It doesn't really have to cost that much. You're mostly paying real estate and a professional waiting for business. Framing material, UV glass, and acid free paper are quite cheap. Anti-glare Tru Vue museum glass costs maybe a couple hundred dollars for a medium sized work, but a lot of museums don't even use it because art framers mark it up like crazy.
reply>You're mostly paying real estate and a professional waiting for business.
replyAre these optional? If not, I don't see how this makes sense:
>It doesn't really have to cost that much.
Gallerists always act like having a professional framer is given, but maybe their typical clientele are rich enough to just treat that as a mandatory tax. I framed my art with a diy LevelFrames kit for 10x cheaper which took less than an hour. The frame itself isn't particularly good quality, so for now, boutique framers have a strictly superior product, but this advantage could easily be commoditized away.
replyAnd then you visit nearly any museum in Europe, and walls are absolutely covered in paintings with almost none of the wall itself visible and most of the paintings not even behind any sort of glass. It's kind of funny.
replyThe STOP OIL NOW people are changing that with their paint.
reply(a) Just Stop Oil has disbanded.
reply(b) They only pulled that stunt on art that was already behind suitably-protective covers. (Whether the stunt is effective or not, they weren't putting artwork at risk: just temporarily disrupting the operation of galleries, and getting themselves arrested.)
(c) This is completely off-topic.