Shopping for art

With art fever in Jozi this week, we asked the likes of Sean O’Toole, Marianne Fassler, Ross Douglas, Roelof Petrus van Wyk, Joost Bosland, Jonathan Garnham, Fiona Mauchan, Gavin Rooke, Justin Rhodes and Michelle Constant: how do you start an art collection?

This week in Joburg is art, wall-to-wall, floor-to-floor. The FNB Joburg Art Fair kicks off on Thursday 6 September and the Joburg Fringe festival on Wednesday 5 September. That doesn’t even begin to cover all the subsidiary events taking place.

How to navigate one’s way through this visual onslaught? Not to mention overcoming the feeling of intimidation that can come with sometimes difficult-to-understand art and, perhaps, know-it-all snobby art people?

Short of a brief history of South African art and critical thinking, we decided on a quirkier route, inspired by pop-economist Tyler Cowen. In his book, Discover Your Inner Economist, Tyler describes how we can “incentivise” ourselves to go to art museums and galleries by pretending we’re going shopping.

Of course, at the Joburg Art Fair, you really can put your money where your eyes lay to rest. So, real or imaginary bank balance, we asked a few experts about how to shop for art.

Ross Douglas

Director of the FNB Joburg Art Fair, www.fnbjoburgartfair.co.za

1. What advice would you give to someone thinking about buying their first piece of art?
Form a relationship with a gallery, take your time, speak to the artist if possible and, finally, buy what you like.

2. What is the most common mistake when starting a personal art collection?
Buying too hastily. Building a decent collection takes time, it is not going to be achieved in a couple of years. Also avoid buying inferior work or large editions from well-known artists.

3. How can someone quantify the financial value of their art collection?
Through the auction houses, by following auction prices for similar works.

4. Which young artist should collectors be keeping their eye on at the moment?
Kudzanai Chiurai, the recent winner of the FNB Joburg Art Prize, and Nicholas Hlobo, who has made it big internationally.  

5. What are you looking forward to the most at the Joburg Art Fair this year?
To see the work that the galleries are showing and to see the public interact with the art. To interact with international guests, including Elvira Dyangani Ose, a curator at the Tate Modern, and Dan Leers, a curator from New York who is curating African art in Venice next year.

Sean O’Toole

Art critic and writer

1. What advice would you give to someone thinking about buying their first piece of art?
Two options: dive in, and assess the mistakes later, which is not an uncommon tack and how many of the big international collectors started; or go to a couple of exhibitions, speak to artists, latterly their dealers, then go to some more exhibitions, look, listen and read, repeat this process, then start buying – modestly, or with wild abandon. Either way, you’re bound to revise your earliest purchases, adding new work that complements or challenges that key first piece.

2. What is the most common mistake when starting a personal art collection?
Thinking it will function as a retirement policy for you or the kids. It won’t, and the instances where it does are the exception rather than the rule. Favour pleasure and an open-ended critical intelligence over fashion, and what the whisperers in magazines and newspapers recommend as the right buy.

3. How can someone quantify the financial value of their art collection?
There are many consultants, mainly second market dealers and auctioneers, whose business it is to assess and appraise collections. Expect to pay a consultation fee for the labour. It is the most reliable system. The internet, while good for research, doesn’t have an eye neither a sense of our market, which is still a closed one, not as transnational as the press might give the impression.

4. Which young artist should collectors be keeping their eye on at the moment?
Mohau Modisakeng and Beth Armstrong, both at the start of their careers, also Chad Rossouw, whose photographic work exploring fictional narratives will doubtlessly be snapped up by a savvy collector. I would also keep an eye on the artists appearing on shows curated by Clare Butcher, a dynamic young curator headed big places.

5. What are you looking forward to at the Johannesburg Art Fair this year?
Hearing Elvira Dyangani Ose, the Tate Modern curator with a focus on Africa, speak. She will talk about Rencontres Picha 2013, the third edition of the Biennial de Lubumbashi in DRC. Also the launch party for über(W)unden: Art in Troubled Times, a new book that I co-edited with Lien Heidenreich-Seleme, on Friday 7 September. João Orecchia and the BLK JKS sound-system will be making all the right noises for us.

Joost Bosland

Director at Stevenson, www.stevenson.info

1. What advice would you give to someone thinking about buying their first piece of art?
Spend a year just looking and buying books.

2. What is the most common mistake when starting a personal art collection?
Buying art too quickly.

3. How can someone quantify the financial value of their art collection?
You can ask the galleries from whom you have bought work to give you estimated values, perhaps every two years.  This would be a reasonable insurance value.

4. Which young artist should collectors be keeping their eye on at the moment?
Athi Patra-Ruga, Zander Blom and Serge Nitegeka. But I would caution against only looking at young artists. One can find affordable works on paper by Peter Clarke, David Koloane and Penny Siopis too, and those artists have already proven their art historical importance.

5. What will you be showing at the Johannesburg Art Fair this year?
We will show Paul Edmunds and Michael MacGarry. Zanele Muholi, Pieter Hugo and Deborah Poynton will all be present through special projects. That said, anyone serious about collecting, even in a small way, should regularly visit the actual spaces of Goodman, Stevenson, Whatiftheworld, Brundyn+Gonsalvez, Blank, etc. There is something about seeing a considered gallery show that can never be replicated at a fair.

Marianne Fassler

Fashion designer and art collector, www.mariannefassler.co.za

1. What advice would you give to someone thinking about buying their first piece of art?
Remember that one does not buy art because you have money to spare.  You buy art because you cannot live without it.  Also, do your research, befriend artists, go to openings.  Get to know who the good artists are, and always buy the best piece you can possibly afford.

2. What is the most common mistake when starting a personal art collection?
The biggest mistake is to buy because somebody tells you it is a good investment. You should inform yourself, look at more accessible works by well-known artists. Buy an etching or a good verified print or even start collecting photography. It is usually cheaper and certainly much cooler than most paintings on offer. You can get good pieces at auction, but be informed before you bid and only buy (and pay) what you really want.

3.  How can someone quantify the financial value of their art collection?
Firstly I think that should not be the primary reason for collecting art. Paintings are not shares.  One should not buy and sell willy-nilly.  You should love the work.  But, having said that, once the work is on the wall it helps to get a specialist to value your collection for insurance purposes.  It is also sometimes useful to trade pieces from your collection to buy perhaps a different one from the same gallery.

4. Which young artist should collectors be keeping their eye on at the moment?
All South African photographers are collectable at the moment. I love Cedric Nunn. He won the FNB Art Prize last year. There are also great signed prints by well-known artists available at David Krut Gallery and it is often amazing just how reasonable some contemporary works are when they come on auction.

5. What will you be looking out for at the Johannesburg Art Fair this year?
I am interested in the work of Brigit Baker. She will be showing this year, and we already own a great work by Kudzanai Chiurai, this year’s winner of the FNB Art Prize.

Roelof Petrus van Wyk

Artist and art collector, roelofvanwyk.wordpress.com

1. What advice would you give to someone thinking about buying their first piece of art?
You already like the work of art, which is why you are asking this question. So, do your research – read about the artist, understand the artist’s trajectory, which art dealer is representing the artist and what is his reputation. Then make an inspired but pragmatic decision.

2. What is the most common mistake when starting a personal art collection?
Lack of vision for the collection. Decide what you are collecting, perhaps focus on a certain genre like printmaking or sculpture and educate yourself on it, or focus on a certain set of artists like “young painters”, and follow and support them through thick and thin.

3. How can someone quantify the financial value of their art collection?
Get a professional to do it. Then insure it.

4. Which young artist should collectors be keeping their eye on at the moment?
Abri de Swardt. A collagist from Stellenbosch who is now completing his Masters degree at Goldsmiths in London. 

5. What will you be showing at the Johannesburg Art Fair this year?
The Jong Afrikaner – a self-portrait special edition book courtesy of Fourthwall Books. Each book contains a limited-edition print.

Gavin Rooke

Owner of Rooke Gallery, rookegallery.com

1.What advice would you give to someone thinking about buying their first piece of art?
While it is daunting, one’s first art purchase should be much like the choice of a partner. Don’t choose a piece that will do little more than impress your friends. It will be a short relationship. Rather choose a more challenging piece that both interests you (in any which way), and will over time reveal more and more of itself to you.

2. What is the most common mistake when starting a personal art collection?
Don’t assume that the work to buy is the work that can be sold. You will invariably not sell the work you buy, and probably only sell the work you do not like. So buy the work to keep – assuming upfront that it will never be sold. Then decide what you wish to invest in – and consider that the return will seldom be financial.   

3. How can someone quantify the financial value of their art collection?
There are obvious measures such as having one’s collection formally valued by a consultant. Such valuations tend to yield more accurate information if the work you hold is by an artists that appears on the auction market. Since a small percentage of artists appear on auction, a more accurate valuation is perhaps a measure of the distance your mind leaps each time you look at it.

4. Which young artist should collectors be keeping their eye on at the moment?
Zander Blom is an artist of our time. He is represented by Michael Stevenson. Also consider the likes of a portfolio – where a single purchase provides you with a curated collection of works. A suggestion would be our iJusi Portfolio #2 that includes eight top South African artists for a fraction of their individual cost.

5. What will you be showing at the Johannesburg Art Fair this year?
I have decided it’s time to celebrate master craftsmen who have achieved a certain level in their craft that elevates their work to that of an art. I will be showing a portfolio of surfboards shaped by Spider Murphy, working in collaboration with a range of contemporary artists. We are all working class, but some of us achieve a certain class in our work – and that is what this project is all about.

Justin Rhodes

Director of Whatiftheworld gallery, www.whatiftheworld.com

1. What advice would you give to someone thinking about buying their first piece of art?
Save up and buy something significant or an important work by an artist rather than a multiple, edition or less strong work.

2. What is the most common mistake when starting a personal art collection?
Not doing proper research about the artist or not buying from a reputable gallery.

3. How can someone quantify the financial value of their art collection?
There are a number of ways, but I think the best way would be to speak to an expert or a specialty art insurance assessor.

4. Which young artist should collectors be keeping their eye on at the moment?
Athi-Patra Ruga

5. What will you be showing at the Johannesburg Art Fair this year?
New works by Julia Rosa Clark, John Murray, Dan Halter, Athi-Patra Ruga, Maja Marx, Janet Werner, Michael Taylor and Lyndi Sales. We are also doing a special collaboration with Warren Editions print studio so we will have a selection of works on paper in our print drawers.

Fiona Mauchan

Gallery manager at BRUNDYN + GONSALVES, www.brundyngonsalves.com

1. What advice would you give to someone thinking about buying their first piece of art?
Research, research, research.

2. What is the most common mistake when starting a personal art collection?
The most important thing you can do is to educate yourself. There is no right or wrong when collecting, but a strong collection has an identity and is based on knowledge and dialogue.

3. How can someone quantify the financial value of their art collection?
It is idealistic to think that it is possible to accurately quantify the financial value of an art collection. Its greatest value is found in its guiding philosophy and the meaningful dialogue it informs.

4. Which young artist should collectors be keeping their eye on at the moment?
Chad Rossouw

5. What will you be showing at the Johannesburg Art Fair this year?
We are showing new photographic works by Mohau Modisakeng and Carla Liesching, and sculptural works by Beth Armstrong.

Jonathan Garnham

Director of blank projects, www.blankprojects.com

1. What advice would you give to someone thinking about buying their first piece of art?
I would advise them to cultivate an interest in contemporary art by going to exhibitions and reading about art, speaking to gallerists and artists, and then buying something that they really like, possibly a work by a younger artist that offers good value.

2. What is the most common mistake when starting a personal art collection?
Not informing yourself enough about contemporary art. It is better to make informed decisions about starting a collection and developing that interest can be fun.

3. How can someone quantify the financial value of their art collection?

There are appraisers who could give you an accurate valuation, but I think the true value lies in the pleasure you derive from living with and growing your collection.

4. Which young artists should collectors be keeping their eye on at the moment?
Jan-Henri Booyens, Igshaan Adams, Donna Kukama and Jaco van Schalkwyk.

5. What will you be showing at the Johannesburg Art Fair this year?
blank projects has chosen to show at the Art Berlin Contemporary Fair instead of the Joburg Art Fair this year. We’ll be taking works of James Webb to Berlin, but works by our artists Kyle Moreland, Igshaan Adams and James Webb will be featured at the Business Day Wanted’s Young African Artist lounge at the Joburg Art Fair.

Michelle Constant

CEO at Business and Arts South Africa, www.basa.co.za

1. What advice would you give to someone thinking about buying their first piece of art?  
Not every work of art you buy will be a financial investment, but it will always be a personal investment if you choose something you love.

2. What is the most common mistake when starting a personal art collection?
Assuming that the work will have great financial value in 10 years time.

3. How can someone quantify the financial value of their art collection?
I would approach curators, gallerists and auctioneers for advice on this.

4. Which young artist should collectors be keeping their eye on at the moment?
I am still loving photographer Daniel Naude’s landscapes with animals (Stevenson Gallery).

5. What are you looking forward to at this year’s Johannesburg Art Fair?  
Unfortunately I won’t be in the country for this year’s fair, but I always love the opportunity to take the temperature of the art world when I attend.  And I love the networking opportunity!