Four Little Art Grouping of Peter Lik Antelope Canyon
Peter Lik's Recipe for Success: Sell Prints. Impress Coin.
Peter Lik is in awe of himself. When he describes his career as a fine-art photographer, he speaks with the satisfaction of a guy who has performed miracles, at the step of a bystander who simply caught a glimpse of Superman. The words tumble forth in self-exalting, run-on sentences, most of them laced with profanity, all of them in the sunny, chummy accent of his native Australia.
"I'chiliad the world's nigh famous lensman, most sought-after lensman, most awarded photographer," he said one contempo afternoon, sipping a can of Red Balderdash in a conference room at Peter Lik U.s., a 100,000-square-foot headquarters in Las Vegas devoted solely to the production and sale of Peter Lik photography. "And then I said" — and what Mr. Lik said next is an unprintable version of "the heck with it," and so — "I want to brand something special, special, special, special."
That something special was a photograph chosen "Phantom," an paradigm of an eerily man-shaped swirl of dust in Antelope Canyon in Arizona. In December, his company announced in a news release that an anonymous collector had spent $six.v one thousand thousand for "Phantom." That crushed the previous record, held past Andreas Gursky, whose "Rhein II" fetched $4.iii million at an auction in 2011, and Cindy Sherman, whose "Untitled #96" brought $three.ix 1000000 at some other auction the aforementioned year.
Simply Mr. Gursky and Ms. Sherman are titans, with solo shows in pre-eminent museums.
Who is Peter Lik?
It irks him a lilliputian that you accept to ask. Considering by one measure — money — Mr. Lik may well be the most successful fine-fine art photographer who ever lived. He has sold $440 million worth of prints, according to his chief fiscal officer, in xv galleries in the United states that he owns and that sell his work. The images are by and large panoramic shots of trees, sky, lakes, deserts and blueish water in supersaturated colors. Generally speaking, his buyers are not people who larn the fine art of Andreas Gursky and Cindy Sherman.
Which is merely one reason that Mr. Lik considers himself an creative person working outside a system established by elitist tastemakers. And while he says he doesn't mind beingness snubbed by the establishment, part of him is bothered that his renown has lagged woefully backside his level of fiscal success.
Then six months ago, he had an idea. Near every Peter Lik photo is printed in a "limited edition" of 995; the first print sells at about $4,000, with the price rising as the edition sells out. With his heart fixed on a record-setting auction, he printed a unmarried re-create of "Phantom." So he alerted a handful of his most ardent collectors, 1 of whom, he said, agreed to the $6.v million price. Earlier the deal was signed, Mr. Lik hired a public relations firm to make certain that the sale, and the tape, were noticed.
"The P.R. firm dropped those off yesterday," said Mr. Lik, looking at four fat ring binders, which an acquaintance had only plopped on a table. They incorporate hundreds of stories from around the earth virtually the "Phantom" sale. Typical was the reaction of Time mag, which published the headline, "This is officially the most expensive photo ever."
Information technology'due south hard to know what's "official" most it. Previous records in photography were set past competing bidders in public auctions for images that were familiar and celebrated. This was a private sale for a newly printed photograph, and scant details were offered. But while the heir-apparent'south hidden identity inevitably arched some eyebrows, anonymity in such deals is not unusual. Joshua Roth, the Los Angeles lawyer who represented the heir-apparent, declined to name his client, though he emphasized that the customer exists.
Despite the reported size of the deal, the fine art world greeted the news mostly with silence. This could accept been because before the sale announcement, no one had laid eyes on the image. One of the few gallery owners willing to discuss it was Michael Hoppen, owner of a gallery in London.
"It's an anathema," Mr. Hoppen said of "Phantom," in an article that ran in England'due south The Independent. "Art, whatsoever the medium, is something that moves and informs you or changes your opinion. This has nothing to do with art or creative photography, and the tragedy is that it brings the whole concern down." He declined an invitation to elaborate.
Here's another style to wait at "Phantom": as the flagship of an entrepreneur catering mostly to an overlooked group, namely people with some disposable income but footling or no experience ownership fine art. Mr. Lik opens galleries in areas with lots of tourist traffic, and he embraces the familiar elements of retail transactions, instead of cloaking them in mystery, which is standard in the contemporary art realm. There are even credit-card swipe machines in every Lik gallery, a device rarely seen in whatsoever other fine-art context, where checks are preferred.
A lot of Lik buyers just desire an appealing prototype to hang on their wall. Simply others take read nearly the emergence of painting, photography and sculpture as glamorous and profitable assets, and Peter Lik U.s. gives them a slice of that activity. Or so they believe. Like many people who regard contemporary art as an investment, the slice is often worth much less than they realize.
'I'm God. Nailed It.'
Mr. Lik, a compact 55-year-old bundle of sinew and kinetic energy, has turned himself into a i-homo fine-fine art franchise through charisma and single-minded will. He has no interests outside of his photography and his business concern, which includes a sideline in buying and selling luxury houses. (He recently put a holding on half dozen.5 oceanfront acres in Maui up for auction for $19.8 one thousand thousand.) Having failed once at marriage, he says he is washed with relationships.
Mr. Lik doesn't seem to have much interest in art, either, at least art made by other people. He never studied any lensman, permit solitary took an art class, and seems to take some pride in that fact. He professes no involvement in Ansel Adams, perchance the most famous American landscape photographer and an obvious touchstone to anyone dragging a big camera into a national park.
"Simply a nice shot of Yosemite," Mr. Lik said, summing up Adams'due south work. "Right place at the right time."
He spends three months out of every year shooting around the country. There are no people in any of the photographs, nor are there any hints of ambivalence or darkness.
He is happy to explicate why. "A) that is not going to make us any money," he said. "And B) I don't want to encounter that side of life. I simply want to see the cute side."
Information technology takes a while to piece together Mr. Lik'southward life story, because the tale emerges in random shards that must be reassembled. He skipped college and began working as a salesman, start for a packaging company and later on a greeting card company. Everywhere he went, he brought a photographic camera and eventually, he parlayed his portfolio into a chore shooting for the Queensland Tourist and Travel Corporation. To bowdlerize his account of the two years that followed, Mr. Lik worked very difficult and had sex with many models.
In 1996, he used his Queensland photographs to start a successful postcard company, and he afterward opened 4 galleries to sell his prints in his native country. But he always wanted to move to the United States and in 2001, he sank nearly all his savings into a gallery he opened in San Francisco. It flopped. On his way back to Australia, all the same, he stopped for a visit to Maui. There, he spotted a retail space that he thought was perfect, and by 2003, he had opened a thriving gallery.
Ii years later, he was prepare to expand and he opened a gallery in the shops in Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. He flew in the best of his sales squad and ordered them to sell $i million worth of photographs a month.
"If y'all're in Caesars Palace, y'all're no joke," he said. "That was a huge turning signal. I'm in Caesars. I'chiliad God. Nailed it."
In the years to come up, he would open up three more galleries in Las Vegas and xi more than in other cities, including in Manhattan. He has at present sold more than 100,000 photographs, all of them custom-printed, mounted and framed, then boxed upwardly at his headquarters in Las Vegas. It'southward a fine-art factory a few miles from the Strip. Last year, the company sold $ane.6 million worth of photographs every week.
"From the time an order hits the product department to the time information technology reaches the shipping department, it's about 8 days," said Joseph Boswell, director of branding and marketing. "That'southward streamlined downwardly from months."
'Romancing' the Art
In the last decade, the art marketplace has gone from quiet niche to noisy spectacle. A few numbers tell the story. In 2003, Sotheby'south and Christie's sold a combined full of $136.five one thousand thousand worth of contemporary art in their fall evening sales. In 2014, Christie's alone sold more than vi times that effigy in its fall auction — $853 1000000 of Andy Warhol, Cy Twombly, Francis Salary and others. And there were some murmurs of disappointment that the auction didn't become the first to break the $one billion marking.
This backdrop has been essential to the success of Peter Lik. He stands apart from the mainstream art marketplace, merely he has benefited from the hype that surrounds it. He has besides replicated many of its sales tropes, and so exploited them to the nth caste.
Plenty of coveted fine-art photographers, for instance, impress half-dozen, 7 or even 10 copies of an prototype and charge more than as they sell out. Mr. Lik vastly expands that concept, selling 950 limited editions and 45 artist's proofs of every photograph. (All the images are identical, only artist's proofs are deemed more prestigious and kickoff at $x,000.) Every fourth dimension a limited edition sells some other ten pct, the price ticks up, in increments that abound. When an edition reaches 40 percentage sold, for instance, the price rises past $500. At 90 percent sold, the price rises past $1,300.
When 95 percent of an image has sold it becomes "Premium Peter Lik" and the toll jumps to $17,500. At 98 per centum, it'due south "Second Level Premium Peter Lik" and leaps to $35,000. And when the image gets down to its final handful, the prices can go every bit high every bit $200,000 or more. When all copies of a photograph are sold, information technology can gross the visitor more than $7 one thousand thousand.
The bulletin is that the sooner you purchase, the less you lot will pay. Then buy at present. "If we had them at $3,950 the whole time, where is the sense of urgency?" says Rafee Fatoohi, the company's director of sales. "People would say, 'I'll come dorsum and buy it in a year.' "
Epitome 
Traditional gimmicky galleries have their own bag of sales tricks, but they are plied with a poker face. These places want to come up across more than like a museum than a business, a venue for reverence instead of commerce. So employees are present, but none will ask if y'all demand help. Everything has a price, but you need to screw up your backbone to asking information technology.
Mr. Lik dispenses with these subtleties. "Art consultants," as they are called, roam the floors of his galleries and accept a number of visitor-approved icebreakers to get-go a dialogue well-nigh the photographs. (Sample: "They're astonishing, aren't they?") They will happily discuss the color of your sofa to find a matching frame, an unimaginable topic in other galleries. Instead of white walls and silence, Peter Lik galleries accept dark charcoal gray walls and piped-in vintage stone, circa early on Tom Picayune. "Presentation is key, the vibe is key," Mr. Lik said. "I wanted people comfortable when they went in there. Just relaxed."
Behind this chilled-out facade, at that place is a rigorous catechism, which every Peter Lik art consultant learns during a four-day training course. At that place are viii steps to each sale, a handbook explains, starting with "Greet and Engage" and ending with the "Post-Sale Button Upward."
One recent afternoon, at the Peter Lik Gallery in the Venetian hotel and casino, Ali Baigi was in the middle of Step No. 4, "Presentation," which involves "romancing the art," as the company calls it. Mr. Baigi was talking to a pair of men from Texas, in boondocks for a sporting appurtenances convention.
"This i is called 'Celestial Dreams,' " said Mr. Baigi, as the three gaped at a brilliant purple and orange shot of a tree. "Many celebrities have it, nosotros respect their privacy, don't mention names. 4 months quondam, already went to 80 percentage sold, but it'southward however in adept category. Eight or nine k dollars."
"I'grand more of a beach guy," said Jarrod VanBrocklin, manager of a sporting appurtenances store in Abilene, "but this is pretty damn absurd."
"You keep information technology, 20 years from now, you surprise your son with hymeneals gift," Mr. Baigi said. "Meantime, your money ever at that place, you're looking at it."
During a lull, Mr. VanBrocklin told his friend nearly a photograph he saw at a Lik gallery years agone.
"I think it was taken in Key West," he said. "Information technology was just a pier and white sand. I should have bought that. Now, I've seen it selling for stupid money."
Mr. VanBrocklin ultimately left empty-handed, but with a hope to return with his married woman. He is a fairly typical Peter Lik buyer, someone who hasn't spent much on fine art in the past and didn't start the day planning to spend $iv,000 on a photo.
Most Lik sales are a kind of high-end impulse purchase. The setting is designed to valorize the jaunty, tripod-toting bloke scouring the nation in search of beauty. A plaque on the wall tallies up a listing of honors, including the fellowship he received from the British Plant of Professional Photographers and his master lensman laurels from the Professional Photographers of America. Another plaque boasts virtually the "world tape" gear up past "Phantom." Still another describes him in the shorthand of an online dating contour:
"All-time loved food: Thai & Indian or anything that is encarmine hot!"
Seeking Resale Value
There are plenty of repeat clients who don't need this spiel because they've already heard it. Mr. Fatoohi said a handful of collectors had spent due north of $1 1000000, and more than take spent in excess of $100,000.
Ane regular buyer is Craig Bernfield, a real estate developer in Chicago. He politely demurred when asked to tally up his outlays over the years, merely he says he has purchased 50 Liks, all of them on the walls of his homes, his part or the homes of his children. He and his married woman, Donna, began their collection during a visit to Hawaii in 2003, when the couple happened across the gallery in Maui.
"We were not art collectors," he said in a phone interview, "but we had this wonderful trip with our kids, and at the time the gallery featured some photography that Peter had done on the isle, shots of places that we'd been. And then we bought a handful of photographs that nosotros were in love with — the serenity and beauty of places that he captured."
Early on, Mr. Bernfield and his wife didn't consider whether they were making a good investment — specifically whether the fine art would sell well on the secondary market, a realm dominated by sale houses. But as the Bernfields' inventory grew, it was time for what Mr. Bernfield called a "gut check" about new acquisitions. "Nosotros had to ask, hey, is this worth it?" he said. The businessman in him wouldn't mind what they phone call in the existent manor world "comparables," a sales history of similar properties. He just has never establish any.
"If you find some comparables," he said, "I'd be interested in seeing them."
Arguably, the person all-time versed in Peter Lik comparables is David Hulme, a fine-art valuer based in Australia for a company chosen Auctionata. For years, he has been getting calls from Lik owners around the world, and he finds the calls depressing.
"People tell me all the fourth dimension, 'I've been in touch with the gallery, and they say my photograph is now selling for $150,000 a re-create,' " he says. "So they want to know what they can sell theirs for."
A tiny fraction of that sum is the answer. A subscription service called Artnet — which bills itself as the virtually comprehensive database of its kind — captures the resale value of Lik photographs by cataloging sale results, and the most anyone has ever paid for one his photographs is $xv,860, for a copy of an image called "Ghost," in 2008. (It'southward a colour version of "Phantom.") After that, it'due south a long slide downward, to $iii,000 for a re-create of "Eternal Dazzler (Antelope County, Arizona)" in 2014. Fifteen images have sold for betwixt $ane,000 and $2,500, and 4 take sold for between $400 and $1,000. Another scattering failed to sell. And that's it.
Mr. Hulme usually directs Lik owners to ArtBrokerage.com, a site where they can post images of their fine art along with an asking toll. Currently, there are more than than 770 Liks for sale on ArtBrokerage.com, the most of any artist on the site. As of Friday, that included 27 copies of 1 image, "Tree of Hope," with prices that ranged from $v,000 to $29,000.
Or you lot can buy a re-create at the gallery, where it has accomplished Second Level Peter Lik Premium status, for $35,000.
Information technology's a truism that the cost of a commodity doesn't ever correlate to its value. This is specially so in the fine art marketplace, where experts say a stunningly small per centum of what is sold will always be worth more than than it was on the day it was caused. Behind every headline of a superselling object at a high-profile auction, there are a few one thousand items that will never budge.
"Reading about art investment success is similar reading about the 1-in-40 drill holes that find oil," writes Don Thompson in "The Super Model and the Brillo Box: Back Stories and Peculiar Economic science From the World of Gimmicky Art." "Yous never read about the four out of five contemporary works that Christie's or Sotheby'south, or fifty-fifty Phillips or Bonhams, refuse for their evening auctions because the creative person is no longer in style."
Generally, photographers who perform well at auctions have appeared in museums, won praise from critics and accept printed a very small number of a given image. The sole museum Peter Lik mentions on plaques in his galleries is the Smithsonian, just he's been exhibited only in its National Museum of Natural History in group shows of nature photography. And over the years, he has effectively flooded his own market.
Then anyone buying his work assuming that information technology volition appreciate is all simply certainly in for an unhappy surprise. Only given the sheer volume of Liks on the marketplace, his scarcity in museums and the contemptuousness he attracts from gallery owners, the question is: Why do so many people phone call David Hulme expecting good news?
One answer is that the vast majority of Mr. Lik's buyers are non well versed in the secondary fine art market, and they believe that because prices become up inside the galleries, they go up exterior them, besides. This confusion over price, which is dictated by the visitor, and value, which is determined by the broader market, is sometimes encouraged past the sales squad, co-ordinate to 2 quondam executives at Peter Lik USA, who declined to be identified for fright of being sued by the company. The 8-step presentation, the elaborate price tiers, the long list of professional person awards, the "romancing" of the art — all have the effect of suggesting to potential customers that they are making an investment, not spending money. "The salesman would say, 'Peter Lik is the nearly awarded landscape artist in history,' " said one old executive. "This photograph started at $4,000 and it sold out at $200,000. At present, y'all tell me how skilful an investment it is."
Mr. VanBrocklin, the sporting appurtenances manager, seemed to have bought this message when he said to his friend at the Venetian, "This is i of those deals where y'all don't lose money." That widespread impression has led Mr. Hulme to question whether Lik galleries are "misleading" customers.
Mr. Fatoohi, the Lik executive, said that sales reps are instructed during those 4-twenty-four hour period training courses to emphasize the beauty of Mr. Lik'due south work, and anyone in the galleries who makes rosy investment claims risks existence fired. "We tell clients who ask about future values, 'Purchase because you lot love it,' " Mr. Fatoohi said. "There are no guarantees."
The secondary fine art market was the one subject field that Mr. Lik was reluctant to discuss. Presented with the Artnet results and pressed for a annotate, he said of his work, "It's like a Mercedes-Benz. Yous drive it off the lot, it loses half its value."
Mr. Bernfield, the collector with 50 Liks, sounds equally if he'd be content with his purchases no thing what. He loves the images. That said, he also believes that his photographs are a practiced investment, a conclusion that stems largely from the delighted reactions of friends. Just he has other prove, and not surprisingly, all of it is lifted directly from the gallery: the bustle of customers, the listing of accolades, the pricing tiers.
And Peter Lik just sold an image for a record-breaking $6.v meg, didn't he?
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Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/business/peter-liks-recipe-for-success-sell-prints-print-money.html
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