Most people don’t associate ebay (EBAY) with high art, but through a new gallery partnership, the e-commerce company will sell limited-edition works from the likes of artists Takashi Murakami, Daniel Arsham and JR on its platform—with some items selling for as low as 18 euros ($19).
Perrotin, the mega-gallery with locations in Paris, New York, Seoul, Tokyo and Shanghai, announced yesterday (Feb. 28) that it is joining forces with eBay in France in an effort to make fine art more accessible. Initially, the gallery will offer about a hundred items for sale via the new Perrotin Store on the eBay.fr platform.
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“Art is for everyone!” said Emmanuel Perrotin, the gallery’s founder, in a statement. He first launched a book-focused Perrotin Store in Paris in 2011, which has since added global locations and grown to encompass items like prints and accessories. “I grew up in a family that couldn’t afford to buy art, but my parents had such an appreciation of culture that when we went to museums we always found something to buy in the shop,” said Perrotin. “This idea has stayed with me throughout the development of the gallery.”
Items in Perrotin’s eBay shop range in price from $6,480 to $19
While the store launched an e-shop in 2014, its offerings will now be shown to a significantly wider consumer base through its collaboration with eBay. The company, which has 132 million users worldwide and an inventory of more than 1.9 billion items, attracts millions of monthly shoppers on its platform in France. The items currently listed on the new Perrotin Shop include limited-edition lithographs, posters and even a series of Murakami candles. At the higher end of the spectrum are sculptures by Elmgreen & Dragset and Ashram, which are respectively priced at 6,000 (around $6,480) euros and 3,840 euros (around $4,150). Buyers with a $20 price limit can snag items like a book of poems by Jean-Philippe Delhomme or a fanzine from Barry McGee.
Perrotin’s venture follows on the heels of other limited-edition merchandising initiatives across the art world. Phillips last year introduced its Dropshop platform to sell artist drops ranging from $5,000 to $50,000, an offering that has already seen releases from the likes of Kehinde Wiley and the estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Museums like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, British Museum and the Louvre, meanwhile, have in recent years increasingly turned to licensing agreements with brands ranging from PacSun to Uniqlo to bring in revenue by offering art-themed products to new audiences.
This won’t be the first time eBay has been tapped by art institutions looking to increase the visibility of their offerings. The platform in the 2010s engaged in short-lived partnerships with Sotheby’s and Phillips when it introduced online live sales for the auctioneers. More recently, it worked with Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto in 2019 to offer limited-edition works in a charity sale. A similar initiative took place two years later when the site partnered with gallery Maccarone LA and musician Grimes to sell an exclusive series of her artwork to benefit the nonprofit Carbon 180.
“Democratizing access to fine objects and helping our users to find hidden gems is an essential part of our mission,” said Laura Simhon, the art and collectibles category manager for eBay in France, in a statement. “The opening of the Perrotin Store on our platform is proof of our commitment to facilitating access to art for all budgets.”
