Back in 1957, Gold Coast businessmen came up with a way to scare up customers for neighborhood merchants during the dog days of shopping: the Gold Coast Art Fair. No sense pretending, then, that art fairs are about art. But exhibitors jump at the chance to expose more people to their work in a weekend than they could in a gallery in a year. And the state of the stock market may have this summer’s sidewalk shoppers thinking about a different kind of art appreciation.
Annual percentage return on art bought through New York auction houses from 1875 to 1999, according to the Mei/Moses Fine Art Index: 5.6.
Number of Gold Coast Art Fairs that have not taken place in the Gold Coast: 13.
Percentage of U.S. households that bought some kind of art in 2000: 44.
Average expenditure on an original art work: $300.
Number of crayons worn down by the average American child by his 10th birthday: 730.
