Art as an Investment

HumsTheBird.....Edward Muybridge, moving! hehehehe!!!

Light.....its my belief that art objects which rely primarily on concept and not craft will not stand the test of time.....as investment. If the art object is secondary to the concept, how does the object per se, have much investment value?


I would be interested to know what percentage of the current undergraduate curriculum focuses on traditional
drawing, painting, sculpture and printmaking.

Maybe...
I'd probably, maybe, quite possibly collect an Edward Hopper or two.

And a few Pollack's, only a few, and, I'm peaked on Picasso, for a number of reasons. Not a fan of DeKooning, but a very big fan of several sculptors from the Thirties and the Fifties.

Or, are we limited only to purchasing paintings and lithographs with our unlimited funds?

Along another line of collectability, who would have ever known in 1966 that "Rubber Sole" LP was now worth thousands of dollars, and more, if the cover was pristine?

All those hundreds of LPs I gave away, all those years.

shepaints, I was wondering how long it was going to take someone to GET that!

You win!
:wink:

Conceptual art remains primarily displayed in museums and you could be right that it will remain more strictly academic and not be on the market to establish any real apparent market value. Some of it is disposable by its nature and only photographic records remain. However, it's value will undoubtedly increase, at least by the top artists in the genre and if an institution has a lot of money to play with, they're likely to pay through the nose for an important piece in fifty or so years. Craft meaning the method of execution isn't a big factor in how a piece of art is regarded by art aficionados -- it's the impact of the image. The part of craft that is the skill of execution is more important but that's a tough one to call. The abstract expressionists let the paint express itself but there's am importance in composition, form and color that belies the apparent lack of craft. Craft by itself without the inspiration of creating new and original imagery is, well, just craft. Origami is craft.

Rarity in common objects makes them collectible -- but, again, if I'd only known to plunk down under $1,000.00 for a Warhol Campbells Soup can in the 60's! You can't predict the demand -- cartoon cels were being sold for $1.00 at Disneyland in the 60's and suddenly became collectible, driving the price up as much as 100 times! They began to flood the market with manufactured cels (not even cels from a movie!) and graphics and have effectively dropped a bomb on that market. Many people who fancied themselves collectors are now, if they bought for investment, stuck with a white elephant. That's not to say because of computer animation that cels market won't come back, but I feel they have flooded the market to the point where the rarity is difused and the pieces won't be bringing any appreciable return on one's money until the next century! You always have that bugaboo of finding someone who likes and wants a particular piece and that's easier said than done.

BTW, you can be told that an old LP is worth X amount of dollars -- just try to go out and sell it for that! There's a lot of artificiallity and a controlled market where the agent who resells the piece gets a large chuck of the profit. E Bay has been successful to some extent but there are a lot of bargain hunters searching for things on E Bay, hoping someone needs to sell rather than wants to sell.

My buying was not as an investment, sheesh, I was 24 years old what did I know for nothing. My prints have sold at auction in the 90s and 00s so I do have a record of the prices they might bring one sold for $2,800 at Sotheby's London, 1994, I might have paid about $50 for it, Yen was still 360 to the dollar when I purchased, lol. My ex used to write on the mirror every morning, "Yen Is Money".

As far as appraisal well several members of the ASA and dealers in the Asian area are good friends so E-bay is not for me I would take my chances at Sotheby's or Christies or go through a dealer but only to get funds to buy something else. In any case am not selling so the price makes no difference. Actually I have had offers from some folks, but as you know the Asian area is quite small and quality prints in good condition, are in demand by a few collectors. But since I am not selling and do not plan to the question of what they are worth moot.

Art is never a financial investment in my opinion. Art is for enjoying and looking at and getting into when you need a break from the mundane. You are so right LW any art or collectible is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. Maybe someone who has money to through away may purchase something at an outrageous price but that does not support a valuation ever.

Hey, Joanne, I feel like Frodo -- going around in circles! Haven't we always ended up here before? Robert Hughes' point is that art should not be considered an investment and a commodity to be bandied around like so much company stock or pig's butts!

investment
Lightwizard and Shepaints, from your mouths to God's ear--that the $ value of conceptual art will not be lasting and that "the impact of the image" is most important. These two predictions/assertions, if accurate, suggest that even the market might reflect some artistic sanity...in the long run.

Humm, guess so but it is early morn and I have only had one cuppa so I am prone to anything even re-Peets.

Just noticed your quote LW, H.L. Mencken, I love old books. I have a wonderful copy of The American Language ... by Menchen, 1937 edition, I love the smell of old books. I put a discussion in that other site once re Mencken alas I received not response. Maybe I should try it here?

Ah, rePeets! Being a bit wired on Seattle's Best, I'd remember that, wouldn't I?

Conceptual art has its place and it will be in the art history books, but the impact of an art genre can't be measured exclusively by how much someone fifty years from now is willing to pay for it. Otherwise, my art is virtually worthless and I certainly don't feel that way! Creating art is makind's highest accomplishment in my opinion. That politicians seem to be more adept at creating chaos, I don't think that will change anytime soon. They may only appreciate in buying their signature! Certainly, most of them have written nothing of any consequence considering the millions of words that have spilled out of their heads.

investment
LW, it's my guess that conceptual art will have the same kind of long-term impact as will conceptual music. People may be influenced by their theoretical contributions in the future, but will not enjoy seeing or hearing their expressions. It's the SENSUAL impact (the aesthetic power) that will continue to move people--and of course this will be subject to changes in "taste." I also feel that conceptual technicalities will continue to be of interest to the contemporary intellectual workers in art and music, but that their effects on non-theoretically oriented audiences will be only subliminal in nature. In philsophy, we have no Spinozians running around advocating His pronouncements, but Spinoza HAS had an effect on western thought. Similarly, we DO have energetic advocates of contemporary workers like Richard Rorty. But for how long?

Quite right Light, "craft " was a poor choice of words on my part...
Perhaps I should replace it with "technical virtuosity"and that "je ne sais quoi "which transforms a work into art....the involvement of mind, hand and heart of which John Ruskin speaks.

However the lines between craft and art have been blurred by people like Oldenburg, wouldn't you agree?

I am not sure of your point of a few pages ago that it is "unbecoming" for an artist to criticize the work of an important artist. From time immemorial, artists have gathered in caves, cafes, salons, garrets, lofts, studios, after classes and now online to vigorously debate art, artists and issues of art of which affect them.

investment
Yeah, LW!

Kurt Vonnegut's Bluebeard

My favorite art book the best part is that 20 or so years after selling 100s of paintings and making a fortune for the artist all the paint starts falling off the canvases and the collectors/investors want their money back at the current fair market value.

"Bluebird" was brilliant satire, as usual from Vonnegut. That is basically what we have been talking about -- the paint falling off is a metaphor for art that's out of vogue.

Yes, shepaints, technique is important to the artist and not appreciated as much as it perhaps should be. But the way an image is created is still only a means to an end. Detailed, well drawn art can end up being just knitting if the final image has little impact. The conceptual artists desire to shock us in of our perception of reality. If they succeed, it is a great piece of art.
The materials are unimportant but how many people do you know think they have to have an oil on canvas to satisfy what they think they want -- they decide that it's some criteria of quality that they want. Nevermind that the art is static and has nothing more to communicate that a greeting card. One important thing for a representational painter to remember -- a new way of seeing has to be included in the work or it's a failure. That's why using photographs is bad -- the way light burns into an emulsion and shadows work in a photograph is not the way we really see. It's a representation of what we see and flat at that. Not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just has it's place in the realm of art that says "commercial" and "decorative," rather that expanding our mental horizons with exciting new imagery.

Agggg. GLW. I use photos as triggers. My work is not static, many people mention shimmering/movement, and you also often can move through it. It is not flat and it is not at all greeting card. Fie on the idea that you can't use photographs. It is how you use them. Not that I am great, but I am no hack.

Photos are alright as triggers but I'm certain you then put the photos away and not let them bind you to an image. The Barbizon painters decided the only way to paint a landscape was out on location painting what they saw. Studio painters do studies of their locations and then combined them using memory and the natural alteration of their perception of the image. Van Gogh was one of the few on location painters who so severely altered what he saw that one can't believe it isn't entirely out of his imagination (except that it is well known where all these locations exist). I realize that the advent of photography is tempting but it is difficult to not just copy the photograph and not really communicating anything more than what the photographer communicated. One is simply reproducing a photograph. I realize that the NY photorealism school of painting undoubtedly does use photographs and the painter is skilled at making a painting look more like a photograph than the photograph itself. This is done my exagerrating how light burns into an emulsion. That's a complaint some have about digital photography -- it's too representational!

I might add that the important thing is not let photography become a crutch. I've been working on a series of magic realist seascapes and although some input of photographs are undoubtedly planted on my mind, I create the compositions entirely through imaginative processes (they could be oceans from some other world).

Degas used a camera to catch extremely unusual angles for later studio work ......Vermeer used a camera obscura....I believe there is even some discussion as to whether the Great Masters used mirrors to project images of the human form........

Make a rule and an artist will break it......

By the way Happy New Year everyone!