Yeah, I'm big in the art game.
August 24, 2010 6:48 PM   Subscribe

Where do I resell a piece of art I once bought?

I bought a piece of art by the artist Cornelia Parker (it's called Meteorite Lands On St. Paul's Cathedral, and it's described on the British Council's website, here. I purchased it in England from a gallery called Multiple Store in 2001. Mine is #20 of 20, I'm sure there are none left for sale from the Multiple Store, though they do have a later series for sale here, for 1,500 GBP.

It's an interesting piece: a glass frame case with an A-Z map turned to the location of St. Paul's Cathedral (and the Tate Modern, though it wasn't there when the map was made in 1998), but where the Cathedral is supposed to be, she has dropped a reheated meteorite onto the map, so it's burned through 20 or 30 pages or so. Thus, even of the edition of 20, each one is unique.

I would love to sell this piece, but I have no idea how to go about doing that. I can't imagine that eBay is the best way, not only because I don't know if it's the right audience, but also because I have no way of valuing the thing.

I'm in the New York/New Jersey area now. Are there auction houses who handle this sort of thing? Or resale galleries? Would they take me seriously? I'm not a serious collector, I'd only have this one piece for them to sell.

Is there anywhere I can go to figure out how much this piece might be worth? Does anyone have any experience trying to sell a piece of art like this?

Any and all help appreciated.

I should note -- I have contacted the Multiple Store to see if they had any ideas, but they never got back to me. I haven't been persistent with them, though.
posted by JakeWalker to Media & Arts (4 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Cornelia Parker's NY gallery is D'Amelio Terras--you can contact them and ask for advice. Personally, I doubt an auction house would handle a single multiple by a living artist.
posted by neroli at 7:20 PM on August 24, 2010


I took a piece of art to the Doyle auction house a few years ago. They confirmed its authenticity and sold it at auction -- I think it was actually sold online, but I'm not sure. They took a cut, maybe 10%, and I got about $1,500.

I had looked into selling it on ebay as well, but I'm so glad I had someone else handle it.
posted by peanut_mcgillicuty at 7:21 PM on August 24, 2010


eBay is not a good venue for fine art selling. I found a very similar query to yours at Allexperts (that seems to have very good suggestions/answers).
posted by naplesyellow at 12:25 AM on August 25, 2010


If you can contact the artist directly, they may know of interested parties looking for their work without having to deal with a gallery. Absent that, the main gallery that handles their work should be happy to help you re-sell it.
posted by Devils Rancher at 11:13 AM on August 25, 2010


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