Collecting Contemporary Art

by Adam Lindemann

Confessions of a Insiders' tips on how the design art market really works "Art is about life, the art market is about money." —Damien Hirst

Whether you’re an art fan, aficionado, or collector, this completely unique book should be on your required reading list. Like a textbook for a class given by all of the world’s leading experts, Collecting Contemporary Art is the one and only book to teach you everything you ever wanted to know about the contemporary art market . The introduction explains the ABCs of buying art on the primary and secondary markets, at auction, and at art fairs and gives an overview of the world art scene and its social circles. The main body of the book brings together tell-all interviews with the biggest players in the global art market : the Critic (Rimanelli), the Dealer (Boesky, Brunnet/Hackert, Coles, Deitch, Fortes, Gagosian, Gladstone, Glimcher, Hetzler, Lybke, Perrotin, Rosen, Shave, Wirth), the Consultant (Cortez, Fletcher, Heller, Segalot, Westreich), the Collector (Brant, Broad, Habsburg, Joannou, Lambert, Lehmann, Lopez, Paz, Pinault, Rothschild Foundation, Saatchi), the Auction House Expert (Cappellazzo, de Pury, Meyer), and the Museum Curator/Director (Dennison, Eccles, Heiss, Lowry, Peyton-Jones).

Rounding up the book are chapters on the year in art collecting—giving a timeline of the most important annual auctions, exhibitions, fairs, etc. around the world—as well as a glossary of terms every art savvy player should know. The text is illustrated by the work of the hottest artists in today’s market, including Matthew Barney, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Damien Hirst, Mike Kelley, Martin Kippenberger, Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami, Richard Serra, Cindy Sherman, Andy Warhol, Lisa Yuskavage, and many more.

All in all, these elements add up to the equivalent of an invaluable and privileged real-world collector’s education—all between the covers of one book.

Genres: Art

298 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Robert Boyd · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book by very wealthy art collector Adam Lindemann. It consists mostly of interviews with high-level blue-chip dealers (I mean, "gallerists"--apparently calling someone who deals art a "dealer" is an insult these days), super-wealthy collectors, art consultants, and auctioneers, with a few museum professionals and one critic. All of them more-or-less agree on the irrelevance of critics. Most are willing to admit that the final judgment of art history might be very different than current tastes would indicate. Nonetheless, these people more-or-less uniformly agree that artwork that sells for a lot of money is, in fact, the best artwork--in other words, that the market decides what is the best art at any given time. None of them would express it this way--it's all about having an "eye." But underlying what they say in their interviews is a belief in price as indicator of quality. This is clearly insane for a bunch of reasons. One is that it devalues critical thought in favor of money. Critics can (and are) often wrong, but at least they are seriously engaged with asthetics. It also assumes that markets are right. These collectors suggest that artist X is great, therefore his work is expensive. But the willingness of collectors to purchase artist X is also why it's expensive. Supply and demand is a pas de deux, after all. And demand can make big mistakes--as we saw when all those institutional investors bought all those CDOs. Second, it excludes artists whose work is not (or cannot) be sold in galleries, in art fairs, and at auction. Performance artists, artists who specialize in public art, lots of "social practice" art, site specific art, etc.

In short, this book is more interesting for what it unintentionally reveals than for its overt content.

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Inside look into the contemporary art market. Occupied with markets, strategies, investment, etc. and not the visceral enjoyment and ecstasy of feeling the art.