Considerations relating to the purchasing of  contemporary art

Hunter¹ provides a list of criteria to consider when acquiring a work of contemporary art.

Checklist for Buying Contemporary Art

• Do you have a sense of what the artist is trying to do, how original the work is, and where it fits into the contemporary art scene?
• If you are concerned about investment, does the artist have awards, exhibitions, or other career accomplishments?   Does he or she have a dealer yet or a following among collectors?  For an artist,s work to go up in value significantly, he or she usually has to get the attention of an influential dealer, collector, critic, or curator.
• Are you buying archetypal work?  The artist’s most recognizable style is usually the best investment.  (If you are buying for your own pleasure, this doesn’t really matter.)
• What secondary market –if any exists for this artist?  If there is no secondary market at all, do you still want to buy?
• Is the art well constructed out of materials that will last?
• Do you love it?

The full text of this set of criteria is available online on Google Books (restricted access)

To this set of criteria, West² add:

• How does it make me feel?
• Does it remind me of something else I have seen?
• Do I want to know more about it?
• Do I want to see more art by this artist?
• Would I recommend seeing this art to my friends?
• Do I want to own this art?
• What do I know about this gallery?

In contemporary art, caution should be exercised. Hunter³ also offers a very eloquent chapter (restricted access) on the art of creating the "Next Big Thing", the "Art Stars".  Sublime!

In a more descriptive style, Louisa Buck and Judith Greer⁴ presents the steps to access the same status.

What do I take from all this?

• Great marketing! It emerges from all this a strange scent where some collectors/investors/speculators will come out bruised and for which, once again, the taxpayer will largely have to assume the charges following the issue by many of our accredited institutions of hyper-inflated tax receipts.
• Our major museums may have the "canonization" a bit easy, if not ... suspicious!  The museums are the ultimate outcome of the process of consecration or not of an artist as "star" and financial impacts underlying this consecration or not are enormous for all those who have an obvious interest in the "case".  There you have all the elements of the perfect scandal.