The $5,000 Question, Part V (Charles Buys!)

NEW YORK—Charles, our Manhattan friend who has spent the past few weeks pondering what to buy with his $5,000 art budget, has decided it’s time to take the plunge and to make a purchase.

He has seen paintings, prints and drawings. He has seen work by celebrity artists and newcomers. He’s been to the Upper East Side (in Part I), Midtown (in Part II), Chelsea (in Part III) and to SoHo (in Part IV).

He has spoken to some of the best established dealers and gallerists in the city, and never once has he found himself treated with anything other than courtesy and consideration, or given anything other than genuine advice. No one has twisted his arm or tried the hard sell.

Each gallery he has visited, and almost each piece of art he has looked at, has refined his sense of precisely what it is that he wants. And at the same time, he feels his experiences in the galleries have increased his understanding of the art scene as a whole. When he gets home, he finds himself reading the art reviews in the art magazines and in the New York Times with greater appreciation and insight.

He has decided that he wants to buy a work on paper, though perhaps not something from a large edition by a name artist. So he decides, before he actually spends his money, to call on one last gallery: Pavel Zoubok in Chelsea.

He has been there before and remembers that the gallery has a specialization in collage. Plus, in the May 5 edition of the New York Times, he noticed that an article by Grace Glueck called its current group exhibition, Constellation, “a show to see and remember.”

“Yes,” Pavel Zoubok tells Charles when they meet, “we’ve been high traffic since that review. It was a rave.”

So Charles begins to wonder whether he’s got here in time. He explains his situation to Mr. Zoubok and asks whether there is work in this current show that falls into his price range.

“Absolutely,” comes the reply. “One either goes the route of buying a newer or lesser-known artist who’s contemporary—someone such as Holli Schorno whose solo show was our last exhibition here—or,” and here he gestures to the work in the current show, “something historical that’s interesting but ultimately undervalued as yet.

“Also,” Mr. Zoubok continues explaining, “in terms of our particular area of focus, contemporary and modern collage and mixed media—as with other aspects of works on paper—these are categories where there’s a lot of work of enormously good quality which is still very accessible in the grander scheme of the art market.”

“So,” Charles asks, “can you show me what I can afford?”

Mr. Zoubok starts by saying what’s outside of his range. “In terms of the Al Hansens and Ray Johnsons, there’s nothing in your price category. But In terms of the Buster Clevelands, these Artforum maquettes are $3,800.

“Also," Mr. Zoubok continues, "the May Wilson works: the ridiculous portraits are $5,ooo, the snowflake collages are $4,000, the assemblages are $2,000 and $3,000. And there are the John Evans’ collages: The larger one from the late ’60s and the early ’70s are priced at exactly $5,000, and some of the later, slightly smaller works are $2,500.”

While Mr. Zoubok is explaining to him how the artists in the show formed a circle of friends and acquaintances, and that they would quote and refer to one another in their work, Charles studies one piece to the next, pretty much convinced that this is where his collecting is going to begin.

He is particularly taken with the Evans pieces; they have something particularly eccentric about them. Seeing his interest, Mr. Zoubok explains that Evans is the only artist in the show who is still alive and that the works on view are examples of what are referred to as his ‘diary’ collages, made one a day between 1964 and 2000.

Charles is entranced. He really likes one called Untitled #10, Book 16 (1970-71), in reds, purples and golds, particularly when Mr. Zoubok points out that that the envelope fragments are addressed to the Whitney's Marcia Tucker (curator of painting and sculpture at the museum from 1969-1977)—and that in another collage of Evans’ in the show, there is a rejection letter from the Whitney. He also shows Charles that the envelope fragments form a strange female figure, wearing a bikini. “Look,” he points out, “it looks like an Al Hansen Venus …”