COLUMNIST: Arts and culture literary series II

By Chief Kingsley Okafor

Following the record breaking reception we received from our social media handles on our article of last Saturday, I make bold to welcome you again on the journey of rediscovering our Arts and Culture.

In this series we will attempt to link the Arts to the Cultures of our diverse nationalities and the economy of the Creative Industry.

The Creative Economy is not only one of the most rapidly growing sectors of the World Economy, but also a highly transformative one in terms of income generation, job creation and export earnings.

The term Creative Economy was popularized in 2011 by the British writer and media manager John Hawkins, who applied it to 15 Industries extending from the Arts to Science and Technology.

According to John Hawkins’s estimates, the creative economy was worth USD2.5 trillion worldwide in 2000 and growing at an annual rate of 5%, the present value is estimated to be USD4 trillion.

The notion is and remains a very broad one as it embraces not only cultural goods and services but also toys and games and the entire domain of Research and Development (R&D) therefore, while recognizing cultural activities and processes as the core of a powerful new economy, it is also concerned with manifestations of creativity in domains that would not be understood as “cultural”.

There are a little over 200 million people in Nigeria that means over 200 million dreams.

The question is how many of these 200 million dreams will be achieved. The youth population is approximately 58% of the 200 million Nigerians.

This means 58% creative minds to be developed and nurtured. According to Bolanle Austin Peters, if Africa can position itself as a global center for Creative Arts, individual creative and entire economies will prosper.

Africa is the birthplace of artistic exploration considering that it is the cradle of civilization. The civilization that emanated in Africa could not have left the culture of the people behind.

The evolutions that have taken place world over have traced its origin to Africa. The impact of Africa in modern art, couture and music cannot therefore be overemphasized.

It is therefore worrisome that out of the $650billion global creative trade and economic volume, Africa occupies an infinitesimal percentage.

Hence it is imperative to apply Art as the means to grow the African Economy. ART BUSINESS SERIES: HOW TO PRICE YOUR ART WORK The price of your work is a function of the hours put in the work, the skill, and the kind of materials used in the work.

For example, if your material cost you N20,000 and you pay yourself N10,000 hourly, if you took 20hrs to do the work. Multiply 20hrs by N10,000 plus the cost of material (N10,000 x 20hrs + N20,000).

The art of pricing your work is different from the actual execution of the work. Pricing of the artwork is the post activity after the work has been successfully executed.

This is the process the artwork undergoes when it leaves your studio to the gallery or art fair, online or open studio through your art agent or representative.

The making of the artwork is the process within the artist and his intuition and creative capacity, while the pricing and sale is totally concerned with activity on the outside of the studio, the real world where things are bought and sold.

In this situation, the market force becomes a major determining factor.

For an artist to properly and realistically price his work, a better understanding of the market forces is highly recommended. Just like any other product, the art criteria is a major determining factor.

These factors have more to do with the factors surrounding the galleries, agents, publishers, auction houses, appraisers, buyers and collectors and how they are willing to put actual money on your work.

These variables will give an artist an idea of the price to place on his work. For example, if you put a 2005 Toyota Camry with 200,000 miles for sale at N5million and doesn’t advertise it optimally, it is likely not going to sale.

First you need to put it in the used car sales category, then accept the fact that newer models of say 2015 are selling for less than N5million, you do not need anyone’s advise to bring your price down.

In the same way, the market forces and the category of the art will determine the price. A clear understanding of these criteria is highly essential for the artist who wants to succeed.

When setting your price the artist must make sure his prices are reasonable, justified, fair and respect certain criteria such as depth of your resume, previous sales history and the particular market place.

The collectors and intending buyers who knows about art are going to figure out on their own what value they would place your work.

In order to sale you must demonstrate and convince them that your prices are fair, justifiable and reasonable if you cannot do this, you are going to have hard time selling any art at all.

If it is a group show, you must work with the other artists to come up with your price. You must be fair in fixing your price.

For this purpose, less expensive works must be handy. How do you start? If you do not have a consistent history of selling your art or you are just about setting up the sale of your work in a particular market, the first step is to apply the method used by real estate agents and property dealer known as the “Comparative Strategy”.

This is the technique of selling houses of similar structure of same cost value at different locations at different prices.

If for example, you have two directly similar houses up for sale, one in Maitama, Abuja could sale for N250million; the same house in Kuje could sale for N100million – that is the real estate criteria.

Art works are never priced in vacuum the neighbourhood is a major determinant factor in the pricing of the art work. It is the criteria that connect it to the world.

No matter how unique your work is, it is similar to some existing artworks and must be priced based on criteria.