The Fair (chap.3)

What surprises me the most in this chapter is the intensity in which collectors buy the art work. As I read the chapter I could not help but imagine the way a lioness stalks its prey. They go swiftly from room to room analyzing, discarding and adding to their list the works they wold like to acquire.

For exaple the Rubells:
When Throton asked if she could hang with the Rubells to observe their buying Mera Rubell responde "Absolutely not.. that is like asking to come into our bedroom"

Steve Rubell explained that a "Collection is a personal vision. No one can steal your vision" This, I agree, is the way many collectors feel about their work.

There is also seems to be a different types of collectors. There are the "hurry-hurry collectors who go to the hurry-hurry-galleries to buy the hurry-hurry artist" as Nicholas Logsdail claimed, and then there are the those who, like himself, like artist "who are on a slow burn, very good, very serious, not in the fast track, but pursuing their own artistic interest with tenacity, quirkiness, and confidence."

Then there is the artist at the art fair. Something I learned from this chapter is that one thing is to have the artist attending the fair, and another is to have the artist's artwork at the fair. Very two different things.
I thought these two went hand in hand, but as said in the book "an art fair is no place for an artist...artist tend to view art fairs with a mixture of horror, alienation, and amusement. They feel uneasy when all the hard work of the studio is reduced to supplying the voracious demand..." Like Baldessari, an artist himself, said when asked if he had been in the art fair he responded "Are you kidding? I wouldn't set food in the fair anytime before lunch. I'd be trampled, I'd be an innocent to the slaughter."
I cannot find who said this in the book, but there was a passage where Thorton was conversing with someone about artist and how important was it to have the artist present at the art fair. This person she was to responded something along these lines; the presence of the artist next to his/her piece could destroy the artwork and not sell or it could do exactly the contrary, but the galleries rather not have the artist there if they want to be successful.

Something I found very interesting was that after a piece is sold to a collector the artist reputation alters. "Unlike other industries, where buyers are anonymous and interchangeable, here artists' reputations are enhanced or contaminated by the people who own their work" as said by Scott Wright.
In response to this an artist like Baldessari would say " You buy my art, not me. I don't want to be at your dinners."

Some interesting quotes:

"If artist are seen to be creating art simply to cater to the market, it compromises their integrity and the market loses confidence in their art work"

A quote I should learn from "I'm an atheist, but I believe in art, I go to galleries like my mother went to church. It helps me understand the way I live."

"Out of everyone in the art world, collectors are the least professional. All they have to do is write a check." - I would love to be able to do that...

the end..