Paris (AFP)

If the Covid-19 generates uncertainties and fears of bankruptcy in art galleries, the customer still continues to frequent them and to buy, however resorting more and more to online sales, report gallery owners interviewed by AFP.

This observation is similar to that of the big auction houses where many collectors come and where sales are achieving good figures.

"This summer, the demand was firm, important, numerous", assures Daniel Templon, whose international gallery is established in Asia and America.

"Much better than in the crises of 1974 and 1991 when it had permanently collapsed".

According to him, "there are no galleries that have disappeared".

He does not minimize the risks but notes that the announced tsunami did not take place.

Not yet...

The prestigious Parisian gallery owner Catherine Obadia considers the damage "small": "we continued to sell online and we were able to see all our collectors who had not traveled at the gallery. They were very happy to come and see us, they knew that we were not at fairs ".

Because the major fairs of Basel, Brussels, Shanghai, Miami, London, were canceled in the face of the health risk.

Only Art Paris is held until Sunday at the Grand Palais.

The gallery owners' forecasts are negative for the holding of the FIAC (International Contemporary Art Fair), the main Parisian contemporary art meeting scheduled for the end of October.

Ms. Obadia is a philosopher: "All in all, we have less costs in transport, in fairs".

Interest in fairs varies according to the profile of the galleries.

At the historic Vallois gallery, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary in the rue de Seine, 70% of turnover is generated in galleries, 30% in fairs, notes its director Marianne Le Métayer.

Others like Templon on the contrary rely more on fairs for their visibility.

One of the lifesavers for galleries large and small has been the growing reliance on online sales, even if it is against their DNA, and which some refuse to do.

"I just sold a canvas on WhatsApp to a collector in London": Florian Azzopardi, from Afikaris, a young gallery specializing in African art, on his stand at Art Paris, rubs his hands.

And Jason Cori, director of the very select "White Cube", confirms: submitting photos online is "the only way to keep doing business."

"We are told: I saw on your site the name, the photo of a work by Omar Ba or Chiharu Shiota. For Omar ba, we have 25 people on the waiting list", says Daniel Templon.

-Sight navigation-

For the future, "we sail by sight", we repeat from one gallery to another.

These are in particular the uncertainties about the winter and spring fairs, about the distancing devices in closed places.

"It often takes two to three months to bring in collectors, each sudden stop forcing us to start over. A good meeting is very little!", Notes Cyrille Catherin, gallery owner based in Frankfurt who exhibits Chinese artists at Art Paris.

Loans, debts to artists, operating costs, rents can also add up negatively.

166 galleries across France have prepared this week for "Un Dimanche à la Galerie", organized by Marion Papillon at the head of the professional union, the Professional Committee of Art Galleries (GPGA).

For this sixth edition, the gallery owners will explain their credo to buyers and curious: that the gallery is a meeting place and an essential passage to make oneself known and acquire a rating.

Marion Papillon calls on the public authorities to support galleries, the keystone of a system to which thousands of jobs (framers, restorers, curators, craftsmen, publishers, lawyers) are linked.

It asks them to maintain the acquisition budgets of museums and FRACs (regional contemporary art funds) and the mechanisms to promote acquisitions by companies, by extending them to liberal professions such as lawyers.

It also suggests that zero-interest loans benefit the acquisition of works.

© 2020 AFP