Information Standards And The Visual Arts And Collectible Markets
The Age Old Problem: Provenance
by
Theresa Franks
For decades and decades, people around the globe have grumbled about the inherent perils associated with trading in fine art, both in the contemporary and secondary art markets. Not a single collector, artist, dealer, museum curator, art expert, or other professional is immune to the cunning deceptions and sometimes, overt tactics used by swindlers and thieves. Problems with provenance or lack thereof, worthless certificates of authenticity, fakes, forgeries, thievery, fraudulent insurance claims, and lack of inventory control abound. All of these troubles and many more plague the fine art world today. Until recently, these problems were considered the calculated risk of doing business in fine art, until now...
Fine Art Registry™ is the first of its kind. This new, patent-pending identification numbering system and database is a vision realized, engineered and specially developed as a web-based permanent standard registration system and globally networked database for fine art and collectibles. The Fine Art Registry method, process and apparatus standardizes, systemizes, collects, and publishes, the portfolios of contemporary artists worldwide, as well as those works purchased by collectors on the secondary market. The principle philosophy of Fine Art Registry is to promote the permanent registration of all fine art and valuables before theft or loss occurs, recording detailed and accurate information about each piece, thereby providing the global art trade a solution to better manage, better control, and better market fine art and collectibles, encouraging accountability, good business practices, and truthful disclosure of the fine art and collectible markets.
Historically, the development of and compliance with "standards in the industry" have been crucial to creating and maintaining a reliable, ordered, and structured flow of information. From the Dewey Decimal System and the International Standard Book Number or ISBN, for booksellers, to the UPC or barcode on the products we use everyday, these adopted standards are an integral and important part of our global economy today.
The advent of the Internet has ushered in the Information Age, where a global art market is available to us from anywhere is the world, at any time. Like it or not, the Information Age has democratized the visual arts and collectible markets.The playing field has been leveled. Artists revel in the promise that internet purchases are at record highs with billions of dollars being spent annually in the U.S. alone. Never before in history has there been, quite literally, a world of purchase possibilities for the art collector. This exciting trend marks a growing confidence in artistic taste, as buyers and collectors all over the world are beginning to realize that they can easily and economically replace cheap prints with fine, original artwork to decorate their homes and offices.
The explosive internet global art market is almost certain to eclipse the archaic traditions and hierarchical social structures of the past. As hundreds of thousands of new and contemporary art works enter the internet global marketplace annually, the need for standards becomes clear. It is Fine Art Registry’s vision that this revolutionary system become a new standard for every sector of the global art trade, thereby eliminating many of the problems that have plagued the global art economy for decades, as well as creating a stiff deterrent to art-related crime, and a vigorous, more confident environment within which to conduct business.
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