{"id":29647,"date":"2018-08-01T13:30:41","date_gmt":"2018-08-01T13:30:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artzealous.com\/?p=29647"},"modified":"2018-08-01T13:47:01","modified_gmt":"2018-08-01T13:47:01","slug":"ask-the-collector-with-holly-hager-collecting-101-know-your-artists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/ask-the-collector-with-holly-hager-collecting-101-know-your-artists\/","title":{"rendered":"Ask the Collector With Holly Hager Collecting 101\u2014Know your Artists"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you want to buy art you\u2019ll be happy with for a lifetime, you\u2019ll need to do some research.<\/span><\/p>\n

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I know the word \u2018research\u2019 just made you want to swipe left, but stay with me because researching art is like \u201cresearching\u201d the next pair of shoes you\u2019re gonna buy.<\/span><\/p>\n

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If a work is well within your impulse threshold and you absolutely love it (like the oil painting by Li Li in my dining room), you can always just take it home.<\/span>\u00a0If you want to be sure you\u2019re happy (or you\u2019re dropping some serious cash), learn about the artist before you buy. You don\u2019t have to read lots of impenetrable prose. Dave Hickey, one of my favorite critics, put it best, \u201cArt isn\u2019t a spectator sport, you have to show up.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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Go to museums, art galleries, and fairs. Seeing art online is a great way to build your image bank, but it\u2019s never the same as experiencing it in person. <\/span>The cool thing about seeing art at a gallery or a fair is that you can get much closer to the artwork than you can in a museum. You can see the depth of a collage, the chiseling of a sculpture, and all the other marks that reveal how the artist\u2019s hand touched the piece. Sometimes, they\u2019ll even tell <\/span>you<\/span><\/i> to touch it!<\/span><\/p>\n

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The other fantastic thing about galleries and fairs is that you can ask about the art. That\u2019s what I mean by research. If a work hits you in the gut, find out why. You can cut through the intimidation factor with a simple question like \u201cCould you tell me about this work?\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

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Asking isn\u2019t committing to buy, and everyone likes to give advice. Most gallerists are enormously knowledgeable. The key is to let them know that you\u2019re interested in their program. When someone is showing an artist\u2019s work, they\u2019re emotionally invested in it, they really want to tell you about it.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Ask questions like, \u201cWhat\u2019s the artist saying in this piece?\u201d or \u201cWhat\u2019s this artist\u2019s practice about?\u201d Focus on why the artist makes their work. When the answers hit you even harder, you\u2019re onto something good.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Then ask if you can see the gallery\u2019s press release about the artist\u2019s work, the artist\u2019s statement, and their CV (<\/span>curriculum vitae<\/span><\/i>\u2014art\u2019s version of a resume). You\u2019re likely to run into some $5 words here, but that\u2019s because critics, curators, and serious collectors use this information to assess the importance of the art-world stamps of approval the artist has earned. Once you get familiar with them, they\u2019ll help you figure out whether the price of the work is fair.<\/span><\/p>\n

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If the artist has an MFA (Master of Fine Arts), that\u2019s a big stamp of approval. Since art is so subjective, the importance of a degree also depends a lot on the prestige of the art school they went to. You\u2019ll learn to recognize those, too\u2014like the Rhode Island School of Desig<\/a>n (RISD), which is one of the best. An artist\u2019s CV isn\u2019t everything, but it\u2019s a good indicator of what people who really know art think about the artist you\u2019re looking at.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Next, read the gallery\u2019s press release and\/or the artist\u2019s statement. Both are just a few paragraphs long. Compare what\u2019s been written about it with the artwork in front of you. <\/span><\/p>\n

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This is when the art-world maxim \u201cbuy with your eyes, not your ears\u201d really kicks in. If the work doesn\u2019t resonate with you emotionally, five paragraphs of fancy prose don\u2019t matter. Always trust your gut. No matter what anyone says, if you don\u2019t have an \u201caha\u201d moment about the work, then the piece isn\u2019t for you.<\/span>\u00a0If the work keeps hitting you in the gut, ask if you can meet the artist\u2014preferably at their studio. Studio visits are when I see the world through the artist\u2019s eyes most clearly, and that\u2019s what art is all about.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\"\"
Terracotta Daughter #1 Haoping<\/em> by Prune Nourry on guard at our front door<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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One of my favorite works, our Terracotta Daughter<\/em>, came to us through a studio visit. I was flipping through images on a friend\u2019s iPad when I first saw Prune Nourry\u2019s<\/a> work. It was love at first sight. My friend put us in touch, and I met her at her studio in Brooklyn. <\/span>Nourry and I bonded over our interest in the gender imbalance caused by China\u2019s one-child policy. (Yep, big nerds. I studied gender in grad school.) The one-child policy and a cultural preference for males have created a lack of women in China. Ultrasounds were used to terminate pregnancies and female babies were abandoned at orphanages. The horrific unintended consequences include increased sex trafficking and kidnappings. <\/span><\/p>\n

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To explore the issue, Nourry spent months in China learning how the Terracotta Warriors were made. These antiquities are, understandably, a huge source of pride for China. Nourry used their symbolism to honor Chinese girls by sculpting them in the likeness of the Warriors, but she didn\u2019t stop there. She found the eight orphan girls who served as the basis for her army of 116 through an NGO. Then her gallery gave up their normal commission for the original eight sculptures to pay for three years of education for each of the girls. She also buried her army on the grounds of a museum. They\u2019ll be dug up in 2030 when the gender imbalance is projected to be at its worst.<\/span><\/p>\n

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We spent hours that day talking and looking at her work. It was magical. I discovered a kindred spirit, and I gained a much deeper understanding of her intent than I ever could have from someone else in another setting.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The time I\u2019ve spent with Prune in her studio has forever enhanced my experience of her work. When I walked among her army in Paris, she made me realize another unintended consequence of the one-child policy. Through adoptions, China has literally sent an army of girls out into the rest of the world. That realization was especially mind-blowing because I didn\u2019t just read or hear it. Prune made me experience it, and who knows how it\u2019ll change us all.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Only an artist can give you that.<\/span><\/p>\n

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top image \/\/\u00a0A Little Something by Li Li<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Holly<\/span>\u00a0Hager<\/span>\u00a0is an art collector and the founder of\u00a0<\/em><\/span>Curatious<\/a><\/em>. Previously an author and a professor, she now dedicates herself full-time to help artists make a living from their art by making the joys of art more accessible to everyone.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you want to buy art you\u2019ll be happy with for a lifetime<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":29648,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,23,11,21,13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29647"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}