Down by the River: Can Art Dealers Survive the Recession?
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Though there will certainly be plenty of survivors, the realists know that the art market isn’t what it was even a couple of years ago. “Sales are down,” says gallery owner Ricky Renier, “but you have to keep believing in what you do.” Renier is confident that there’s still a large pool of collectors who will continue to buy art. “You’ll never lose the people who like art,” she says. But there is another segment of buyers who are being forced to decide between art and basic necessities, she says, and “those decisions affect everybody in the business.”
On top of that, almost every local dealer with a hand in the once-lucrative corporate art market concedes that it has all but collapsed. The recession has forced frills such as art acquisitions out of the corporate game plan. Klein, for one, has tried to get around that problem by renting art rather than selling it. If a company decides to buy a piece of rented art, Klein credits 33 percent of the rental fees to the purchase price.
Remains Theatre wound up its 1990-’91 season, the first in its new home at 1800 N. Clybourn, with a total audience of 42,050, the largest in the company’s 12-year history. But 87 percent of the total came to see the last production of the season, American Buffalo, the well-known work by David Mamet, which featured movie star and ensemble member William Petersen for much of its run. The other two shows were unfamiliar works with no big-name stars. Remains’ upcoming Chicago Conspiracy Trial, the largest and most expensive production in the company’s history, with a 36-member cast, is likewise unfamiliar and starless, but producing director R.P. Sekon is upbeat. “It’s a major event,” he says, “and we’ve had a lot of group-sales interest.”
