I boarded SeaFair, the Fine Art Yacht, today to see what a floating luxury art fair would be like, and I was not disappointed. SeaFair is docked in New York City through Monday October, 14th as part of its Fall tour from Greenwich, CT to Miami Beach, FL in early December. The yacht/art fair then continues to dock at ports from Florida to Maine through August 2008. At each stop visitors are invited to board and look at the three decks worth of art and antiques galleries that have set up booths much as they do at traditional art fairs at the Park Avenue Armory, in Palm Beach or in any of the other high-end art fairs across the country. Though on a much smaller scale than some of those other art fairs this fair had a great mix of material including jewelry, antique silver, art deco furniture, carpets, rare books and contemporary paintings. Though I did not forget that I was on a yacht while perusing the fair I enjoyed that aspect of it and found it to be a good venue to looking at some incredible pieces of art. I look forward to boarding again in another port.

Details: www.expoships.com Entry to the fair is by invitation only.

There are lots of people around the world using art advisors/consultants these days, ranging from highly sophisticated collectors to first-time art buyers and each retains their advisor for different reasons.

For the advanced collector an art consultant offers personal, discreet handling of a valuable collection. Though many of these collectors are quite knowledgeable about art and art history they tend to be busy people who enjoy outsourcing some of their art related projects to a professional, and this is especially the case with very large collections. Consultants help with buying, selling and maintaining the art collections. Art consultants source works of art for the collections just as curators do for museum collections — consultants find works of art available in the marketplace that would enhance the existing collection or fill a gap in the collection or simply appeal to the collector. Consultants then act on behalf of the collectors to complete the transactions be it bidding at auction or negotiating with private dealers or galleries in the purchasing process. Often collectors wish to refine their collections over time which may mean selling or donating certain pieces, and consultants can play an integral part in this editing process. Art consultants may also act in a collections management capacity (coordinating artwork loans, shipments, deliveries, installations, insurance and maintenance of large collections) which can be a daunting task. In addition, when condition problems arise with a piece of art collectors often retain a consultant to oversee the conservation process.

For the beginning collector or first-time buyer an art consultant does some of the same things; when I work with a new collector, for example, I generally focus on the acquisitions phase and then act in an advisory role on such things as framing, lighting and placement of the works as well as how to begin building a collection rather than haphazardly acquiring random pieces of art. Most of my beginning collectors tend to be smart, accomplished people who feel insecure purchasing artwork generally due to a lack of experience with art. These new collectors retain a consultant in order to be sure that they are purchasing quality material for appropriate prices. A consultant assesses the clients’ taste and shows them some edited options that they would not find on their own, and thus eliminates months or years of frustrating searching and perhaps impulse buys. Often a consultant’s role is to take an art buying budget and appropriately allocate the resources to ensure that the client’s goals are met.

I often describe the role of an art consultant as a combination of the roles of a real estate buyer’s broker and of an interior designer. An art consultant acts as a buyer’s broker in shopping for purchases appropriate to that buyer which meet the buyer’s purchasing criteria and budget and representing the buyer in the transaction. Art consultants act a bit like interior designers as well in that they often work in ones personal space (their homes and offices) to achieve a visual goal. Whatever the level of sophistication of the collection art consultants often make a daunting process more enjoyable for the collector by eliminating the stresses that come with owning works of art.

A client recently asked me this question, and I thought it might be interesting to others as well.

Is it cheaper to buy art at auction than at galleries or through private dealers? The answer is very clear: sometimes. This is not very satisfying, I know.

While there are some auction categories that may allow buyers to purchase an item for less than retail prices (jewelry, for example) there are other auction categories such as Contemporary Paintings where a buyer might actually wind up paying the same amount or more than he/she would at a gallery because of the other bidders competing for the same lot. (lot = the item up for sale. Each item which is assigned a lot number by the auction house and may be referred to as Lot X rather than by name.) Remember, auctions are public and they receive lots of publicity and attention so unless you are buying at a secondary, less advertised sale the secret is out!

Often buying at auction is a good idea, however, because of the very nature of the beast. Often through the auction process a buyer will have access to works of art that he/she would never find otherwise. Auction houses spend a great deal of energy, time and money winning choice consignments from sellers in order to sell the very best and biggest name material in any given auction season. Buyers often reap the benefits by having access to and possibly purchasing those choice works. Given the volume of works that the auction houses deal in, as well, buyers can choose from an immense amount of artwork.

And don’t forget to factor in the fees. Even those purchases whose hammer price seems to be a bargain may not turn out to be as good of a buy as anticipated once the buyer’s premiums (or fees charged to the buyers by the auction houses) are added. (Hammer price = the dollar amount of the winning bid at auction as taken by the auctioneer before he/she physically pounds his “hammer” or gavel on the podium indicating that bidding is closed for that lot.) In addition to state and local tax (and the Value Added Tax (VAT) where applicable) auction houses add commissions on to the price of each sold item, on both the buying and selling sides of the transaction. Those fees typically are expressed as a percentage of the winning bid, say between 10 and 25 percent, and that percentage often changes depending upon the dollar amount of the lot sold.

One should not necessarily attempt to buy artwork or antiques at auction hoping to get a bargain although occasionally there is one to be found. As with buying a work of art in any context a buyer should do research in advance into such things as the condition and provenance of the lot under consideration. Be a smart buyer, at auction or elsewhere.

Despite the rich historical and cultural heritage in Siena, Italy I was recently surprised to find a contemporary art center rich in international works. Siena’s 15th Century Palazzo delle Papesse houses the city’s Contemporary Art Center. The current exhibit, Numerica, draws works of art from across the world, mainly from the 1960s to the present, focusing on the use of numbers in the works. The show opens with a glowing 1924 painting by Futurist painter Giacomo Balla entitled “Numbers in Love” showing the numbers 8, 4, 5 and 3 as the subject of the painting almost glowing in green and yellow against a gray background. From sculptures the paintings to drawings to installation pieces the show explores certain artist’s affection for numbers as subject matter. Other works include those by varied artists such as Wolfgang Tillmans, Mel Bochner, Kay Rosen, Micah Lexier, Alighiero Boetti, Roman Opalka, Dan Graham and Darren Almond.

By far the most interesting piece is an installation piece by Mario Merz (1925-2003) entitled “The Spiral Appears” from 1990. Commanding four beautiful small rooms on one end of the Palazzo, three of which have exquisitely hand-painted ceilings depicting Greek gods and intricate decorative patterns befitting an Italian Palazzo, Merz’s work is a series of tall bundles of branches installed in a row which runs from one room to the next, pushing its way right through the doorways connecting each of the rooms. On either side of the branches are stacks of newspapers (Le Nazione) with neon lights forming Arabic numeric characters resting periodically along the papers. Merz designed the numerals to depict the Fibonacci formula, or the sequence of numbers in which each number equals the sum of the two preceding ones. This particular series was often used by Merz in his artwork to demonstrate the numbers’ correlation in nature, and this particular installation piece represents one of his longest depictions of the Fibonacci sequence, reaching 5 digits. There is something enlivening about seeing an abstract piece of art such as this one in such a historically rooted environment.

The exhibit runs June 22, 2007 – January 6, 2008.
Centro Arte Contemporanea, Via di Citta, 126 Siena, Italy.

In the event you missed it in Boston The National Gallery of Art in Washington DC is now showing the Edward Hopper exhibit. The show will be on view in Washington September 16, 2007 – January 21, 2008. It then travels to the Art Institute of Chicago where it will be on view February 16 – May 11, 2008.

While you are at the National Gallery be sure not to miss their exhibit on J.M.W. Turner open October 1, 2007 – January 6, 2008.