You probably aren’t the one who shelled out $66.3 million for that late van Gogh on Tuesday night at Sotheby’s. And the stratosphere of next week’s art auctions at Sotheby’s and Christie’s, with works by Picasso and Giacometti poised to set records, is most likely out of your league too. Still, there are more earthbound ways to get into the art-buying game — at auctions, art fairs, end-of-year student shows and some big open-studio events. The next four weeks present art-buying opportunities galore in New York, with bargains for anyone willing to stray from the beaten path and stay alert. The hunt and its thrills do not have to lead to a giant price tag if you keep a few tips in mind.
The Galleries
GET A MAP New York is a city of multiplying art districts. Explore them. Bushwick and Williamsburg in Brooklyn, and Long Island City in Queens, are well established as alternative art centers. So is the Lower East Side in Manhattan. But artists and galleries also cluster in Greenpoint, Bedford-Stuyvesant and Gowanus, Brooklyn. Gallery Guide, a free booklet with listings of current exhibitions and neighborhood maps, can be found in many galleries. Online, there’s the Chelsea Gallery Map, and for Brooklyn, the monthly guide Wagmag.
CHECK PAST SALES See if the artist you like has a track record. Artnet sells subscriptions to its price database, which has sales from 1,600 auction houses since 1985.
NEGOTIATE The contract between dealer and artist usually includes a clause permitting the dealer to lower the price of an artwork up to a certain percentage, somewhere between 5 and 20 percent. Remember that the artist gets only half of the listed price. The gallery takes the rest.
DON’T TAKE IT PERSONALLY Some of the higher-end galleries can be snooty, forcing you to ask for price information, which should be visible, and assuming you’re not a serious buyer. Leading dealers also like to place their holdings with established collectors to protect the works’ pedigree, so even if you can afford a major painting, a gallery may not want to sell it to you. Don’t sweat it. Just move on to more welcoming galleries.
WORK THE ANGLES For a higher-priced work, a dealer might agree to installment payments.
LOOK FOR THE RED DOT If an artwork on the wall or on the gallery’s price list (which, by law, must be prominently displayed, though often is not) has a red dot, that means it has been sold.
HAVE A PLAN B If the work you want is too expensive, consider smaller works by the same artist, a work on paper rather than an oil painting, an oil-pastel study, an older work or a photograph. And ask to look in the back room. Most dealers will have additional work by an artist they represent.
“Art doesn’t have to be expensive, but it’s important to be out there and see what’s happening. It may take you six months or a year to find what you like.” Judith Selkowitz (art adviser)
The Auctions
HIRE AN ART ADVISER There are plenty of people whose job it is to help you buy art, whether it’s just a few decorative pieces or the beginnings of a serious collection. You can find them through online listings, but it’s better to ask your art-buying acquaintances for their advisers or search for names in news articles about collectors and the art market.
READ AND PREVIEW Do your homework. Study the auction catalog — including price estimates — and visit previews for a close-up look at the art on offer. Set a budget and stick to it.
SIT ON YOUR HANDS Auctions can be overwhelming. There is a show-business element to the proceedings, and big names in attendance. You can’t always tell what’s happening — or who’s bidding. That’s because some buyers prefer anonymity so they bid over the phone or from private boxes above the auction room. Also, the bidding can go fast, with auctioneers throwing out several figures in succession to jump-start the process. When in doubt, just watch.
CLICK, WITH CAUTION There are some great deals online and legitimate outfits getting into the act — Sotheby’s recently held its first auction in a new partnership with eBay, and Christie’s in 2012 sold some of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Art’s collection online. But buyers must beware; the online sphere leaves all sorts of room for specious claims about provenance, condition and value. Paddle8 and Auctionata are considered reputable sites. You need to exercise due diligence on sellers and their claims before you click the bidding button.
LOOK AT THE CLOCK Lisa Dennison, the former chairwoman of Sotheby’s North and South America, advises bargain hunters to look at the day sales, where “you will find works by many of the same artists in the evening sale, at a fraction of the price.”
At Sotheby’s, an untitled 2009 polyurethanic rubber hand by Maurizio Cattelan is estimated at $15,000 to $20,000 in the day sale on Wednesday, whereas that artist’s piece featuring miniature working elevators (also untitled) from 2001 is estimated at $1.2 million to $1.8 million at the sale the previous evening.
“People get sentimental about the first few works of art they buy, or they find them laughable and use them as benchmarks of their early mistakes. But either way, it’s like first love, and one should totally revel in it.” — Amy Cappellazzo (art adviser)
The Students
MASTER’S WORK Art schools in New York present end-of-semester student shows by M.F.A. candidates, a happy hunting ground for inexpensive art. Columbia University’s School of the Arts, the School of Visual Arts, Parsons, Pratt Institute, NYAA and Hunter College all list student shows on their websites. Some are on campus, others in gallery like locations outside the schools, with guest curators.
MAKE AN OFFER Or ask. Student shows are informal, without price lists. The school acts as a go-between and takes no fee, so the artist receives the full price. If it feels awkward to talk money with the artist in person, take a card and discuss money later.
RED-DOT JUNE From January to May, the Art Students League exhibits student work. The best pieces, chosen by faculty members, are included in its Red Dot Exhibition each June.
CHECK WEBSITES Even student artists have websites, usually with images, a biography and an artist’s statement that will offer insights into the work.
The Studios
KNOCK KNOCK Open studios are annual events in art districts like Gowanus, Bushwick and Long Island City. Individual artists, or buildings housing multiple artists’ studios, join forces and hold an open house for a weekend, with maps and websites to aid navigation.
STRATEGIZE YOUR ROUTE Bushwick Open Studios, from June 5 to 7, has grown so large that the festival has been divided into a half-dozen zones, each with its own map, available as a smartphone app or on the Arts in Bushwick website. A print version will be distributed at hub points in the neighborhood. Profiles of the 700 individual artists are online. LIC Arts Open, in Long Island City, from May 13 to 17, also has a guide and map on its website.
DON’T FORGET THE STUDENTS Most art schools, in addition to end-of-semester thesis shows, also hold open studios during the academic year.
ENGAGE The point of an open studio is to let the public see work outside the gallery system and promote dialogue. This is your chance to get the inside scoop on the art and the artist behind it.
BARGAIN The art is for sale. Deals can be struck. Everything is negotiable.
LET YOUR FINGERS DO THE WALKING Artsicle operates a virtual open studio, putting users in contact with more than 5,000 artists in 88 countries.
“Buy fewer, better works of art. Buy the best you can afford. Take your time. There is no art emergency.” — Liz Klein (art adviser)
The Fairs
MORE IS BETTER Half of buying wisely is knowing what’s out there and the going rates. Art fairs make it possible to see the maximum number of galleries and dealers in the minimum amount of time. Exploit this. Frieze New York, on Randalls Island from Thursday through May 17, is easy to reach and fun to navigate.
THINK CHEAP Some fairs, like Spring Masters New York, opening Friday at the Park Avenue Armory, or Frieze serve a rich clientele. Others, like the Affordable Art Fair, every September, or the New Art Dealers Alliance fair, opening on Thursday, offer less expensive work.
SEEK THE SATELLITES Every March, when the big fairs hit New York — the Art Dealers Association of America show and the Armory Show, followed by Asia Week — smaller fish swim in their wake, many of them offering bargains. These include Volta, Pulse New York, Scope, the Independent and the quirky Spring/Break Art Show in Moynihan Station, the former James A. Farley Post Office in Manhattan.
THE LAST-DAY DIP Typically, art at the big fairs is pricey. But when a fair enters its final day, prices can get soft on works that have not moved.
TALK TO DEALERS The same dealers who may be tied up on the phone at their galleries, or are absent entirely, can be approachable and talkative at a fair. This is a golden opportunity to look, ask questions and learn.
DON’T FORGET FESTIVALS Trade fairs command most of the art-buying attention, but events like the Harlem Arts Festival can also present opportunities. Along with a full schedule of performing arts, the festival (June 27 and 28 in Marcus Garvey Park) includes a dozen visual artists with work for sale.
“Ninety percent of the people walking in have no clue what a gallery is all about. They think that I am the artist who painted all the work on the walls. Some of them call and ask if there is a charge to enter the gallery.” — Adriaan Van Der Plas (gallery owner, Lower East Side)
Bonus Tips
ART CAN BE A GOOD INVESTMENT Personal taste aside, art has also proven to be a serious asset class, so you can approach acquisitions from a more bottom-line, business-oriented perspective. Buy time-tested artists whose works continue to appreciate or try to get in on the ground floor of emerging talents who seem — in the press or through word of mouth — poised to take off.
EDUCATE YOUR EYE Go see as much as you can — at galleries, museums and art fairs and by trolling online. The more art you see, the more you will develop clear judgment. Knowledge can help put things in context, but expertise isn’t a prerequisite. Marc Glimcher, president of Pace Gallery, says: “Go to a museum first and see what speaks to you. Identify which thread of art history is meaningful to you before heading to the galleries or the auction.”
THE LONG VIEW Budding collectors shouldn’t just buy what initially captivates them. “Ask yourself how something might look when you know more, how something might look over time,” said Amy Cappellazzo, co-founder of Art Agency, Partners, an art advisory firm. “The best thing to do is put yourself in a position where the first purchase actually challenges you a little — you’re not sure you like something, but you can’t stop looking at it. Imagine your smarter self looking at it in five years.”
GET WHAT YOU LOVE All sorts of people will give all sorts of advice about what to buy and when and where to buy it. But the bottom line is, you have to live with the painting or sculpture or installation, so you should like what it looks like, how it feels to have it in your home. Unless you’re viewing art as a pure financial investment, trust your aesthetic response.
A version of this article appears in print on May 8, 2015, Section C, Page 34 of the New York edition with the headline: How to Buy Art: A Beginner’s Cheat Sheet. Order Reprints
© 2024 The New York Times Company by William Grimes and Robin Pogrebin May 7, 2015
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