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Arts Correspondent—
The African modern and contemporary art market is increasingly attracting the attention of buyers, both local and international, while identifying several structural and macroeconomic rationales for the continent’s new found brio. The art market has become increasingly dominated by works from various African countries including but not limited to Zimbabwe, South Africa, Nigeria, Senegal, Morocco, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Benin, Cameroon, Congo, DRC, Angola, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique and Namibia.

Today we look at how video art is doing on the African and international art market. Without question, art on the television monitor is fast becoming ubiquitous in galleries and museums.

One way to look at how the art world has changed through millennia is to look at how art was like in past.

First, for a good several thousands of years or so, there were cave and rock paintings, where first artists drew products of their imagination, their wishes and their surroundings and way of life. Then, the world changed. The artworks changed as well.

Sculpture and painting became the main means of expression for visual artists, and these two have ruled the world since. During the 19th and especially 20th century, the world changed rapidly again. Paintings of course retained their primacy as the most common and most popular form of artistic expression.

However, new times have brought with them new technologies, new ways of communication, and, as usual, these technologies have quickly become another form for artists to express themselves. Photography, followed by film, video, and a whole range of installation work, has made its way onto the walls of museums and galleries.

Whether or not general members of the public understand it enough to want to purchase it just like they would buy a painting, drawing or a sculpture, and if galleries, museums and private collectors are interested in purchasing and collecting video art.

According to various reports, video and new media artworks are present in about 10 percent of global art collections, while paintings are present in 83 percent of these collections. The constant development of audio, video and computer technology, and the consequent drop in its price are allowing more and more people, galleries and museums to install video equipment needed for collecting video art into their homes or museum spaces.

Currently, there are a number of video artworks worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in the global art market. Therefore, as more people begin to understand what video art is, new media works will in the near future establish their place on the visual art landscape.

There are, however, several setbacks that are turning a large number of collectors away from collecting video art.

The main is the fact that there are rapid changes that happen every year in video technology. For example, about a decade ago DVDs were such a cool technical achievement but now people rarely use them.

Video and digital technologies are becoming obsolete quickly, and so are the media that are carrying information, or, in this case, artworks. Obsolescence of media is probably the most detrimental factor in preserving new media artworks. Usually, video art installations have their own demands in terms of electronic equipment.

Unlike painting or drawing or sculpture, video art poses its own demands on museums, notably raising issues revolving around the requirements of complicated electronic equipment.

Video and digital art continues to evolve at a fast rate, presenting ever more complicated questions of exhibition and display. This is why video artworks are less collectible than paintings, drawings and sculpture.

Some of the very qualities that first made video appealing to artists the ease of production and distribution, the ephemeral nature of the moving image are making many collectors question its collectability. It is one thing to ask a potential curator to look through a portfolio of photographs, and quite another to arrange a situation in which a potential exhibitor can view a group of videos or short films.

The burden of explaining the concept and value of an artists work to people who might exhibit or buy it is much greater for film and video artists, since often they have to fill in the gaps for people who have not seen the work in its entirety.

While painters and photographers have to deal with the contingencies of hanging and arranging their images, film and video artists have to negotiate a series of technical demands in order to present their work to a viewing audience. For most video artists, especially those working with only a single monitor, financial success becomes elusive while collectors try to figure out how to live with these works and what they are worth.

There are plenty of people who remain sceptical about the commercial potential of art shown on a screen in a world of free downloading. The natural state of digital media is perceived by the public as something that should be free and copied by anyone who desires.

Even though private buyers might sign an agreement barring them from reselling, copying or broadcasting the tapes, which are copyrighted by the artists, it does not guarantee that the works will not be pirated. The idea that anyone one can make copies of the tapes if made available is the most radical idea.

With the advent of new media generated work specifically for mobile apps, the issues surrounding the technologically-based art market are sure to grow even more complicated in the coming years. However, the strength, creativity and adaptability of a new digitally advanced generation of artists will allow them to keep on finding new solutions to those issues and clearing a path to even more ground-breaking work. As the market for visual modern and contemporary art becomes more and more expensive, it will be interesting to see if the sheer affordability and accessibility of digital art begins to alleviate it.