用Instagram賣畫靠譜嗎 Instagram Takes on Growing Role in the Art Market

Anyone in the art market who was not already paying attention to the social media platform Instagram had to sit up and take notice in Late April after the actor Pierce Brosnan visited the showroom of Phillips auction house in London. Mr. Brosnan snapped a selfie in front of a work he admired: the “Lockheed Lounge” a space-age aluminum chaise longue by the industrial designer Marc Newson. Then he added the words “let the bidding commence,” and posted it to the 164,000 followers of his Instagram feed.

在藝術市場上，如果還有人不曾注意過Instagram，那麼四月的事得讓他們對這個社交媒體平臺刮目相看了——演員皮爾斯·布魯斯南(Pierce Brosnan)去了菲利普斯(Phillips)拍賣行在倫敦的展示廳，在自己喜歡的作品“洛克希德椅”(Lockheed Lounge)前面拍了一張自拍——這是工業設計師馬可·紐森(Marc Newson)設計的一款太空時代感的鋁製躺椅。之後他把這張照片貼在了自己擁有16.4萬名關注者的Instagram賬戶上，還加了一句，“拍賣快開始吧。”

And commence it did. Later that week, Phillips broke the world auction record for a design object, selling “Lockheed Lounge” for 2.4 million, or about $3.7 million.

拍賣確實發生了。當週晚些時候，“洛克希德椅”在菲利普斯拍出了240萬英鎊，合370萬美元，創下了設計品拍賣的世界紀錄。

“It’s hard to make a direct correlation between Pierce Instagramming us and the world record, but certainly it made the lounger more desirable,” Megan Newcome, director of digital strategy for Phillips and based in New York, said in a telephone interview. “It was a very exciting sale; we had phone bidders, people bidding online, and there was a lot of excitement around that piece in the auction room. Thanks, Pierce, for the shout out.”

“很難說創世界紀錄和皮爾斯在Instgram上發了我們的照片這兩件事之間有什麼直接關係，但他的照片肯定讓這張躺椅更令人覬覦了，”梅根·紐康姆(Megan Newcom) 現居紐約，是菲利普斯的數字戰略主管，她通過電話接受了採訪。“那場拍賣令人興奮；有很多電話拍賣者和網絡拍賣者參加，拍那件張長椅時非常刺激。多謝了，皮爾斯，謝謝你替我們大聲宣傳。”

It was not the first time the art market had been influenced by images on Instagram. In the past few years, it has emerged as the social media platform of choice for many contemporary artists, galleries, auction houses and art collectors, who use it to promote art that they are selling and to offer a behind-the-scenes look in art studios, auction houses and art fairs. How much that actually translates into sales like the “Lockheed Lounge,” however, is still up for debate.

藝術市場受Instragram影響已經不是第一次了。過去幾年來，Instagram成了許多當代藝術家、畫廊、拍賣公司和藝術品收藏者們青睞的社交媒體平臺，他們使用它來推廣自己想要販賣的東西，提供物品在工作室、拍賣室和藝術節上的幕後狀態。至於這種推廣在多大程度上能像這次的“洛克希德椅”一樣轉化爲銷售，目前仍然存在爭議。

Instagram, which started in 2010, is an online mobile app that allows users to share square, Polaroid-style images and 15-second videos, with a network of more than 300 million users worldwide. Users build up their own social networks of followers, and can follow other users, or just “like” images by users they do not follow. Most important for the art world, users are introduced to artists they might like through a “discover” function. Elizabeth Bourgeois, a company spokeswoman, said that globally, users share about 70 million photos each day via the app.

Instagram自2010年創立，是一款在線移動應用，供使用者分享正方形的寶麗來式圖片或15秒鐘的視頻，目前全世界使用者超過三億。用戶可以在上面建立自己的社交網絡關注羣體，也可以關注他人，對於沒有關注的用戶，只點“喜歡”也可以。對於藝術界而言，最重要的是它的“發現”功能，可以向用戶介紹新的藝術家。公司發言人伊麗莎白·布爾喬亞(Elizabeth Bourgeois)說，來自全世界的用戶每天要通過這款應用分享7000萬張照片。

Simon de Pury, an international auctioneer who has 131,000 followers on his Instagram feed, @simondepury, said in a telephone interview: “So many people are either artists, collectors or gallery owners or photographers who are using it very actively, so it allows you to preview exhibitions happening everywhere in the world, and to see the works the minute the exhibitions open, rather than waiting to read about it in a review. That’s what makes it exciting.”

西蒙·德·普利(Simon de Pury)是一位國際拍賣商，他的Instagram賬戶@simondepury有13.1萬個關注者，他在電話採訪中說：“很多藝術家、收藏家、畫廊老闆和攝影師在積極使用這款應用，所以你可以通過它觀看世界各地的展覽，展覽剛一開始就能看到作品，而不是等着看回顧評論。所以它才那麼讓人興奮。”

The world’s biggest auction houses, Christie’s and Sotheby’s, also use their official Instagram feeds (with 96,700 and 120,000 followers, respectively) to post preview images of select items from coming sales.

全世界最大的兩家拍賣行佳士得和蘇富比也擁有自己的官方Instagram賬號（分別有9.67萬名和12萬名關注者）貼的是即將舉行的拍賣會上精選拍品的照片。

Celebrity collectors and artists are in on the action, too. The pop star couple Jay-Z and Beyoncé Instagrammed their way through Art Basel in Miami Beach a few years ago, posting selfies in front of art they bought or were thinking of buying. Instagram adopters like the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei (with 127,000 followers), the American artist and toy designer Gary Baseman (84,700) and the French “photograffeur” JR (627,000) all keep fans up to date with regularly shared images of new work.

名人收藏家和藝術家們也會參加拍賣會。比如幾年前，流行歌星夫婦Jay-Z和碧昂斯(Beyoncé)就曾經在Instragram上直播他們參加邁阿密海灘巴塞爾藝術節的情形，是他們在已經買下或打算買下的東西前面拍的自拍。還有中國藝術家艾未未（12.7萬名關注者）、美國藝術家與玩具設計師加里·貝斯曼（Gary Baseman，8.47萬名關注者）和法國“照片塗鴉者”JR（6.27萬名關注者）都經常分享自己的新作，讓粉絲能隨時瞭解自己的動態。

Posting or discovering art is one thing, but the central question circulating around the art world is how many actual art sales are generated by the app. Instagram has no functionality that could make it useful as a direct sales platform, and no plans to add one, Ms. Bourgeois said. But quite often, art aficionados are using the app to preview works of art before they buy.

貼出自己的藝術創作或發現他人的藝術創作是一回事，但藝術界的核心問題是，這款應用到底能夠促成多少真正的藝術品交易。Instagram不提供直接銷售平臺，布爾喬亞說，公司也沒有計劃增加這項功能。但是藝術狂熱愛好者在購買藝術品之前經常使用這款應用瀏覽想買的物品。

“When you see something on Instagram that’s hanging in a gallery somewhere and you want to acquire it, you can instantly call up the gallery,” Mr. de Pury said, adding that he had made many purchases this way. “I’m sure that a number of transactions are taking place as a result of works being shown on Instagram. I’m sure it’s quite common by now.”

“你在Instagram上看到什麼東西掛在畫廊之類的地方，然後又想買，就可以直接給畫廊打電話，”德·普利說，他補充說，自己已經通過這個方式賣出了不少藝術品。“我相信，自從許多藝術品被放在Instagram上展示，有很多交易發生了。我相信這種現象如今非常普遍。”

Just how common it is, however, and who is using the platform in this way is matter of much art world fascination. That is perhaps why, this year, art news websites like and were abuzz when it was reported that the actor Leonardo DiCaprio, an avid art collector, had bought a painting called “Nachlass” for $15,000 by Jean-Pierre Roy, an emerging artist, over the phone, after supposedly seeing it on Instagram.

這種現象到底有多普遍呢，而且是什麼人使用這個平臺購買藝術品呢？藝術界對此非常着迷。今年，熱衷收藏藝術品的演員萊昂納多·迪卡普里奧(Leonardo DiCarprio)通過電話交易，以15000美元的價格買下了新晉藝術家讓-皮埃爾·羅伊(Jean-Pierre Roy)的作品《未發表的遺作》(Nachlass)，很可能是因爲他在Instagram上看到了這幅作品。無怪乎和等藝術網站對此大驚小怪了一陣。

Mr. Roy’s dealer, Morten Poulsen in Copenhagen, confirmed that the artist “had posted a detail image of the painting on Instagram.” After that, Mr. Roy received a message from Mr. DiCaprio, “asking us to keep the painting on hold until he saw high-res quality images of the work,” Mr. Poulsen said by email. “I sent him that, the deal was finalized and the painting went into Mr. DiCaprio’s collection.”

羅伊的經紀人莫騰·普爾森(Morten Poulsen)在哥本哈根確認這位藝術家“把這幅作品的細節圖貼在了Instagram上”。之後，羅伊收到迪卡普里奧的信息，“他讓我們別賣那幅畫，讓他先看看這幅作品的高分辨率圖片，”普爾森在電子郵件中寫道。“我給他發去了，交易完成，那幅畫成了迪卡普里奧的藏品。”

Lisa Schiff, an art adviser in New York for Mr. DiCaprio, said he had denied that the sale was based on an Instagram sighting, but she confirmed that Mr. DiCaprio did buy Mr. Roy’s painting through her office just before the Pulse Contemporary Art Fair in March in New York, where it was to go on sale the next day.

麗莎·希夫(Lisa Schiff)現居紐約，是迪卡普里奧的藝術顧問，她說他否認交易是因爲看了Instagram上的照片後才發生的，但她確認，迪卡普里奧在3月份那幅畫在紐約帕爾斯當代藝術節(Pulse Contemporary Art Fair)正式展出前一天，就通過她的辦公室購買了羅伊的畫。

Whether or not the Instagram connection was accurate, the report, originally published on the Creators Project, a blog, was republished on many top art news websites and blogs as an example of Instagram’s growing market influence. A small survey by , an online platform that both promotes and sells art, bears this influence out, with caveats. In April, the company surveyed 35 known collectors who each had more than 100 pieces of art in their collections and reported that just over half of them had purchased artworks from artists they had discovered on Instagram .

這篇報道最初由“Creators Project”網站（它是旗下的一個博客）發佈，不管雙方的聯繫是否真的通過Instagram建立起來，這篇文章被許多頂級藝術網站和博客轉載，作爲Instagram日益對市場產生影響的證據。 是一個既可以推廣藝術品，也可以銷售藝術品的在線平臺，它搞的一項小型調查證明了網絡平臺的影響，但也提出了警示。4月，這家公司調查了35位至少擁有100件藝術藏品的知名收藏家，發現他們當中僅有約一半的人曾經購買過從Instagram上發現的藝術家作品。

Christine Kuan, chief curator and director of strategic partnerships at Artsy, qualifies those numbers, saying that the platform’s audience is “young collectors and emerging collectors,” who are tech savvy and active on social media.

Artsy網站的主策展人和戰略合作伙伴負責人克里斯汀·關(Christine Kuan)覈實了這些數據，她說，Instagram平臺的使用者們是“年輕的收藏家和正在崛起的收藏家，”他們懂技術，在社交媒體上非常活躍。

“A lot of seasoned collectors in the art world don’t use it as much,” Ms. Kuan said in a telephone interview. “They already have their own contacts in the gallery world and they go to art fairs, and may not be using Instagram that way.”

“很多藝術界資深藏家就不怎麼會用它，”關女士在接受電話採訪時說。“他們在畫廊圈有自己的聯繫人，也去藝術節，所以可能不會這樣使用Instagram。”

Hearing the results, Ms. Schiff, whose clients also include leading contemporary art collectors like Candace Barasch and Anne Anka, agreed with Ms. Kuan’s qualifications. “No way, no how — seasoned collectors aren’t using it like that,” Ms. Schiff said. “Maybe people in the 20-30 age range, but not over 40.”

希夫的客戶中不乏當代藝術的頂級收藏者，如坎達斯·巴拉什(Candace Barasch)和安妮·安卡(Anne Anka)等，聽到這個調查結果，她同意關女士的觀點。“不會的，資深藏家絕不會這麼做，”希夫說。“可能二三十歲的人會這麼幹，40歲以上的人就不會了。”

Most of her clients are over 40, she added, and in her experience, “online sales for art tend to have a price limit on them of about $20,000, maybe $50,000.”

她補充說，自己的客戶大都年過40，根據她的經驗，“網絡藝術品銷售的價格大都限制在兩萬美元以內，也許五萬吧。”

Anita Zabludowicz, an art collector and arts patron who with her husband, Chaim “Poju,” co-founded the Zabludowicz Collection, which consists about 5,000 works of art by more than 500 artists in London, New York and Finland, the couple’s native country, is an active Instagrammer, with a total of more than 65,000 followers for her three accounts.

藝術品收藏家與藝術贊助人安妮塔·扎布盧多維奇(Anita Zabludowicz)與丈夫柴姆·“普約”(Chaim “Poju”)聯合創立了“扎布盧多維奇收藏”，其中包括5000件左右的藝術品，分別由倫敦、紐約與芬蘭（兩人的故鄉）的500多位藝術家創作。她是Instagram的活躍用戶，擁有三個賬戶，65000名關注者。

Ms. Zabludowicz said she had purchased work based on Instagrammed images, especially from the Brazilian installation artist Adriano Costa and the New York conceptual artist Brad Troemel, which she added to her trove of works by artists such as Damien Hirst, Richard Prince and Nam June Paik.

扎布盧多維奇女士說，她曾經從Instagrams上購買作品，特別是從巴西裝置藝術家阿德里亞諾·科斯塔(Adriano Costa)和紐約概念藝術家布拉德·特奧伊美爾(Brad Troemel)手中。如今，他倆的作品和達米安·赫斯特(Damien Hirst)、理查德·普林斯(Damien Hirst)與白南淮等名家的作品一樣，也成了她的寶藏。

“Instagram for me is one of the most important social media channels as it is the quickest way to absorb visual information, however shallow,” Ms. Zabludowicz said by email.

“對於我來說，Instagram是最重要的社交媒體渠道，也是吸收視覺信息最快的途徑，雖說有點像狼吞虎嚥，” 扎布盧多維奇在電子郵件中說。

She added, however, that she rarely did any actual commerce directly on the app: “If I am working with a gallery, prices would normally be discussed by email or telephone, not via Instagram.”

她還說，她很少直接通過這個應用談生意：“如果我和畫廊合作，價格一般可以通過電子郵件或電話談，而不是通過Instagram。”

Ms. Newcome, the Phillips executive, agreed that at least for now, Instagram seemed to be used mostly as a promotional tool, rather than part of “a sales-driven strategy.”

菲利普斯的執行官紐康姆同意，至少到現在爲止，Instagram似乎主要是一種推廣工具，而不是“銷售戰略”的一部分。

“If one of our specialists has a favorite work in an upcoming sale, they’ll certainly ask for us to ‘give it a little love on Instagram,”’ she said. It’s “a way to create some buzz around a piece. And you never know: you can literally post something on Instagram and a few minutes later have someone ask to buy it. These are the legends that have been developing around Instagram already.”

“如果在即將到來的拍賣上，我們的某位專家特別青睞某個作品，他們肯定會讓我們‘在Instagram上對它多關照’，”她說。“這是給作品造勢的方法。你永遠說不清楚：你確實可以在Instagram上貼點東西，過幾分鐘就會有人要買。現在關於Instagram，已經有不少傳說了。”