Artprice's Response to the Council of Voluntary Sale's Press Dispatch via the AFP
PARIS, June 28, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --
Artprice and its founder and ceo, thierry Ehrmann, have discovered the AFP report on statements made by the Council of Voluntary Sales (CVV) through the voice of its President Catherine Chadelat. Since the eve of the launch of its Standardized Auction Marketplace (January 2012) Artprice has been under regular attack from this French auction market authority.
In her latest comments Madame Chadelat apparently said "Ebay and Artprice are the major unregulated players of the Internet auction market, which is not subject, for the time being, to any regulation. They act without any qualification, security or guarantees regarding the authenticity of artworks. We would like to see an adjustment of the law or a clear and accurate information that would eliminate any confusion with physical auctions."
Without going into yet another controversy and referring readers to various regulated 2012/2013 press releases in response to the Council of Voluntary Sales, Artprice observes numerous contradictions in the statements of the AFP report. See Artprice statement regarding an article published in Les Echos on 25 March 2013 http://www.actusnews.com/communique.php?ID=ACTUS-0-31321
In reality, Artprice complies fully with Article 5 of Law No. 2011-850 of 20 July 2011 transposed in paragraphs 2 and 3 of Article L 321.3 of the French Commercial Code regarding regulated auctions. As such, the notion of an "unregulated Internet auction market that is not, for the time being, subject to any regulation" is in fact completely false. Moreover, Artprice has engaged in constant communication in this respect, which goes far beyond the constraints imposed by law.
Concerning the notion of "security", with its highly sophisticated and totally independent trusted third party exchange system (escrow/release), Artprice provides guarantees to the parties in the sale and acquisition of artworks that go far beyond those provided by the majority of physical auction houses.
Concerning "guarantees of authenticity", in the case of catalogued auctions, these guarantees are primarily based on expert certificates and references to catalogues raisonnés or any other documents proving authenticity. However, Artprice gives all parties in a transaction access to all of these elements and in a very structured way, thereby allowing the parties to act with full knowledge of a work's authenticity.
Besides these observations, Artprice notes that the CVV publishes global auction sales figures apparently collected from some 2,600 auction operators. However, we cannot help noting the enormous difference between its figures and Artprice's figures, which have been calculated for the last 13 years from 4,500 auction operators.
In effect, the indication that the United States (via New York) is ahead of China (via Beijing) in terms of art auction sales is based on a very restrictive approach that skews the reality and reflects a serious lack of information. In reality, China has 41.4% share of the global market, ahead of the U.S. with 23.6%. As for France, it has only a 4% market share and an almost non-existent Contemporary Art segment that has all but disappeared from the global art market's radar screen. Its collapse has been constant and steady since the late 1960s
According to thierry Ehrmann, "it is high time that France recognized that they have lost the war on the art market that started in 1960. France is faced with the problem that art markert players are mistaking culture, in which area France ranks 1st, and the art market, where their role is virtually insignificant."
http://www.artprice.com (c)1987-2013 thierry Ehrmann
About Artprice :
Artprice is the global leader in databank on Artprices and indices with more than 27 million indices and auction results covering more than 500,000 artists. Artprice Images® offers unlimited access to the largest Art Market resource in the world, a library of 108 million images or engravings of artworks from 1700 to the present day along with comments by Artprice's art historians. Artprice permanently enriches its databanks with information from 4,500 international auction houses and auctioneers and publishes a constant flow of art market trends for the main news agencies and 6,300 international written media. For its 2.072 million members (member log in), Artprice posts standardized adverts in what is today the world's leading Standardised Marketplace® for buying and selling works of art by private contract or at auctions -regulated by French law alinéas 2 et 3 de l'article L 321.3 du code du commerce.
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SOURCE Artprice.com
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