollywood actors are known and beloved by millions, if not billions, in India. We rarely see the same acclaim for them in the United States, although the reverse is not true. Sticking with the hero themes, Jon Favreau’s epic “Iron Man” (2008), starring Robert Downey Jr., saw a domestic gross of $318,412,101 and a foreign box office of $266,762,121. By contrast, the highest grossing movie in Bollywood in 2008 was “Ghajini” which had a total worldwide box office of 114,67,00,000 INR ($20,603,480 USD). While no denigration to “Ghaijini”, the acclaim did not translate or disseminate to US audiences despite the notoriety at home in India.

After all, which movie did YOU see?