用Instagram卖画靠谱吗

Anyone in the art market who was not already payingattention to the social media platform Instagramhad to sit up and take notice in late April after theactor Pierce Brosnan visited the showroom of Phillipsauction house in London. Mr. Brosnan snapped aselfie in front of a work he admired: the “LockheedLounge a space-age aluminum chaise longue by theindustrial designer Marc Newson. Then he added thewords “let the bidding commence, and posted it tothe 164,000 followers of his Instagram feed.

在艺术市场上，如果还有人不曾注意过Instagram，那么四月的事得让他们对这个社交媒体平台刮目相看了——演员皮尔斯·布鲁斯南(Pierce Brosnan)去了菲利普斯(Phillips)拍卖行在伦敦的展示厅，在自己喜欢的作品“洛克希德椅(Lockheed Lounge)前面拍了一张自拍——这是工业设计师马可·纽森(Marc Newson)设计的一款太空时代感的铝制躺椅。之后他把这张照片贴在了自己拥有16.4万名关注者的Instagram账户上，还加了一句，“拍卖快开始吧。

And commence it did. Later that week, Phillips broke the world auction record for a designobject, selling “Lockheed Lounge for 2.4 million, or about $3.7 million.

拍卖确实发生了。当周晚些时候，“洛克希德椅在菲利普斯拍出了240万英镑，合370万美元，创下了设计品拍卖的世界纪录。

“It’s hard to make a direct correlation between Pierce Instagramming us and the world record,but certainly it made the lounger more desirable, Megan Newcome, director of digitalstrategy for Phillips and based in New York, said in a telephone interview. “It was a veryexciting sale; we had phone bidders, people bidding online, and there was a lot of excitementaround that piece in the auction room. Thanks, Pierce, for the shout out.

“很难说创世界纪录和皮尔斯在Instgram上发了我们的照片这两件事之间有什么直接关系，但他的照片肯定让这张躺椅更令人觊觎了，梅根·纽康姆(Megan Newcom) 现居纽约，是菲利普斯的数字战略主管，她通过电话接受了采访。“那场拍卖令人兴奋;有很多电话拍卖者和网络拍卖者参加，拍那件张长椅时非常刺激。多谢了，皮尔斯，谢谢你替我们大声宣传。

It was not the first time the art market had been influenced by images on Instagram. In thepast few years, it has emerged as the social media platform of choice for many contemporaryartists, galleries, auction houses and art collectors, who use it to promote art that they areselling and to offer a behind-the-scenes look in art studios, auction houses and art fairs. Howmuch that actually translates into sales like the “Lockheed Lounge, however, is still up fordebate.

艺术市场受Instragram影响已经不是第一次了。过去几年来，Instagram成了许多当代艺术家、画廊、拍卖公司和艺术品收藏者们青睐的社交媒体平台，他们使用它来推广自己想要贩卖的东西，提供物品在工作室、拍卖室和艺术节上的幕后状态。至于这种推广在多大程度上能像这次的“洛克希德椅一样转化为销售，目前仍然存在争议。

Instagram, which started in 2010, is an online mobile app that allows users to share square,Polaroid-style images and 15-second videos, with a network of more than 300 million usersworldwide. Users build up their own social networks of followers, and can follow other users, orjust “like images by users they do not follow. Most important for the art world, users areintroduced to artists they might like through a “discover function. Elizabeth Bourgeois, acompany spokeswoman, said that globally, users share about 70 million photos each day via theapp.

Instagram自2010年创立，是一款在线移动应用，供使用者分享正方形的宝丽来式图片或15秒钟的视频，目前全世界使用者超过三亿。用户可以在上面建立自己的社交网络关注群体，也可以关注他人，对于没有关注的用户，只点“喜欢也可以。对于艺术界而言，最重要的是它的“发现功能，可以向用户介绍新的艺术家。公司发言人伊丽莎白·布尔乔亚(Elizabeth Bourgeois)说，来自全世界的用户每天要通过这款应用分享7000万张照片。

Simon de Pury, an international auctioneer who has 131,000 followers on his Instagram feed, @simondepury, said in a telephone interview: “So many people are either artists, collectors orgallery owners or photographers who are using it very actively, so it allows you to previewexhibitions happening everywhere in the world, and to see the works the minute the exhibitionsopen, rather than waiting to read about it in a review. That’s what makes it exciting.

西蒙·德·普利(Simon de Pury)是一位国际拍卖商，他的Instagram账户@simondepury有13.1万个关注者，他在电话采访中说：“很多艺术家、收藏家、画廊老板和摄影师在积极使用这款应用，所以你可以通过它观看世界各地的展览，展览刚一开始就能看到作品，而不是等着看回顾评论。所以它才那么让人兴奋。

The world’s biggest auction houses, Christie’s and Sotheby’s, also use their official Instagramfeeds (with 96,700 and 120,000 followers, respectively) to post preview images of select itemsfrom coming sales.

全世界最大的两家拍卖行佳士得和苏富比也拥有自己的官方Instagram账号(分别有9.67万名和12万名关注者)贴的是即将举行的拍卖会上精选拍品的照片。

Celebrity collectors and artists are in on the action, too. The pop star couple Jay-Z and BeyoncéInstagrammed their way through Art Basel in Miami Beach a few years ago, posting selfies infront of art they bought or were thinking of buying. Instagram adopters like the Chinese artistAi Weiwei (with 127,000 followers), the American artist and toy designer Gary Baseman(84,700) and the French “photograffeur JR (627,000) all keep fans up to date with regularlyshared images of new work.

名人收藏家和艺术家们也会参加拍卖会。比如几年前，流行歌星夫妇Jay-Z和碧昂斯(Beyoncé)就曾经在Instragram上直播他们参加迈阿密海滩巴塞尔艺术节的情形，是他们在已经买下或打算买下的东西前面拍的自拍。还有中国艺术家艾未未(12.7万名关注者)、美国艺术家与玩具设计师加里·贝斯曼(GaryBaseman，8.47万名关注者)和法国“照片涂鸦者JR(6.27万名关注者)都经常分享自己的新作，让粉丝能随时了解自己的动态。

Posting or discovering art is one thing, but the central question circulating around the art worldis how many actual art sales are generated by the app. Instagram has no functionality thatcould make it useful as a direct sales platform, and no plans to add one, Ms. Bourgeois said.But quite often, art aficionados are using the app to preview works of art before they buy.

贴出自己的艺术创作或发现他人的艺术创作是一回事，但艺术界的核心问题是，这款应用到底能够促成多少真正的艺术品交易。Instagram不提供直接销售平台，布尔乔亚说，公司也没有计划增加这项功能。但是艺术狂热爱好者在购买艺术品之前经常使用这款应用浏览想买的物品。

“When you see something on Instagram that’s hanging in a gallery somewhere and you wantto acquire it, you can instantly call up the gallery, Mr. de Pury said, adding that he had mademany purchases this way. “I’m sure that a number of transactions are taking place as a resultof works being shown on Instagram. I’m sure it’s quite common by now.

“你在Instagram上看到什么东西挂在画廊之类的地方，然后又想买，就可以直接给画廊打电话，德·普利说，他补充说，自己已经通过这个方式卖出了不少艺术品。“我相信，自从许多艺术品被放在Instagram上展示，有很多交易发生了。我相信这种现象如今非常普遍。

Just how common it is, however, and who is using the platform in this way is matter of muchart world fascination. That is perhaps why, this year, art news websites like artnet.com andhyperallergic.com were abuzz when it was reported that the actor Leonardo DiCaprio, an avidart collector, had bought a painting called “Nachlass for $15,000 by Jean-Pierre Roy, anemerging artist, over the phone, after supposedly seeing it on Instagram.

这种现象到底有多普遍呢，而且是什么人使用这个平台购买艺术品呢?艺术界对此非常着迷。今年，热衷收藏艺术品的演员莱昂纳多·迪卡普里奥(Leonardo DiCarprio)通过电话交易，以15000美元的价格买下了新晋艺术家让-皮埃尔·罗伊(Jean-Pierre Roy)的作品《未发表的遗作》(Nachlass)，很可能是因为他在Instagram上看到了这幅作品。无怪乎artnet.com和hyperallergic.com等艺术网站对此大惊小怪了一阵。

Mr. Roy’s dealer, Morten Poulsen in Copenhagen, confirmed that the artist “had posted adetail image of the painting on Instagram. After that, Mr. Roy received a message from Mr.DiCaprio, “asking us to keep the painting on hold until he saw high-res quality images of thework, Mr. Poulsen said by email. “I sent him that, the deal was finalized and the painting wentinto Mr. DiCaprio’s collection.

罗伊的经纪人莫腾·普尔森(Morten Poulsen)在哥本哈根确认这位艺术家“把这幅作品的细节图贴在了Instagram上。之后，罗伊收到迪卡普里奥的信息，“他让我们别卖那幅画，让他先看看这幅作品的高分辨率图片，普尔森在电子邮件中写道。“我给他发去了，交易完成，那幅画成了迪卡普里奥的藏品。

Lisa Schiff, an art adviser in New York for Mr. DiCaprio, said he had denied that the sale wasbased on an Instagram sighting, but she confirmed that Mr. DiCaprio did buy Mr. Roy’spainting through her office just before the Pulse Contemporary Art Fair in March in New York,where it was to go on sale the next day.

丽莎·希夫(Lisa Schiff)现居纽约，是迪卡普里奥的艺术顾问，她说他否认交易是因为看了Instagram上的照片后才发生的，但她确认，迪卡普里奥在3月份那幅画在纽约帕尔斯当代艺术节(Pulse Contemporary ArtFair)正式展出前一天，就通过她的办公室购买了罗伊的画。

Whether or not the Instagram connection was accurate, the report, originally published on theCreators Project, a Vice.com blog, was republished on many top art news websites and blogs asan example of Instagram’s growing market influence. A small survey by Artsy.net, an onlineplatform that both promotes and sells art, bears this influence out, with caveats. In April, thecompany surveyed 35 known collectors who each had more than 100 pieces of art in theircollections and reported that just over half of them had purchased artworks from artists theyhad discovered on Instagram .

这篇报道最初由“Creators Project网站(它是Vice.com旗下的一个博客)发布，不管双方的联系是否真的通过Instagram建立起来，这篇文章被许多顶级艺术网站和博客转载，作为Instagram日益对市场产生影响的证据。Artsy.net 是一个既可以推广艺术品，也可以销售艺术品的在线平台，它搞的一项小型调查证明了网络平台的影响，但也提出了警示。4月，这家公司调查了35位至少拥有100件艺术藏品的知名收藏家，发现他们当中仅有约一半的人曾经购买过从Instagram上发现的艺术家作品。

Christine Kuan, chief curator and director of strategic partnerships at Artsy, qualifies thosenumbers, saying that the platform’s audience is “young collectors and emerging collectors,who are tech savvy and active on social media.

Artsy网站的主策展人和战略合作伙伴负责人克里斯汀·关(Christine Kuan)核实了这些数据，她说，Instagram平台的使用者们是“年轻的收藏家和正在崛起的收藏家，他们懂技术，在社交媒体上非常活跃。

“A lot of seasoned collectors in the art world don’t use it as much, Ms. Kuan said in atelephone interview. “They already have their own contacts in the gallery world and they go toart fairs, and may not be using Instagram that way.

“很多艺术界资深藏家就不怎么会用它，关女士在接受电话采访时说。“他们在画廊圈有自己的联系人，也去艺术节，所以可能不会这样使用Instagram。

Hearing the results, Ms. Schiff, whose clients also include leading contemporary art collectorslike Candace Barasch and Anne Anka, agreed with Ms. Kuan’s qualifications. “No way, no how —seasoned collectors aren’t using it like that, Ms. Schiff said. “Maybe people in the 20-30 agerange, but not over 40.

希夫的客户中不乏当代艺术的顶级收藏者，如坎达斯·巴拉什(Candace Barasch)和安妮·安卡(Anne Anka)等，听到这个调查结果，她同意关女士的观点。“不会的，资深藏家绝不会这么做，希夫说。“可能二三十岁的人会这么干，40岁以上的人就不会了。

Most of her clients are over 40, she added, and in her experience, “online sales for art tend tohave a price limit on them of about $20,000, maybe $50,000.

她补充说，自己的客户大都年过40，根据她的经验，“网络艺术品销售的价格大都限制在两万美元以内，也许五万吧。

Anita Zabludowicz, an art collector and arts patron who with her husband, Chaim “Poju, co-founded the Zabludowicz Collection, which consists about 5,000 works of art by more than 500artists in London, New York and Finland, the couple’s native country, is an active Instagrammer,with a total of more than 65,000 followers for her three accounts.

艺术品收藏家与艺术赞助人安妮塔·扎布卢多维奇(Anita Zabludowicz)与丈夫柴姆·“普约(Chaim “Poju)联合创立了“扎布卢多维奇收藏，其中包括5000件左右的艺术品，分别由伦敦、纽约与芬兰(两人的故乡)的500多位艺术家创作。她是Instagram的活跃用户，拥有三个账户，65000名关注者。

Ms. Zabludowicz said she had purchased work based on Instagrammed images, especially fromthe Brazilian installation artist Adriano Costa and the New York conceptual artist Brad Troemel,which she added to her trove of works by artists such as Damien Hirst, Richard Prince and NamJune Paik.

扎布卢多维奇女士说，她曾经从Instagrams上购买作品，特别是从巴西装置艺术家阿德里亚诺·科斯塔(Adriano Costa)和纽约概念艺术家布拉德·特奥伊美尔(Brad Troemel)手中。如今，他俩的作品和达米安·赫斯特(Damien Hirst)、理查德·普林斯(Damien Hirst)与白南淮等名家的作品一样，也成了她的宝藏。

“Instagram for me is one of the most important social media channels as it is the quickest wayto absorb visual information, however shallow, Ms. Zabludowicz said by email.

“对于我来说，Instagram是最重要的社交媒体渠道，也是吸收视觉信息最快的途径，虽说有点像狼吞虎咽， 扎布卢多维奇在电子邮件中说。

She added, however, that she rarely did any actual commerce directly on the app: “If I amworking with a gallery, prices would normally be discussed by email or telephone, not viaInstagram.

她还说，她很少直接通过这个应用谈生意：“如果我和画廊合作，价格一般可以通过电子邮件或电话谈，而不是通过Instagram。

Ms. Newcome, the Phillips executive, agreed that at least for now, Instagram seemed to beused mostly as a promotional tool, rather than part of “a sales-driven strategy.

菲利普斯的执行官纽康姆同意，至少到现在为止，Instagram似乎主要是一种推广工具，而不是“销售战略的一部分。

“If one of our specialists has a favorite work in an upcoming sale, they’ll certainly ask for us to‘give it a little love on Instagram,’ she said. It’s “a way to create some buzz around a piece.And you never know: you can literally post something on Instagram and a few minutes laterhave someone ask to buy it. These are the legends that have been developing aroundInstagram already.

“如果在即将到来的拍卖上，我们的某位专家特别青睐某个作品，他们肯定会让我们‘在Instagram上对它多关照’，她说。“这是给作品造势的方法。你永远说不清楚：你确实可以在Instagram上贴点东西，过几分钟就会有人要买。现在关于Instagram，已经有不少传说了。