How to Buy Art

good afternoon good afternoon welcome to Art Basel conversations it's wonderful to see so much of you here this conversation is called how to buy art and I welcome all the speakers Phillipe Shepperton yay Herman Stein and Monique Berger the conversation is moderated by Alexander Forbes who is executive editor of Arts in New York and I'll give you lots of details about who our speakers are and get right into it and we're all very excited please join me in welcoming all the speakers thank you very much thank you all for coming just gonna give a brief introduction to our amazing panel today Phillippe furthest from me is the co-founder with Alex more of more Shep NTA the gallery was founded in Paris in 2010 and was presenting in Art Basel statements this week it was one of my personal highlights from the fair Lawrence Abraham Dunn's video installation this whole time there were no land mines which incorporates found footage of the border between the Golan Heights in Syria which is known as a shouting valley Lawrence's practice is emblematic of the gallery's program which focuses on conceptual artists who examine the critical social and political debates of our time and also includes artists such as sadhana thief Julieta Ronda Theresa Margolis and Carlos Mota next to him we have a fan next to him Herman Stein is the co-founder founder and CEO of the prescient group which launched in 1998 it was an investment firm and has since evolved to encompass several additional areas of private wealth management in 2014 Herman founded the Sharon collection with dobbing Chen as a way to contribute to the preservation and growth of the African art market the collection offers an innovative model which I'm sure Herman will be keen to tell us all about a little bit and through which a number of collectors pool resources and are then able to take out a commensurate amount of work into their homes on a rotating basis artist in the collection include among many others Toyota Tola Autobahn makanga each of our onda and last year's Turner Prize winner amid who is exhibiting at our puzzles feature section with Holly Busch Gardens and last but certainly not least Monique Berger is the owner of the Berger collection based in Hong Kong the collection spans over 1,200 artists artworks I should say by European American Indian and Asian artists works in the collection are frequently placed on loan to major institutions worldwide such as Paris Assam Pompidou the MCA Chicago tokyo's Murray Art Museum and the London's Hayward Gallery is supported numerous ambitious projects including Titus khafre's Vesper project and Julian Rosenfeld's manifesto which featured Kate Blanchet Monique recently joined the board of Hong Kong's and plus Museum and has actively supported institutions around the world such as Hong Kong's parasite in Asia art archive the quince Hall is Eric and the Swiss Institute and Asia Society in New York let's have a warm welcome to our panelists so we're here ostensibly today to talk about how to buy art and I'm a bit curious in a second to give get a sense of in the room how many among you are currently collectors or buyers of art okay fair a few artists out there one two three all right and journalists are people otherwise involved in the art trade great so but I thought it'd be interesting to start before getting into the how with the why and hear from each one of you you vote you all come from from very different backgrounds and here why you what first made you just decide to say hey maybe buying art is for me or Philippe I know you were were not always an art dealer and what made you decide that selling art was a good idea maybe we'll start with you well I please forgive my very strong French accent I hope you you will understand me no I we are we are dealers since seven years now and before I add also this experience as a young collector but what we can say from the specific out mark that we're talking not about mass-market we're talking about the boutique market and you don't go to a gallery to an auction as you can go to a shop to look through a shop so it's very important to know to know to know the rules to know how to interact with the key people and to build I think mid term or long term relationships because it's ER it's a market where the trust the reputation the human relationships are really key and I'm particularly interested in hearing how you got so involved in the African art market in particular in supporting young young artists of the African Diaspora I think its first it sort of the market that you sort of more familiar with so you start buying in the market that you know and then understand and as you start buying you realize how little you know and you started researching and once you've looked at the diversity and different mediums that exist in Africa market you're just so drawn into it you just have you almost have to start buying you can't you can't stop and it's not that it's it's not a uniform market different parts of Africa's are different so you get drawn in my how they create dart and I think in when you start looking at buying art you're always looking for the artist who's done something for the first time that didn't it's not a repetition of something else and it seems to be very prevalent in Africa people haven't necessarily all gone through formal education a lot of it has been self-taught self-motivated and you see a lot of new creativity and that just draws you in it's very exciting sort of spice but I was actually very happy when I walked in I was not the only one with the paper in my hands when I was asked to join this conversation how to buy art I said I have to rephrase that question because for me I don't just buy art I buy knowledge awareness joy and daring and I would like to start with a short story because I actually have almost a story to every artwork that we bought did you know that Mahatma Gandhi wrote a letter to Hitler just a few weeks before the Second World War started I had no clue until 2012 when kshitij collapsed and Mumbai based artists told me about it Gandhi begins the letter with the greeting dear friend kshitij describes his correspondence as a plea from a great etiquette of peace to one of the most violent individuals who ever lived the work covering letter is an immense of installation and video projection it is projected onto a traversable curtain of cascading fog Khalid calls attention to the possibilities of peace and tolerance in a world plucked by violence control and surveillance Max and I founded that project and covering letter has been shown in different museums around the world I guess that's a good kind of segue into your funding projects that both of you are also purchasing many artworks but kind of going back to the very beginning of that journey if you think about yourself just getting started maybe on a fairly limited budget or for those in the audience for that who that might be true what's the kind of best single piece of advice or or some rules that you might suggest when when first approaching that journey it's a very difficult one to pose because we have arguments with our friends at home some people buy out because they like the picture and we try and say well there's more to the picture than just looking at it as understanding the artist is where the research it makes your life fuller if you understand more but not everybody has the time or the inclination to do that so the most precious advice you can give us tell people to go visit museums go look at art because if you in wipe in your back of your mind if you buy a piece and you ask yourself can this one day be in a museum doesn't have to be expensive when some or another you are able to judge whether that artwork is a value for yourself that looks good in a few if you think it might end up in a museum that maybe helps you to make a decision I think this is the most difficult question actually to answer you know when you walk to a fair and you see you know so many artworks how can you say this one might end up in a museum I was told by Max : when we decided against building a museum he said Monique you know what good work will always end up in good museums even if you don't have an own museum I think for me it's very important that as I said my knowledge have fun doing it and don't just follow trends because you might end up with what you buy and that's a good thing you know but then better buy something you really like and you have on your walls or in a storage that you go back and look at and it will bring back a story why you got the art piece if I'm curious when you're when you're just working with a new collector who walks into the gallery for the first time maybe hasn't bought their first piece what how do you kind of guide them through that process well you know when the first collect collectors come and when we absolutely don't know em you know we have just to have this first conversation to just to check what is what is this taste what is this personal history what is also this is a relation to as I would say the societies that I guys are the common history and to check what kind of practice medium histories is looking for but that was something also Manik told about the knowledge it's we have a rule we have a modest rule but we have a role as a transmission transmission of knowledge a transmission of artists practice of different geographical scenes so that we have just this small role in the chain but I think essential just to give this idea and then when somebody comes you know really fast if this person will go into your program not we have fantastic relationship with collectors won't be client ever for the gallery or we would have to change a program but doesn't matter we have to produce this collaboration this dialogue and then we we started with young or established collectors with one artist and at the end a couple of years after they were almost buying the entire program until 20 artists following the artists purchasing small work two very key pieces from the artist and from a dealer Porton point of view I think or most important wall is to get access to some collectors to the best pieces of from the artist and this is about time this is about interaction communication and I said previously I think the human factor is key in in this practice if really you are these feelings as that collectors are going to pattern your artists you program to put your artist into museum acquisition committee you will you will go for these long-term partnerships in Munich you mentioned something earlier that I thought was interesting about selecting a gallerist as much as selecting an artist and wonder if you'd share that a bit with with the audience here because I think that that's a it's a factor that people don't think about necessarily as much maybe when you're first getting started out that that can be as as as important of a relationship as with the artists themselves you know my experiences when you start by art it's normally through a gallery art affair comes even later I think my first entry into calorie ended up buying an artwork and it was actually with Eva prison Hoover was very young like me at that time and she made her career and from there I actually met another very young gallerist if davenheim who started her own career about her own kali about two years ago so i worked with her while she was still this Eva Prison Hoover and I'm still not supporting but working with both calories and Eva just decided to you know start her own thing and you know bring her own views and her own young artist to a collective circle yeah we think LEDs are crucial in the process and if you look at the financial markets which II sort of more familiar with is historically CDF and investment managers you have stockbrokers and stockbrokers provide you with a lot of research and you choose a great stockbroker you'll probably end up with better performance and then the galleries do a lot of research for you like bring the information to you and they very accessible it's very difficult for a new collector or new buyer to get access galleries because they feel intimidated I started buying in auctions first you can sit in the back and nobody sees what you're doing but then eventually start getting to know galleries and then that's when you expand your knowledge and they really a research base for you you brought up the financial aspect and I guess that buy at auction it's very easy to know what the price is because if you decide that that's what you want to bid that's what the price is but when you're looking on the primary market side how do you know when the price is right is there are certain things that you look for in the artists CV are there aspects beyond that you is it really just about trust with the gallerist sure there's probably two different types of art art that's being on auction and secondary market so you've got some aggregation and you can look at it it's not gonna be perfect but you can you can look at it and get a guide when you're buying artists that haven't really tried it publicly on the open market secondary market it's very difficult and you have to then look at how the gallery has managed the price of that artwork have they accelerated too much so they're pushing it and you have to get a feeling of the gallerists know what the market can pay for the darkest and maybe specifically from an African contact there's probably some of our African art they can sell for much higher in Europe than in Africa but if you sell it at that price you'll kill the local market which is the dominant so it's it's a very difficult place to pitch the price and you have to the large extent go with the gallerist and trust that they're gonna look off to the artist well Philippe I'm curious to hear from the gallery side especially when you're working with an artist whose prices haven't been that well established how do you go about that process well I think we must be careful because we have seen in the last five years are very young artists without any CV Jewish or in a gallery getting very crazy prices and they were put into auction houses just six months after the production of the pieces which is a disaster for the ecology of the market for the artists for everybody and I think that in this sense a young artist even with the eye trajectory must have surprises and that's something we discussed with the artist with the gallery colleagues we sharing the artists ways and I always talk to my very young artist very ambitious very very very hungry in a way you know to be patient because everything is about patience long-term career and placement into institution into biennial and that very important you can put the price higher for example if one of your artists having a major presentation at Documenta at the Venice Biennial or making sort of show in a museum but you can say after for example a successful solution and after that the price will increase because saying this it's absolutely absolutely stupid so we have to be careful but we have really to check and that's a piece of advice I would give to any new collectors check the CV first and check the practice check our the curators talk to other people too talk even in sometimes to very faithful art advisor or fellow collectors that what you you are to do first specifically go as a young army carried artist do you find that after those really astronomical and very quick price increases that we saw a few years ago that younger artists are expecting their prices to rise more quickly than would be healthy is that is that a this is a thing which happens this in something will happen and we must not forget that there is a discrepancy between some records and the reality of the secondary market so if you're just checking the price every day you're thinking wow it's a fantastic bother in fact it's not that much so we must be all cautious with this and this is also a share war between collectors dealers auction of these curators we must be conscious of this when we can the tiny fan in the market I think things have changed quite dramatically I'm curious if there have been ways if you've renegotiated what you get involved with on a price basis is it based on the project individually are there artists who now you you try to support the project from the outset rather than than by afterwards let me tell the story again about four years ago I got an email from a very young Hong Kong artist who moved to Berlin I sub Chung and he got my name from a professor at Baptist University in Hong Kong and he said why don't you write her so he sent me this letter says I was invited to the Moscow Biennale and they want to show my work and I don't have the money for the train ticket so I called him and I talked to him about the project and I was fascinated and we paid him for the trip and I said what I want in return is a one-pager of explaining the project and some photographs of your experience that has changed because I get in touch with very young artists who are not in the gallery program yet but Isaac now is actually in two shows he just had one work bought by m+ and I was very happy that I was at the time where he just needed money for the train ticket it's a great story Herman I'm actually curious you know your collection you collect privately but you also have the Chiron collection which it is a kind of collective model as I mentioned in the beginning I'm curious if you can walk us through how that works exactly I understand that everyone that's involved has to to agree on the acquisitions that are made I wonder if that's ever limiting if there are things you know that you said you look back on you wish you could have gotten but there was one holdout but really you know walk us through how that that collective collecting model can work I think one of the things that Philip said is talking to fellow collectors to determine if something is worth something and didn't stand it and by having a collector fan and being on the same side is a great advantage so you you just got three minds and we've got a full-time collection manager race you got four Minds looking at a painting looking at an idea looking at the direction you want to go into and it just makes us I think better collectors it gives us a bigger budget we've got more more money to manage the collection was was that takes a lot of effort we started the the sort of collective when we spoke about how difficult it was to manage a collection get everything right the insurance the documentation make sure everything you get from the galleries right if you want to lend it out this a numerous amount of paperwork that has to be done and we couldn't do it on our own so you you put that together and and it's more fun so what we did is we said well we create a sort of a partnership model where everybody can contribute money and art and then we have sort of quarterly contributions to the partnership and so we have a budget that we can spend in a year and then we go out and try and find the art that fits our mandate and our mandate is African contemporary and we do have to all agree the fortunate thing is that our budget is so small there's no limit to it doesn't limit what we do if you look at the prices of the artworks and just yeah anyway you can buy enough with without but just by what you agree and if we disagree any one of us can buy it ourselves and hold it ourself and if but if the collection wants it that's got first priority on not work and then yes because we together we can borrow that to a houses to offices we use it it's as a living collection I think it's an interesting model if you look at kind of broader consumption trends and pick the younger generations being less inclined to to own material goods outright the growth the sharing economy etc and I wonder whether from fully Monique from the collecting side or Philippe if this is something that you think about it all if there are new models that you would consider for for new generations to get involved who might have different priorities they might not want to kind of own things in the way that that current generations have I have another story I'm actually very grateful in what I'm doing and it's important to me to share my passion with friends and family so I started to organize toilets or dinners around the world and in 2016 we just did a special project Lynette kholokov who's actually here in the audience I need go he's very well-known artist from Bulgaria a storyteller par excellence he made a series of 123 drawings called the optimistic stories I have known medica for many years and we have collecting his work with joy but for this particular series I had another idea I wanted to take it apart so he was not very pleased when I told him but after hearing my story he said that's actually a very good idea so all of our friends number one and 123 are in our collection but the other 121 are actually around the world with all of our friends and together we will always be the optimistic stories I'm also looking interested in kind of looking kind of towards the future I guess at how important digital tools and the internet have become on the on the business side on the sales side and also as collectors on the research side do you ever transact online is it as a research tool how important I guess in starting with phillipe from the from the sales side well I think digitalization is something absolutely key now and not only for showing your autism your website on Otzi on Instagram but I can say that since a couple of months we regularly made some sense from artworks we put on or on our Instagram including doing the authors you know people absolutely I even add these very nice things during the armory shown you're presenting huge artwork somebody from Marseille really but who never went to the Armory Show I think we even never went to New York told us well this is a great work just day after the opening and we saw exists you know so it's also important and I must say you have to be in interaction with the works at some point it's very important but one big trend and you can see that all over the fur and the other odd fur is that the iPad has been now key for the sales and and specific for us dealers we are able to set other work from the artists on iPod or two just to make first introduction and this is this is very important then I think when you check the online search for the galleries are not really key in the undertone or at this moment but we can imagine that there is a new generation of characters coming when you talk with you all the colleagues what were to collect a specific in Europe there were people from a certain certain I social level doctors psychiatrists lawyers there were a lot of time to spend with the galleries that went directly to the gallery they were able to make five to ten dollars a year and the new generation is absolutely at working super busy they have no time they're coming in an offer for just five hours so you have to feed them with your social networks with your website with your newsletter including with whatsapp you have to be in touch always with them and that's a new way of of course of feeding collectors and just brochure pursuing this dialogue I think we always want to see our piece before we buy it I mean it might be some well-known artists that we might might look at a picture and say okay we know the series and we'll buy it but we like to see it but where technology does come in is that I can communicate with the other three instantly as we walk around and I'm looking at a 10 we can sort of make decisions I think what's interesting is that in South Africa they've launched to auction houses have launched online auctions and there's been a massive take-up Annette in terms of the volume of artwork and I don't know the exact numbers but I think about three years ago the artworks are selling between two and five thousand brand they're now selling fifty sixty thousand pieces on this so it's definitely moving there's definitely a market in that it's not the market that I'm very active in but it is the Stephanie spice foot and people are moving that and the value of the arts definitely they're sold on the electronic auctions they're online auctions are increasing the only thing I bought ever by image is from works that we have from artists that we already had in the collection that for example I couldn't travel to New York or whatever but I knew already what this artist noted before that otherwise we venture into new media all the time and some of you might know we open our next exhibition this part of the collection in Dusseldorf John yet sir who is the creator of unlimited years well will create our show it's house to see what isn't there he and Johnny explores for our show the deducted he owed to me between presence and absence and for this we invited John Ruffman to do a virtual reality project so I'm daring I have no clue what he will do but the place where we have this exhibition used to be a rocket engine homeboy as it names reveals is military and exists within a history once dominated by the Cold War and so John will actually use that fight and bringing into the museum it offers a new interpretation of the surroundings through virtual reality just a quick thing about digitalization specifically in China and in on Kong where Monica lives a lot of Asian girl we are using which art now and some of our young Asian collectors are really fond of which art and we see all the preview of up as a long corner or other fellow Asian actress and which art so I don't know if you Monica are using this kind of tool right now I use WeChat but still more what's up but when I'm in China it's really be chat but I haven't bought art through which art we use and we have an Instagram account just I mean I had my own I have my own for many years but we had one now for the Burger collection but mostly to you know upload images from the upcoming show the per litter proliferation of WeChat has been unbelievable and I think 9 trillion dollars worth of transactions happened on that platform last year is pretty pretty hard to comprehend and will only see the art world moving there more I guess going you know towards once you've purchased or maybe even as your purchasing I'm curious how what you see your kind of primary responsibilities as collectors you know I think it's it's no secret that small and mid-sized galleries are having a hard I'm of it I'm wondering if that ever comes into your mind and Philippe I want to hear what you think collectors could do more to support those galleries but I wonder if it's if there is this responsibility ever to the ecosystem as a whole if it's really responsibility to the artist if it's to the individual artworks and preserving the collection how you guys kind of negotiate that responsibility level I think everybody starts off buying art and when do you become a collector you know it's not a title you just get my husband and I we started to buy art about 22 years ago and in 2005 I went to the storage and said what have we done and I said you know we have to look at this really seriously because this is not the way to go forward and I traveled around Europe and visited other people that started buying art or called himself already collectors and most of them built museums and I came home and I said I don't think this is the way I want to go not because of I don't think the responsibility but I don't don't want to run the museum I'm a true collector I love to travel I love stories as you can hear and I had to find another way to actually show art this is we are very generous lenders we work with a lot of museums we started doing our own shows we had one in Berlin we had a big show in Hong Kong in a old slaughterhouse and now we do this big project in Dusseldorf I have a team that worked with me it's storage it's logistics it's documentation we do publications it's a real job and I take it seriously even though I don't have a museum I think for a short while I had a gallery with Ilona sitting in the audience and saw how expensive it was to look after artists and the amount of effort that the gallerist puts in to make sure the artists producers work on time doesn't spend all their money arrives in the places and it's it's a difficult job so you need to I think people who buy or collect art have got a responsibility to not bypass the gallery that's number one I'm not trying to be clever and go to the artists directly the galleries has a function to perform and and and needs to needs to perform at function and we need to support them which galleries you choose is a difficult one I think the gallery that discovers thought just should get the support but that's you can't always do that they didn't initially have the reach to take them to other places so it's a difficult decision on how you transition between galleries and then I think that's the best way you can support artists because they will supply the residency's as a collective we do supply residences and we were quite pleased that some of artists have now even appeared in European galleries but not artistic artists that we help the residency's Absa you can't help me but still somebody else mistake them further and again I think galleries play a role and then I think lending art is a big thing we very committed to that we all a nod to any reputable institution that we think will look after it well to display it and share it and in being part of the conversation a lot of state institutions that don't have money or budgets to buy and need support and need to be looked after so you got responsibility to bring them up into this competitive world and Philippe I know from your side I'm sure all of your clients are perfect so I won't ask you to tell stories about them but if you if you had to point to any tendencies that that collectors are buyers I know this is a differentiation that maybe we'll dig into a little bit as well you know whether it's can be lengthy payment periods or hard negotiating or sometimes not paying for works at all or how big of a factor are those for galleries that are just starting out when you're trying to negotiate how to get your artists paid and and pay the bills for the gallery etc I just would like to say that what was said by both airman and Monique was absolutely to that we were talking about more than collecting about social responsibility and what were you doing for the African scene of what Monique is doing with a patronage we're showcasing the artist you purchase into institution into your own space is absolutely fantastic it's key for giving the best promotion to this artist and we were just talking very briefly about this distinction between what our collectors versus buyers and we must say that collectors it's not only purchasing art and what was storage insurance relationship whether absolutely with curators as you do for your upcoming show in Dusseldorf so this is global ecology of the upmarket buyer of course you can make very nice one short sets but you don't really create the future you don't build you don't be really a lot of things unless you have a very high volume of sales made with buyers and well we were not born as a gallery when the crises upon but all are very nice and good colleagues soldiers that 2008-2009 when everything was collapsing they just finally got with collectors and not the buyers buyers all vanished and this girl we was at this time in very high difficulties so this is this is very important to make this distinction and regarding collectors whether with payments with everything when you have a very good relations with your collectors its approach it's a mutual agreement it's absolutely key to give also discount to encourage them to discover more artists to be kind with them to send them all the documentation to make them discovery something else I'm we are at this particular eg to be based in Paris but also in Bogota where as a market on you and where this collecting the invention is totally new and don't take that wrong but not that good educated because it's something you you know in this market twittering ways Columbia is a good example and there the author in Colombia Bogota just after and a week after fiag has been a very good platform for this and they were struggling since the last edition with the quality of dealers from Europe from the United States and I talked to some of the local buyer not collectors well you didn't really support you fur you did not really support these people coming because these people also were bringing new artists from other market but also artists from the local market because you were so long for paying them so you know the best thing you can do with an artists there with so many way to support an artist from supporting promote of production promotion even kindness but most important thing you have to sell your artists so otherwise that won't work so in this way some people have a particle responsibility to AB the gallery to be paid and then to make the ecology of the system work and succeed so that's absolutely key but I was I just come back from rhinoceros when maybe as you know a huge devaluation is happening people are just routing 30 35 % from facing the door and the local collector really decided and they are not that much but there may be 20 to 25 to support local galleries to say well we have to help them to survive otherwise it will be a common disaster for the artists for the art scene for the reputation of Buenos Aires so once again it's linked to the social responsibility were also describing in your box cases before we go to questions from the audience which I think we have a maybe time for one or two more questions beforehand I wanted to ask you guys about mistakes or if whether their impulse buys or things where you look back I liked as you said before you have to you know live with all the things that you bought one of those core things that people will typically say about what makes a good collectors oftentimes not selling work but are there instances where you said this is really doesn't belong in the collection it needs to get sold off do you maintain those works time which I understand can be costly or have you been perfect in everything that you've ever purchased I think we all have this closet and nobody talks about it but that's also the journey of collecting and I think you evolved it's not a mistake but you might not buy this same thing today but I wouldn't be where I'm now with without having done what I've done 20 years ago what we did also we support a lot of charities and I think we have to find a new way because we go to these events and we buy what works that most of the time are not the best ones and overpriced until we finally get it and what do you do with this works you know like they are probably not on the website they are not really part of the collection we like them but we will not have bought them no for the collection so yes we have this corner of artworks that we actually right now think about a way of dealing with it and a way of giving it back is doing another charity or giving them back to a charity to raise funds again yeah that is one giveaway ever thought about that I think I haven't looked back and thought about mistakes but just how your tastes have changed I mean we started buying you buy landscapes well that's something that decorates you all and you like it 10 years later that's not what you want to have anymore okay so so it wasn't a mistake at the time and yesterday we went for a wine tasting and the the sámi I asked you what you smell some strawberries and it says if you smell story thing you're right it's what you smell so would you buy at the time isn't wrong it's just you bought it you've got it and it is an issue what you do is that afterwards and you do have a sort of a stack that builds up but mostly because your taste changes and you développé likes for new things and then you've got a deal with the old art in the collection it's easier we've got a more formal process then what we have in our private and and and they will be a systematic like change in an objective at all result in us maybe selling something and then reinvesting it into art and I just say one more thing if you start with an artist 20 years ago and you keep buying his work because you really want to collect him in death that means that perhaps you have one or two works in the collection that you might might not have bought as a first work but it makes sense to have an overall view of the artists work you open the Florida questions for a few minutes and we have many many more for the panel but want to give a chance for everybody to answer the question better ask the questions that they have in the audience a show of hands and someone will come over to you with a microphone it's a question over here what are red flags for you when you buy into a new artist what what wouldn't you buy it the first thing will you have to do some research and there's Felipe's it you have to like think about art there's a knife if the artist is copying something it already exists I think that's what we weren't by and we all say oh no that's it's not copying it to plagiarize he's just not got an original creative thing and he's putting on a piece of paper or she's putting on so there that's what I'll avoid oh I have to see if it's if it's unique is it new is it really something like that or just created themselves if I can't if I can't find that then all they don't leave it I think for me if it doesn't fit into what I'm collecting knowledge awareness joy and daring I really don't have an example for that you know like I think I never had red flags it's just like something I really don't like or it doesn't trigger something in me hi I wanted to get your view on what they say top three biggest hurdles for collectors are or problems because I'm working on a project connecting collectors and artists I wanted to get your view on what you think from the perspective of a dealer or a collector what the biggest issues are which you have resolved or are left unresolved just to get a view of things true it's having structure is the biggest hurdle is you there's so much that one likes that you can buy and a shotgun approach and the end of the day what if you really put together so if you're building a collection it must be some reason to pull that collection so you need to find the structure and that's very difficult you walk around the Art Fair and you see things that and you might end up buying it and you get home and say well that doesn't fit into the direction that we were going into so it did that is the biggest and most difficult thing to do is define your collection and define what the structure is do you maybe have cornerstones which you put down pillars and then you collect around that or you correcting themes but you must get that right once you've got that right your decision-making becomes a bit easier we are so different I don't have a direction I'm totally led by intuition but it really depends if it's your own collection follow your instinct don't just follow trends you know pick words like I I use my for and if they fit them look around you know and be diverse but that's why private collections are interesting because they're also very different find your own language and then collect what fits that language I think all four something's about for new buyers one of the things that and I'm curious to get your guys thoughts on but even the language of the art world the exclusivity of it the the way that it's been formulated sometimes can be difficult for people to even just feel comfortable walking in the door the first time so I'm curious what we can do to help newer people that that might find the art world intimidating get comfortable buying because there's certainly a lot more people with the capacity financially to buy art and are buying art today well at first sight that could be intimidating for a lot of people specifically with the gallery world and with the adverse and in this way the author has been fantastic platform to discover very different program and not to get this first complicated approach and I would say that a couple of to three decades ago that was absolutely something very small I think in Paris were talking about less than 100 collectors so that was a very small cycle and if you check at the galleries based in Paris we were talking for just contemporary art about 20 to 25 dealers but we had all I think experience is big shift and I would say that through social networks through all the information you can get coming to the gallery coming to the fur isn't absolutely less intimidating but I just have a piece of advice just be ambitious and don't be shy come I think huge majority of dealers are really welcome new people coming it's also very important because coming from a French point of view were friends is also a conservative country you don't have that new generation coming and this is something we have to encourage new people coming and collectors and I think that was you both experienced you just purchase first a couple of years ago long time ago the first work a second work I even remember when I just purchased my first work now it seems to be a disaster but I was 16 years old and this I'm not a shame of this it's collecting is a result of personal history and you cannot very device thank devised dimension of collecting Monique is explaining that it's something linked to intuition a man is do structuring something very different but at the end at the end after all these years of collecting you will see that at the end you had even a circuit structure 123 drawings that I that we gave away to a circle of friends they were actually all very young people in their mid twenties and most of them are not collectors yet but I think this initiative I opened that door that they kind of are part of a bigger work and they got to know that coffee made a movie out of this and it was almost like a little initiative to get them into being interested in being bold and willing to go to galleries and art shows or graduation shows I think is also like a very nice way of you know seeing really really you know new works question there yes you've been giving wonderful advice and you had expressed sort of a litmus test with this piece of art being a museum and you had mentioned a final piece of it don't forget to ask for the CV for a new artist are there similar litmus tests or questions we should ask to a new gallery or someone new who's representing an artist that we meet we always got drawn to a gallery because of the artist at the heart and then we got to know the gallery not we never went to meet the gallery's first and then and then see what our to have so I don't think I've ever done it that way around so I think you and I have artists they automatically have some some history to say God not and then it's not so difficult to do to look at the catalyst and at the end of the day they are honest people and it's honest people and that you only find out by overtime now so I don't god I haven't even looked for a gallerist I've looked for art and then found the gallerists yeah I think this is very true it's very much about people so if you enter a gallery that you have never been in to meet the galleries talk to him about you know his journey how he became a gallerist and see how that feels because I think with all the guys I've been working with I still have a very good relationship and they became like families the same thing that's artists so it's really a personal approach I manage a you're not know ferm between Paris and London and I get quite a lot of collectors coming to me so high net worth individuals or just upper middle class people have decided to invest in Chinese art and stuff like that and usually they have issues with the work of art which arrives after the transportation or organised by the gallery which is shattered in pcs and the gallery says well what insurance well I mean how come you didn't take an interest stuff like that or the report from the Viet the auction house was not the representative of the state of the art work and therefore via my client doesn't want to pay because he doesn't he's been a victim of misrepresentation etc etc so right now during this whole conversation we had you looked very much into the curating aspect and the creative part of it so how do you select artists are do you select galleries but I mean it seems that galleries do not want to enter into contract we just give invoices to buyers hardly ever any terms and conditions which baffles me totally baffles me and also auction houses seem to be you know on the fringes of very having a very borderline also process in terms of taking up a responsibility so very very often ends up in court because we try to the mediation but forget it they won't mediate so how how do you protect yourself against that how what what are your what is your sort of Streamlight rigorous process to make sure that you will have proper warranty certificate of of that this is you know the proper artwork and that you have guaranteed provenance and also that during transportation if something happens to the artwork you will get a refund or a replacement how do you protect yourself against all that Thanks that's why we need to do that we need a few people to contribute I think we sign they wanted to accept since we've signed a contact with every single gallery we bought from what we can do with art after we bought it can we use it for this the copyright always remains that of the artists now can we put it in a brochure or go auntie transport we make sure we ensured there's always issues with that we have so far not had any damage that we had to really go and do what we have done is transport people putting the wrong price on the tag and then the import duty is wrong and then who pays that who pays the penalty for that so fortunately we have we've had good agreements with gallerists I haven't I haven't had a problem with him refusing to do that it's not a very onerous agreement but it's just a very clear agreement that this is what we can do without this is what and how it gets to us and the expectation that we have with the gallery the other way if we ever would work to sell art we will go back to the gallery and we will talk to the gallery so that it's a two-way street if you you dealing with the gallery in that way they all deal back with you in the right way well you'd majority of for colleague of the gallery are absolutely very professional giving invoices signing contract taking in servants absolutely coordinating all the shipping issues so I know that everybody in his life just other bad experience and we have absolutely don't condemn all bad practice and we have also to contain all backtracked is coming also from the collecting dimension because it's also happened to a people just concerning your work six months after having taken it but what we do in Paris in the French committee is that we have specific rules and once a year or once to your we have to exclude a member we were not able to fulfill Suzie's rules but this is something I would say very were register facing very honest people in both side collectors and galleries I think that's all we have time for but thank you three so much for your time and thank you all for coming to this evening you [Applause]

Channel: Art Basel

Views: 11,697

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Keywords: Art Basel, Art Basel in Basel, Art Basel in Miami Beach, Art Basel in Hong Kong, Art Basel Conversations, How to Buy Art, mor charpentier, Burger Collection, Schreyn Art Collection, Art Basel Basel, Art Basel Miami Beach, Art Basel Hong Kong, Art, Contemporary Art, Talks, Conversations, Art Collecting, Artsy

Id: UbWEG1LctfI

Length: 55min 7sec (3307 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 25 2018