The View from the Edge of the Universe

Art as Investment Revisted (calculations added)

Note: I've gone ahead and posted my caculations in Excel format here.

I had lunch last week with fellow collector Renee Brody Levow who later sent me a very interesting article from The Journal of Investment Consulting about the viability of art as investment.  The bottom line is that art can be as good or better investment than stocks but only if held for a long period.  The art market and the stock market have had very similar historical returns according to the Mei Moses Fine Art Index, but the difference is in the transaction costs.
Consider this analysis:
Say you invested $100,000 in a variety of mutual funds and at the same time purchased $100,000 of investment grade artwork.  I define investment grade artwork as artwork by artists with a substantial auction history.  Assume both your mutual fund and your art portfolio will appreciate at 8% per year.
Transaction costs are as follows:
The mutual funds have no purchase or sale costs (i.e. they are "no-load" funds) and that the fund has an internal management cost of 1.5% per year of the total asset value which is average for mutual funds. 
Only 90,000 of the initial $100,000 in artwork purchases actually go towards art.  The other $10,000 goes toward sales tax, shipping, framing etc. Upon sale, you will net about 73% of the sales price, the remainder will go to commissions etc. (73%  is about what you net selling at auction considering  a 20% buyer's premium, a 10% seller's premium and 2% estimated out of pocket costs.)  So where is the better place to put your money?  The mutual funds beat the art portfolio if one sells at anytime before 27 years.  After 27 years, the art portfolio beats the mutual funds.
I crunched the numbers and here are my results.
Sell in 5 years and net:
Mutual Funds: $136,239
Art Portfolio:  $  95,535
Sell in 10 years and net:
Mutual Funds: $185,609
Art Portfolio:  $141,841
Sell in 15 years and net:
Mutual Funds: $252,871
Art Portfolio:  $208,412
Sell in 20 years and net:
Mutual Funds: $344,508
Art Portfolio:  $306,225
Sell in 25 years and net:
Mutual Funds: $469,353
Art Portfolio:  $449,945
Sell in 30 years and net:
Mutual Funds: $639,440
Art Portfolio:  $661,117

Here's the bottom line:  Buy! Buy! Buy!  Why on earth wouldn't you?  Here is an object that can bring so much fulfillment and interest into your life, is a fascinating and fun (if a little cultish) world to be a part of, is hugely educational, AND YOU CAN MAKE MONEY DOING IT!!!  And if you hold your art long enough, you can even beat mutual funds. I believe that the non-monetary rewards to be had from owning art make it a very attractive investment even at a holding period of 15 years or more.  You say you can't afford it?  Baloney.  Investment grade artwork can be had for under $1,000.  And research indicates that lower priced pieces are actually a better investment than their higher priced counterparts.  Check out my list of limited editions in the left column of my blog for good sources of lower priced items.  Go for it!

I Thought I Was in Brooklyn

With all the talk about Atlanta's Castleberry Arts District becoming our lil' Chelsea, I don't think the comparison is a good one.  Why?  Because Chelsea is ground central for the world's top artists to debut major bodies of work and Castleberry is not that.  It is though, very much like the scene in Brooklyn which is much fresher and edgier than Chelsea. And that is a great thing.  Brooklyn is like Chelsea's minor league and there is no reason why Chelsea can't have a farm team in the South and Castleberry is doing everything right to stake that claim.
Romo Gallery is showing smart, but a little rough around the edges, work by [dNASAb] (at left)that is something that never would have been seen in Atlanta a few years ago, but would feel just right in Brooklyn and feels right here now as well.
Marcia Wood has Brian Novatny (at right) on display who is in step with the current drawing craze taking place now and whose works are so well executed and free of any seemingly required psychological heaviness that I was suspicious of their quality at first, but they have since won me over.  Priced right at $1,800, they are a smart purchase, especially given Novaty's Yale pedigree and imminent signing with a Chelsea heavyweight.  Novatny's work is so much better than the hundreds of similar drawings I've seen in NYC in the last two years.

William Eggleston in the Real World

Atlantans were lucky to be able to view a screening of the documentary "William Eggleston in the Real World" last week at the Rialto Theatre.  The first go round was a fiasco; the actual print did not come in so a replacement DVD-transferred-to-VHS was shown that was riddled with black outs and skipped so badly that the film was stopped mid way through.  The actual film showed up later in the week and was shown although I did not see that screening.
It was fascinating to watch Eggleston in action.  With his son serving as his assistant, Eggleston explores the ordinary looking for the extraordinary as if in a trance.  Consistent with his long held edict to only take one photo of anything, there was not a time in the film that the shutter clicked more than once on any subject. 
Most fascinating was the scene where, traveling from Kentucky to Memphis, Eggleston has the car pull over at a dilapidated shack, gets out and starts shooting, not the house at first, but the spray painted signed declaring the shack for sale.  He later starts photographing the exterior and soon enters the structure and continues shooting.  Then, he enters a room with sunlight streaming in through the structure, sees the light projected in a corner, shoots one shot and leaves, not in the room more than twenty seconds.  The result?  The Blind Spot cover at right.  And think, that is exactly how some of his greatest images happened as well: see, frame, shoot and leave without a single afterthought.  Talk about not over-thinking your work.  But when you are Eggleston, there is no need.

The Best Show You Missed

It's over now, but the Suzhou Embroidery show featuring work by two of China's masters, Gu Wenxia and Yu Zuzhen at the Carter Presidential Center was an astonishing tour-de-force of skill proving that craft, when executed with enough virtuosity can become art of the highest order.
The works in this show were of such quality that I felt humbled in their presence.  It was refreshing not to have to ponder the artist's "post modern strategies" and to just revel in the zen-like grace and beauty of the work.
Some works even redefined what embroidery could be, especially in the work at right that at first could be mistaken for a Micheal Kenna photograph but in reality was created by long-stitch strands of black and gray thread that makes all the marveling over the beauty and skill of the modernist photographers seem completely overrated.
I can't emphasize how much this exhibit made me reevaluate all of the contemporary art I thought I knew so much about.  Contemporary art has become so over intellectualized that I now just scratch my head over "important" works by the likes of Sherrie Levine.

I'll Take Three Shots of Photography with a Twist

Right on the heels of my conversation with Christian Patterson about how much I liked the non traditional approach to his "Sound Affects" show in Memphis, I return to Atlanta and see no less than three shows using photography in new and interesting ways.
At Saltworks, Lalla Essaydi has printed her photographs of women covered with and surrounded by Islamic calligraphy on large scrims that hang in parallel rows.  The installation is accompanied by a video.  Essaydi’s intent is to explore cultural patterns within both Arab and Western societies, to reach beyond stereotypes, and to convey her own experience as an Arab woman. She states: “Through these images I am able to suggest the complexity of Arab female identity – as I have known it – and the tension between hierarchy and fluidity at the heart of Arab culture.”  I have also seen Essaydi's photographs and the power of the photographs is replaced by an ephemeral sensitivity when printed on scrims.
John Otte at Garage Projects delivered a multi-multi-media installation that included paintings, photos, photos of paintings, music, sound, found objects, the Garage Projects space itself and the kitchen sink.  Well maybe not the kitchen sink, but Otte pulls out all the stops to explore his interest in "funk and minimalism".  Otte clearly has a broad understanding of the last several decades of art history and his influences are apparent, from Cy Twombly to the '80s graffiti artists in his installation whose individual elements are available for sale and can be recombined by the collector, much in the way a DJ samples tracks.
Finally over at Get This! Gallery narcissist-turned-artist, Drew Conrad, freshly graduated from Parsons School of Design turns in a show of photographs of himself combined with magazine pages and buttons-with-clever-sayings that would make Jeff Koons circa 1988 proud.  Conrad first started exploring this theme last year and the more he pushes it the better the work seems.  The key is the confidence in the execution.  Conrad is in love with himself and with his abilities and is not afraid to show it.  He makes me wish I was 25 again and his token gay friend.  Rumor has it that Conrad is dating a super-hot super model.  Figures.

Transparency Now! (or Now?)

I've been thinking about this for some time and would like to hear others thoughts:
Would the artworld be better off if there was even more market data available?  Despite the fact that one can research auction prices from nearly every auction house on earth with ease now, the bulk of art sales still happen in private transactions through galleries and private dealers.  If dealers disclosed the prices for work more readily, would the art market would be better off?  A few photography dealers do disclose prices very openly (Bonni Benrubi for one), but this is certainly the exception. If one  digs hard enough, more prices can be found out, but what if no digging was necessary?  Would the art be better?  Probably not.  Would the market gain more credibility?  Probably.  Does it need it?  Who knows.  I think part of the sexiness (and most of the ickiness) of the artworld stems from its secretive nature. I for one would like the cultish nature of the artworld to lessen some.  Ever ask a non artworlder to name 3 important living artists?  Here's the list: Thomas Kinkade, Peter Max and Leroy Neiman.  A little transparency would raise awareness.

Let's Give Scott Ingram His Shot

Knowing artists and watching their body of work develop is one of the great joys of collecting art and being involved in a community arts scene.  I've followed Atlanta artist Scott Ingram's career for several years and recently he has broken though creatively and is in the midst of a new direction in his art that deserves recognition on a national level. 
Ingram has been a presence on the Atlanta scene for nearly a decade and first became known for his work that was based on architectural decorations and fit somewhat into the pattern and decoration movement whose most notable star is Phillip Taffe.  His work has since taken a much more minimalistic turn and has been informed by Morris Louis in Ingram's "Nail Polish Drips" and by Ellsworth Kelly in his series where he literally repainted Kelly drawings on top of the images that appeared in a catalog of a Kelly show at the High Museum.
But it is Ingram's latest body of work, his "Case Study House" series that is why he deserves his shot at the big time.  The works on paper, wall sculptures and painted photographs are based on the architectural drawings of the famous Los Angeles case study houses.  Ingram has recreated the architectural renderings in paintings on paper that are reminiscent of Ellsworth Kelly and in wall sculptures that remind one of the work of Donald Judd.  They are minimalist and abstract but also representational in that one can also recognize that they are houses.  Atlanta's Solomon Projects has a number of them on Artnet. 

 

And now for my rant:
Atlanta will always stay an insular regional arts community unless we put aside our personal agendas and competitive differences once in a while and band together to push artists into the national spotlight.  Ingram is a former employee of the High Museum and what has the High done to help him?  Nothing.  Are the bigger collectors in town using their connections to help Ingram reach a wider audience?  No.  Are local galleries working together to help Scott reach the next level?  Of course not.  This is all so unfortunate, because the more artists Atlanta has that are nationally known, the more it will help our entire arts community.  If you don't believe me, look at Miami because that is exactly what is happening down there.
The Atlanta arts community is the biggest bunch of whiners on earth with everyone lamenting the averageness of what happens down here and yet no one seems really willing to work together unless there is some immediate personal (I mean financial) gain to be had from the effort.
There are a few exceptions, namely me and Brian Holcombe, owner of Saltworks Gallery and others.  I will admit though that my involvement in the Atlanta art world is partially motivated by financial desires in that I would like to transition to a career in the arts some day and the efforts I put forth now will hopefully pay off in the future.  I ain't no Mother Teresa.

Enough complaining, here's the first step to giving Scott his shot.  Someone else please take the second.

The Hot 300

Does anyone else find Artnet's 300 most visited artists list oddly fascinating?  The newest wierdest twist: Candida Hofer ranks higher than both Struth and Gursky. 

The Ultimate Photography Website

Many of you probably know about this site already, but Photography Now is the best site to keep up with international photography shows.  Key in any photographer's name and it will give you a remarkably accurate rundown of current, upcoming and past exhibitions.  What makes it different is the timeliness and accuracy of the site's data.  Check it out.

Christian Patterson: Sound Affects

Memphis has a little gem in the Power House Gallery that debuted Sound Affects, a series of photographs by up-and-comer Christian Patterson.  Patterson was named one of PDN's 30 under 30 in 2004.  It's clear that Patterson is heavily influenced by William Eggleston, however the best works in the exhibit were ones where Patterson's own personal vision emerges.  The show consisted of eleven framed photographs as well as a slide installation the featured all 25 images in the 'Sound Affects' portfolio that Patterson has for sale. Memphis oldies emanated from a vintage jukebox while a neon sign completed the exhibit.  It was refreshing and interesting to see a photography exhibit that was more multi-media in its approach.  It echoed the way photos are used in the everyday world that exists in Patterson's pictures.  Once he develops his own voice more fully, Patterson should find a place for himself in the great photographic tradition that Eggleston pioneered.