Thursday 1 October 2009

Investing in Contemporary Art

The week-long November Open Studios event has just started, running from Sat 14 to the following Sun 22 Nov, so it seems like a good time to talk about Investing in Contemporary Art.

Art and Money are two distinct subjects that have a crucial relationship when it comes to the artist creating their best work and the collector making the best investment.

Notice that I place the creation of great art first and I didn't say "the collector getting the best bargain". The truth is that if you manage to negotiate a 'bargain' from an artist then you've probably done both of you a disservice, because the artist will soon be worrying about money again and therefore not be in a position to make their best art (and develop their career) and this will diminish rather than increase the value of your investment.

I've got a very simple formula if you want to make a great investment in art:

Find Talented Artist + Put Money in their bank = They get Peace of Mind + Focus on creativity

So first you find a good artist, and look for someone with real talent, not just affordable prices. Visit Open Studio events and Gallery shows, read Art Magazines and explore online. Once you've found a talented artist give them the money they're asking for, so they no longer have to worry about paying the bills and can simply focus on their creativity. Most artists are willing to negotiate on price, but remember that your money is literally going to pay for their development - offer them too little and soon they'll have to waste time and energy chasing the next sale.

Part of the problem these days is that many people spend most of their time looking for 'bargains' and therefore miss excellent opportunities to invest in something truly great.

The only things I regret in my career as an artist are the times when I've sold my work too cheaply. It annoys me because I know that the buyer has greatly benefited while lengthening the times I was struggling. But I'm also aware of how lucky they are to have bought MY work because most artists who don't ask for what they really need eventually have to stop making art altogether.

I know the Art market pretty well now, and I can recommend several artists you could buy as a good investment. These are artists who are all very talented, will continue to grow in ability and have the right attitude to becoming very successful in the future. Their work ranges in price from a few hundred to tens of thousands of pounds, so there is a market for everyone.

What most people don't realise is how easy it is for the buyer to help make an artist successful, as a relatively small investment can do wonders for an artists career and greatly increase the value of your investment in them.

The most visible example of this strategy is Charles Saatchi, who basically buys art when it's relatively inexpensive (though he always pays enough to help finance that artists development ) then exhibits the work, which raises it's value, and eventually sells those works that have become the most valuable. A great example of this is with the artist Jenny Saville, as he purchased her entire post-graduate show and then commissioned her paintings for the next two years. She is now represented by the Gagosian Gallery, alongside the most successful artists in the world.

The most effective dealers and galleries understand that the best investment strategy is simple to find talented artists and then finance their development. This process often continues throughout the artists career, as when dealers bid for their own artists at auctions simply in order to maintain and raise their value. For instance, last autumn, at a time when the value of Damien Hirst's work was beginning to fall, his dealers were the 'under-bidders' on more than half of the works at his "Beautiful inside my head forever" auction.

The ability to literally create an artists career and then develop their market is only possible because the art market is relatively small - so you certainly don't need the resources of Saatchi or Jay Joplin to work this magic!

I can think of several artists where you would only need an an investment of between £4,000 to £10,000 to make a significant difference to their progress. A timely purchase or commission can literally kick-start an artists career. The reason is obvious when you think about it: an artist is only really concerned about one thing - focusing on making their best work - so the easier you can make it for them to do that, the more progress they'll make.

I know that to some people the prices I quote here will seem quite high, especially when you can buy so-called 'art' for a few hundred pounds, but I'm talking about what you need to spend in order to make a serious investment. I'm not talking about all those jobbing 'artists' out there who just churn out 'pretty art', I'm talking about serious practitioners who have made the commitment to dedicate their lives to creating meaningful art.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that buying art is much more fun and profitable (for everyone) if you know you've helped a genuinely talented artist to further their career.

The other thing you need to do is to avoid buying 'bad' art. There's a lot of bad art about these days because it seems that everyone thinks they're an artist, and galleries just want to make money! Many mediocre artists get away with making lazy and derivative work simply by calling it Conceptual or Post-modern or Impressionistic or Abstract, and Galleries have learnt that they can basically just tell us what we should think about their art.

Most artists fancy themselves as being talented (particularly when we start) but we all need to get honest feedback about our work from our peers. One of the things I enjoyed about Art College is that we had to explain and discuss our work with other artists, so you couldn't simply tell people how great you were and rely on their ignorance to get away with it.

In the Art World it's equally important for artists to get feedback from other artists, and for potential buyers to discover what an artists reputation is among their peers. If you ask artists what they think of other artists you'll very quickly be able to tell what think of each other!

Basically though, if you cut through all the waffle and just look for talent, it's relatively easy to find brilliant artists worth investing it. And believe me, they need your support. Being an artist is one of the most challenging professions you can choose, artists sacrifice many things that most people take for granted, and we have to commit to something that has no guarantee of success.

Great artists have always needed patrons, from Rembrandt to Turner, and Picasso to Hirst. And it's their best patrons who amassed the greatest collections and had the most success. Many are still remembered as being instrumental in helping those artists at key points in their development. For instance, Picasso had Ambroise Vollard and Matissa had Sergei Shchukin .

Now-a-days you don't even have to be wealthy to be a patron. For instance, a New York couple, the Vogels have created one of the greatest collections of modern and contemporary art in the world, even though Herb was a postal clerk and his wife Dorothy, a Librarian.

If you're reading this I presume it's because you're interested in art. Well, we've got a thriving art scene happening in Bridport and you've got the opportunity to seek out several extremely talented artists here this week. So I recommend you come down, look around for some great art, and start investing now! Just make sure you visit me at St Michael's Studios...

The Bridport November Open Studios runs from Sat 14 to Sun 22 Nov, standard opening times are 10-5pm. Visit the Open Studios page at www.bridport.org to download a Map of the event.