Urban Art Association

Well this got weird.

I don't believe that for a minute.  

Avant Arte never shared any presale links on this forum. A forum member posted the access information at some point. You could email AA or the design museum to get access to the presale room. All the editions where available for at least one day and people had plenty of time to decide what to buy.

This is such an odd thing to buy, I don’t get it… can someone explain what it’s about?

Maybe Avant Arte can chime in seeing that they hang around here often enough.

If the owner of one of these vases attempts to put it into an auction (even ebay) or a gallery, would the auction house or gallery pull the item if Avant Arte (or anyone with a link to the "agreement" and initial sale date) contacted them and showed them the "2 year ownership obligation?"

Second thought, who is to say that this isn't for sale by an Avant Arte insider who was able to buy it because they had an inside track to the item? Clearly, from the results on the day they went on sale there were only a few that were actually unclaimed. What was available sold out in what, 25 seconds?

I agree that flipping this on UAA doesn't reflect well on the community.

So many hypocrites on here, the virtue signalling makes me feel a little nauseous. I'm always very suspicious of people who feel the need to express disapproval of others to demonstrate their own moral integrity.

On this it's the OPs property he can do what he likes with it, I expect AA will give zero fucks. 90% of the items AA sell are to flippers I know because I get offered them by the boat load every day, if speculators stopped buying their editions none would sell out, it really is that simple. The holier than thou crowd need to understand that without liquidity very few artists' markets are sustainable.

No one is breaking any laws, it's a simple breach of a contract which in effect is not worth the paper it's written on. These no-resale clauses are unenforceable and there are countless legal opinions setting out the reasons, however what is most compelling is not a single gallery or publisher has litigated the issue. Why? Simply because the chance of success is very slim, and even if you could put together a case which gets round some pretty big hurdles what would be the claimants loss? Arguably if it sells for more money they are better of as a result of the breach, as the value of their inventory should rise accordingly.

It is too stop lots all coming on the market at the same time, it will stop some people buying it for an instant flip. and by the time 2 years is up people might of changed their mind and not need to sell if they had bought them straight away.

You must be one of the 0.01% who is so wealthy they’ll never need to sell anything to finance a new purchase or whose taste hasn’t changed in 10-20 years, most collectors go on a different journey. In terms of never breaching a contract, in this instance one of the main legal arguments is that these clauses actually cut across various statutory consumer protections. These laws protect consumers from unfair and onerous conditions in contracts and essentially serve to nullify them whilst still upholding the rest of the contract, so in a legal sense the clause is as good as absent.

One thing we agree on is that these clauses shouldn’t be inserted into contracts to begin with especially where the business model relies upon resellers in the case of large editions. In my mind there are a legal alternatives involving transfer of ownership which would stand up or some kind of deferred discount or cash back. I expect the reason galleries don’t use these is because they know it would put off too many buyers. For me the correct thing morally and legally to do, is to request that people endeavor not to sell for 2 years and that if they do they risk being excluded from future sales, that seems the most upfront way of dealing with it. 

I bought something in the last few years. Not much to tell the truth. I don't feel the need to sell either. Why sell if you bought what you liked? If you have found the space on the wall, more often than not, it becomes difficult to part with the purchased work. Catapulting like this is not a pretty thing to see. I wanted to buy that vase and put it on the shelf for the next 40 years (at least). I failed due to a number of things. Sometimes whoever has bread doesn't have teeth, and whoever has teeth doesn't have bread. I hope that Ai Weiwei will be able to sell and make others in the coming months, with differentiated transparent colors and a version in fine white Chinese ceramic with strictly pink, red, green and orange writing. Would be great. For now, only the bitterness remains, of seeing this fantastic work of art immediately catapulted. The collector sometimes sells what he has bought over time to buy new works to include in his collection. Catapulting after buying is not a world that belongs to collecting in general.

Surely buying something from someone who has completely disregarded something they agreed to would be a big red flag as to their honesty and reliability? 

There's honesty in the art world?

For what it’s worth, I’ve bought multiple pieces from the OP and he’s always been a pleasure to deal with, decent and stuck to his word. Buy with confidence. 

Tried really hard to get this from AA, but they had no desire to help me out.

Maybe I'll have to try this route. Or StockX.