Art Advisers Roundtable

Photo by Michael Edwards

Site: Louise Blouin Media headquarters, New York City

Key Advice
for Collecting in These Uncertain Times

Mary Hoeveler

“There are opportunities in virtually every collecting field right now. If you want to play it safe, concentrate on established secondary-market artists, negotiate well, and take a long-term view.”

Abigail Asher

“Careful and selective buying of 20th- and 21st-century masterpieces is what I would focus on. That’s the area people felt priced out of in the past few years. This is actually an exciting time.”

Stefano Basilico

“Collectors should be selective and careful in their choices. Condition becomes paramount, especially if it’s an editioned work. Look at each piece with a jaundiced eye. It’s not worth a risk.”

Allan Schwartzman

“Look for undervalued areas in every price range. These are times when people crave art of profound beauty or meaning. The art that means the most holds its value— spiritually and financially.”

Richard Serra Yayoi Kusama Hans Hofmann Lucio Fontana Ad Reinhardt Jean Arp Hans Hofmann Piero Manzoni

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ALLAN SCHWARTZMAN: You had a new tier of collectors, and they had precipitated a kind of hedge-fund-ification of the art market.

Stefano Basilico: Most collectors haven’t been collecting for 10 years; most galleries haven’t been around for 10 years. What they know is a fairly hothouse environment.

ALLAN SCHWARTZMAN: The number of committed, substantial collectors is great now — greater than it was 10 years ago. But there will be some interesting shifts, and I think that a lot of this is not totally knowable yet. The ‘80s began as a period that collected large-scale, brash, ego-driven, ultraconfident painting and ended with intimate, handmade, flawed, inwardly turning, psychological art. No one could have predicted that. We are similarly at a time when there will be a shift in priorities of taste and this will help shift the attention of the market.

PUBLIC VERSUS PRIVATE

SARAH DOUGLAS: Will there be a movement away from auctions and fairs to private transactions? Journalists depend on auctions and fairs to understand what’s going on.

STEFANO BASILICO: In the past 15 years, a larger portion of the market has become more public and allowed more people to know, up to a point, what was happening. The Mei Moses indexes, based on auction records, are fascinating, but they represent only 5 percent of all transactions.

MARY HOEVELER: Even in the boom day of auctions, you had only a tiny piece of the story. The art market is so hard to analyze. The same work of art has to come back to auction several times for you to see any kind of pattern.

ABIGAIL ASHER: In an economic downturn, people prefer to buy in private.

MARY HOEVELER: The brilliance of auctions is the competition they create, adding 20 to 30 percent of value to something because of that extra bid. A lot of collectors didn’t want to get caught up in that, and they are now quietly coming back into the market.

ABIGAIL ASHER: We’ve all bought at auctions. They’ve served an amazing purpose in bringing works in a democratic way to the market.

MARY HOEVELER: Yes, they remain an unparalleled source for material. They’re also a place where a lot of new buyers feel comfortable.

STEFANO BASILICO: And an art adviser does incredible work at auction. I’ve found myself in one specific instance saying to a client during the sale, "That’s enough. You shouldn’t bid any higher." It was too high a price.

MARY HOEVELER: The auction house strategy is typically to get as low an estimate as it can on something. It has to deal with consignor greed, obviously. But its interest is going to be to try to get the estimate as attractive as possible to generate competitive bidding. So most people realize that estimates are a marketing tool more than a guideline as to what you should be spending on the piece.

ABIGAIL ASHER: There were so many other factors that came into play that would lead to the houses having to do estimates that weren’t necessarily reflective of value.

TONY FREUND: Primarily their competition to snag consignments.

ABIGAIL ASHER: But an innocent buyer doesn’t necessarily know or understand that!

MARY HOEVELER: In the past, if you had anything of remotely commercial value, you would put it up at auction. It was a seller’s market.

ALLAN SCHWARTZMAN: And the auction houses were giving guarantees way in advance of perceived value, so there was no risk involved.

MARY HOEVELER: It no longer is necessary to sell at auction. Dealers get to come back into the picture. The dealers know the work as well as or better than the auction houses do.

ABIGAIL ASHER: When you go to look at something privately, you like the idea of having time to spend with that object. Maybe you live with it for 10 days; 15 or 20 years ago that was the norm, a much slower process.

FAIR GAME

TONY FREUND: Speed has been the name of the game, particularly at fairs.

MARY HOEVELER: Collectors have been a bit bullied by the market. The one-hour reserve — all of that is over, and people have the luxury now of being able to reflect on their purchases. That’s very welcome. There is going to be a level of client service that we haven’t seen in the past five years. Collectors will demand it.