What should you look for when considering adding to your art collection? This post contains an excerpt from a paper about the art market that I wrote during my MFA studies at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art with co-authors Matthew Craig and Brandon Dean. The excerpt, denoted by quotation marks, is followed by examples of how the principles apply to my own artwork.
“Being an artist in a capitalist society means being aware that sustainability of one’s practice and economic viability go hand in hand. A painting can’t be made without resources, and even the most ephemeral ideas require capital in the form of time and intellectual energy. Our initial interest in the art market has a great deal to do with the nature of our education. In an effort to instill some sense of creative autonomy, educational institutions predominantly eliminate any discourse regarding the market, which includes the topics of pricing, marketability, and other practical aspects of creating an economically sustainable practice.
It is difficult to price a work of art due to a lack of reliance on quantifiable values. In her book, The Picasso Papers, Rosalind Krause posits that Picasso eliminated the gold standard in art by transforming everyday, nearly worthless materials, such as the newspapers he utilized in his collages, into extremely valuable objects.
Indeed, Picasso is the very model of the inflationary artist, not simply because prices for his work seem to be on a dizzying spiral ever upwards, but because as the great prestidigitator, the wizard who turns the debris around him- newspaper, withered leaves, bicycle parts- to creative account, he has been raised to the level of a Midas whose every touch is golden. The price of this “inflation” has been to forget that the “light” or “air is substantially different from the expensive mining of past art in service to the laws of pastiche, by which the linguistic coin of purity is re-minted as the economic bonanza of the aesthetic fake. (Krause 21)
Though Picasso may have been the first to use collage, he was not the first person to transform materials of little importance into culturally significant, very expensive pieces of art. However, a far greater percentage of ephemeral work or art made of commonplace materials is discarded, destroyed, and forgotten.
Since it is possible to make a priceless, seminal work of art out of worthless materials, the price of the materials is not necessarily a valid benchmark when determining market value of art. Of course, there are some instances in which cost of materials is a much more obvious component that must be considered when pricing art. A notorious example is Damien Hirst’s sculpture “For the Love of God,” a life-size platinum human skull encrusted in diamonds. Platinum and diamonds have concrete market values and are symbolic of the opulence the only the wealthy elite can afford. Even if the cost of labor and the brand of the artist were not a factor, the piece is made of inherently valuable materials.
It is much more difficult to validate the value judgments involved in pricing an ephemeral piece of art or a work that may not appear to have taken much time or effort to construct. As abstract concepts, cost is easier to define than quality. The art market operates on “…an economy of belief. ‘Art is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it’ is the operating cliché.” (Thornton 11)
In Sarah Thornton’s book Seven Days in the Art World, she offers a perfect example of the tenuous relationship between quality and market value in art. Thornton explains that, when art is appraised and auctioned, “Primary concern is not for the meaning of the artwork, but its unique selling points, which tend to fetishize the earliest traces of the artist’s brand or signature style.” It may take decades for an artist to develop a signature style fully. In art as with most things, the first efforts indicative of the artist’s trademarks could possibly not be the most successful. However, due to the value placed on the earliest evidence of the artist’s brand, clumsy pieces may fetch much higher prices than more nuanced, carefully crafted later work of higher quality.”
For example, in my own work, early paintings of water or pieces that include intricate linear networks are more valuable, as are pieces belonging to limited series.
This 36″ x 60″ oil on canvas, circa 2004, is the first painting I made of a pool of any sort, and an early water painting. It is also one of three surviving paintings I’ve made depicting my childhood home.
Series that contain very few pieces include capillary exchange drawings,
“Capillary Exchange 1,” Overall Dimensions: 14″W x 3.5″D x 21.75″H, transparency on vintage x-ray illumination light box, 2006
paintings containing Braille,
“So much more than night,” 44″ x 26″ oil on canvas, 2008.
and paintings of swimming pools, so those pieces are more valuable. 
“Flipturn,” 36″ x 24″ oil on canvas, 2010. This was one of the earliest competitive swimming paintings, all of which were made 2010-2011.
I have also stopped making paintings with brick dust, except for occasional commissions, because it is not good for my long-term respiratory health to have a studio covered in a fine layer of potentially toxic particulates.
“Blue Brick Wall,” 14″ x 11,” hand-crushed brick, oil paint, and wax on panel, 2017.
“Requiem for a Capsized Mars Rover,” 36″ x 24″ brick dust, oil, and wax on canvas, circa 2012.
Of course at the end of the day you should collect artwork because it speaks to you. As much as I like to think of my artwork as an appreciating investment, it is more important to me that it has loving homes. If you purchase artwork and it ends up being worth millions of dollars decades from now, that is fantastic for everyone involved. If that doesn’t happen, you still end up with a piece you enjoy, you’ve supported a living artist, and your home or place of business is far classier than that of your colleagues with their IKEA prints.
Contact me if you are interested in adding my work to your collection.