The URLography relating to research of effect and impact of individual patrons on the art market, requires an assessment of and should be studied in the context of contemporary private patronage practices and vehicles, including major art fairs such as Basel (http://www.artbasel.com/) and Frieze (www.friezeartfair.com) and which provide arena for exercising patronage of contemporary art in particular c.f. the auction houses, where predominant ‘product’ is work of established and ‘dead’ artists. Some useful information mining devices for tracking market and collector activities are:
a) http://www.artmarketinsight.com which is the press agency of ArtPrice.com and publishes articles and reports on key market movements and events as well as analysis of trends in prices of various categories of artworks in the market from contemporary to old masters. The website is available in 5 languages, which enhances its influence as a resource to collectors worldwide.
b) http://www.artsjournal.com/ ArtsJournal is a comprehensive and well-organised and sourced digest of news stories relevant to the arts sourced from key English language on-line publications, usually newspapers such as New York Times, The Guardian, Washington Post, Financial Times etc. The ArtsJournal issues a daily newsletter with links to news-stories categories by area of interest – Ideas, Arts Issues, Publishing, Music and Visual Arts. The span of publications usually ensures that all major activities of patrons that attract the attention of the market are referenced in the ArtsJournal. The site also enables issue tracking (http://www.artsjournal.com/issuetracks/issuetracks.shtml). Although the website is limited to English language publications it is still a very relevant resource as London and New York are the top two art markets in the world, key patronage activities, will register in these jurisdictions.
My web research has shown that in Australia, private patronage is not well documented and is quite possibly under-developed. Without the depth of the philanthropic tradition that fuels much of the arts industry in the U.S.A., government initiatives are usually the genesis of key ventures to stimulate private and corporate patronage. Key patrons can usually be identified as interest parties, who become involved with such bodies at Board level. For example: Australian Business Arts Foundation lists Richard Pratt one of Australia’s richest men, as its Patron. AbaF (http://www.abaf.org.au/aboutabaf/councilandboard.html) is a company established by the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts in 2000. The organization recognizes the inadequacy of private sector involvement in the arts in Australia and has developed a structure that attempts to rectify that. AbaF approach is to facilitate and enable connections between arts organizations and private sponsors and philanthropic organisations. AbaF Board also lists of other prominent individuals, who have a personal interest in the arts and influence the corporations that they work for to participate in the AbaF initiatives.