Why is art expensive?

Here is an interesting article on why artwork is expensive.My comments are marked in red...

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Suppose you see a painting for sale for $1890, and you think to yourself, “Good grief, that’s a lot of money. Why on earth does it cost so much?” Well, you've got to think of it in terms of what goes into producing such a thing.

Here’s an approximate breakdown of that $1890:

* Materials: canvas, primer, paint, frame supplies, and hardware: $200

This shows that the entire raw material supply system should also be changed to bring down the cost

* Overhead: Cost of tools, easel, computer, sketchbooks, camera, brushes, desk, chair, office supplies, file cabinets, shelving, rent or mortgage for studio space, phone, Internet, and utilities for studio, work truck for transporting art and materials, car insurance, gas, business licenses, taxes, etc., ad infinitum:  $250

Not much can be changed here

* Gallery

commission: 40%-50%. 40-50% margin is way too high. There should be a better way for art works to reach the person. Galleries are set up in high end areas. So rentals are very high. They have to charge this much amount to pay their rents and overhead costs.

* The artist's time - After I subtract the cost of materials and overhead from my cut of the sale ($940), this is what is left as payment for my time:

$500

So this is the real value of the artwork. Rest everything (excluding some component of the first one - materials) is over head. There should be a way to bring down this overhead. 

It takes on an avg, 20 hrs to do the painting. For this painting, I end up getting about $25/hour. To put that in perspective, graphic designers charge $60-$75, a good attorney or therapist may charge more than $100.

So, what is the core of the problem? I believe it is just selling only one artwork of a kind. So, every new artwork, he has to put all his effort again in creating it. Then again it will be expensive. And more over around 90% of art works won't be sold for an artist. So 10% should bear the cost of those 90% unsold artworks. Then why not duplicate and reduce the cost. This is where DAW comes into picture. We make multiple copies of the artworks and sell those at a lower price point. This way we increase the target market for artworks and thus sell many artworks (Without any time and effort of artist). This generates additional revenue for the artist. So, an artist is getting more than what he was earning initially.

Note: The core of the blog is taken from this article: http://www.articlesbase.com/visual-art-articles/why-art-is-expensive-704229.html