Huffington Magazine Issue 63 | Page 68

RUSS NOTO/COURTESY UGALLERY. Exit would lose its revenue. The sweet spot on this pricing scale then is in the middle: price points that are payable by credit card, but still yield a healthy commission. Wiest is arguably Amazon’s dream shopper. Her most expensive UGallery purchase — a psychedelic painting of sheep, by artist Russ Noto — cost her $4,000. For three months, she says, she “kept coming back, and waiting until I had enough money to pay for it.” She expects she’ll keep it forever, or if for some strange reason she needs to sell it, “I wouldn’t expect to make much back.” That buying philosophy, so antithetical to the rules of cloistered art dealing, is standard on the outside. As a whole, UGallery customers don’t purchase with valuation in mind. Within a few days of its launch, one of the site’s most popular artists wasn’t an up-andcomer generating buzz; he’s Robert Hofherr, a director at a Baltimore advertising firm. According to UGallery cofounder Stephen Tanenbaum, the amount of works sold by the gallery’s cast of low-profile artists, like Hofherr, has increased by double digits each year since the site’s launch in 2009. Tanenbaum says he can’t see a CULTURE HUFFINGTON 08.25.13 Collector Maya Wiest recently purchased Russ Noto’s Process Grouping 1.1 from Amazon Art for $4,000. Cowen points out that art valuation is temperamental. Simply appearing on Amazon could theoretically devalue a work.” downside to posting stock on Amazon