Random Ideas about Value in the Art Market
March 10, 2009 at 8:18 pm | In art investment, art market, art price, art prices, art recession, collecting art, contemporary art | 2 Comments
I just gave an interview on a beginners guide to the contemporary art market and I’m afraid I wasn’t very helpful. The interviewer kept asking me about value and I kept talking about how necessary art is for the soul. I think, that’s not what he wanted to hear. He wanted to hear about how to value art. Which is a difficult question? Especially now, when no one knows the value of anything.
So here are some of my ideas about what is and what is not a good value in the contemporary art market. Please note that this is a very different subject from investing in art. Art is a crummy monetary investment, even now when prices are getting lower by the minute. However, a wonderful work of art that you love pays millions of dividends in pleasure and enlightenment. Continue reading Random Ideas about Value in the Art Market…
Why the market got sooo excessive and what will happen next
January 29, 2009 at 6:04 pm | In Art world, art market, collecting art, contemporary art, judging art | 7 CommentsI’ve always blamed the excesses of the contemporary art market on Warhol. Warhol’s art came out of Duchamp, yes. ( Marcel Duchamp was the guy who exhibited a urinal and said it was art.) The grand idea is that art is anything that an artist says is art. Great. But Warhol, being a product of his time, added a devious twist. The “anything” he chose to be art, was branded commercial images from the media. As you probably don’t recall being too young, it was the proliferation of homogenized media in the 60’s that fed the cult of celebrity and the growth of a consumerist society. Warhol was a child of the 60’s in that all he really cared about was buying stuff and being famous. So, of course, his art reflected the time. He was a self-manufactured brand and subject of his art was how branding created a need for a consumer product or celebrity. So why was Warhol, who recycled the photographic images of our consumer/celebrity culture, so popular? The answer is what I call the Warhol paradox. Continue reading Why the market got sooo excessive and what will happen next…
My fool-proof art investment strategy
November 10, 2008 at 11:27 pm | In Art world, art market, collecting art, contemporary art | 1 CommentUp until last month, I had the greatest, totally fool-proof strategy for making lots of money in the crazy world of hot-off-the press art. Of course, I never used it myself. I don’t like art as investment. Right now, however, nothing is gonna to work. There are big auctions tonight and tomorrow night and things don’t look good. For the past 4 years, so many of us have looked in open-mouthed disbelief as prices soared beyond – waaay beyond – the logical. People were spending stupid money on last year’s flipped Richard Prince and over produced Murakamis. How does the art made yesterday get to be an asset class? Didn’t anyone remember 1991????
But one day the stupid money will be back and my strategy will be viable again. Continue reading My fool-proof art investment strategy…
The Cult of the Young
September 8, 2008 at 11:00 pm | In art market, collecting art, contemporary art | Leave a Comment“It is much easier for an art dealer to find new artists for old clients than it is to find new clients for old artists” – Peter Plagens on What Drives the Contemporary Art Market
I read this in the New Art Examiner in the late 70’s or early 80’s and it struck me then – as it does now – as a logical explanation of why the art world takes some lucky number of kids straight from MFA programs and makes them overnight art stars. Articles in the Times talk about how art dealers hang around the studios at Columbia, or Yale – about how a particularly promising pick has 3 or 4 dealers competing for him, like a football scouts hanging around high schools. But it was always thus. Continue reading The Cult of the Young…
All art galleries are different
September 8, 2008 at 10:17 pm | In art market, collecting art, contemporary art | Leave a CommentTags: Add new tag, art business, Art Galleries
There are almost 400 galleries in Chelsea today and just as every artist is different, and the market for every artist is different, so is every art dealer and his gallery different. Every “gallerist” – the current terminology -has his own agenda – aesthetically, financially or socially. Continue reading All art galleries are different…
Some factors that determine an artist’s prices
September 8, 2008 at 7:59 pm | In Art world, art market, art price, collecting art | Leave a CommentWhy an artist gets a particular price for a particular work is the $64,000 question. As we see so clearly now, markets for everything from stocks to tulip bulbs to internet companies can be totally irrational and volatile. However, the art market has NO bottom line, NO eventual bankruptcy, no logical basis for any valuation except for the perception of the art world – art historians, critics, collectors, gallerists, etc. The way this art world values one artist over another or the even value of one work of art by an artist over a similar work by the same artist, can be seem capricious and illogical and often is. Continue reading Some factors that determine an artist’s prices…
What should I look for in a good painting?
September 8, 2008 at 5:17 pm | In collecting art, good art, judging art | Leave a Comment
Remember what I said before – you have to look, look, and look some more. The more you look, the faster you learn to recognize clichés. So often a newbie art looker will be totally impressed by the realism in a picture, but then, after looking at millions of similar pictures – landscapes, ducks, etc. come to recognize that none of these hundreds of paintings have anything unique in their style. You simply cannot tell the paintings of one artist from another. In fact, anyone can learn how to paint if they want to learn and sometimes it seems to me as if everyone is an artist. Making a nice painting is not hard work but making an original painting is. Continue reading What should I look for in a good painting?…
How to tell good art from bad
September 8, 2008 at 5:14 pm | In art market, collecting art, contemporary art | Leave a Comment
There is no bottom line in the art world, no numbers to add up at the end of the year to tell you how good something is. Value – and I’m talking artistic value now, not financial value – is always only a matter of perception. But here are some points to note. Continue reading How to tell good art from bad…
How to think about looking at art – step #2
September 8, 2008 at 4:09 pm | In art market, collecting art, judging art | Leave a CommentSo back to step number one – look, look and look some more. And then read and ask questions. Luckily we now have the internet to help – though under NO circumstances should you buy anything of value without seeing it in the flesh first. The internet is just a visual tool. Some art looks better in a small scale on the net, most art looks way worse. In any case, no art looks the same in real life as on the web. However, by trolling the net and the art world you can build up an library of images. Continue reading How to think about looking at art – step #2…
How to think about looking at art – step #1
September 3, 2008 at 2:15 am | In art market, collecting art, contemporary art | Leave a CommentTags: art advice, art advisor, collecting art, contemporary art, new art collector
Step number one is to look, look, and look some more. There are literally hundreds of thousands of artists of all sorts making millions of paintings, drawings, and objects that are all vying for your attention. Learning how to look at art is a life- long process of self discovery and pleasure, and frankly takes a lot of time and effort – just as it would take me years to understand what really goes on a football field. All I see is a bunch of guys hitting each other but I assume there’s more to it that. (God I hope so). Likewise, one of the defining characteristics of a good piece of art as opposed to a boring mediocre one, is that there is more to it than what you initially see. Continue reading How to think about looking at art – step #1…
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