How to Begin Collecting Art

OM.2024.052 - Marlene Weisman - The Reason Why - assemblage - 13.5 x 10 inches - USA

I was visiting my prints site at iartcollector.com and realized I had a few articles over there that might be good here about collecting art so here is one…

Collecting art and art objects goes way back in history, all the way back to prehistoric times since before there was actually a word for art in the way that we think of it today. Whether it was the Egyptians or the Greeks or the Romans or the Chinese or the Mayans, Collecting art has been both a way of preserving historical details through visual storytelling and a way of amassing wealth and status.

However, in the present times, while art still serves all the functions it ever did it has also become a way to develop and express your cultural awareness and collect around yourself the kind of objects that expand and reinforce your ever increasing knowledge of the world you live in.

Our incredible access to the entire planet through the use of the internet and our ability to shop and collect from around the world gives us such an expanse of vision, perspective and capacity that previous generations could never have possibly imagined.

If you are interested in starting to collect art, regardless of your budget, you might consider starting small or starting on the more inexpensive side of the market. This will give you the opportunity to get started with collecting while not becoming overly committed to a certain trajectory before you really understand what your guiding star is. As an artist I had to create art works for a very long time when I was getting started out before I understood what direction I wanted to go in and what I was willing to commit to and as a collector you will probably experience the same problem.

Art collecting can be thought of in many different ways but seasoned collectors tend to see their collection as a whole. The collection itself becomes an artwork or a statement in its own right. With consistent efforts at defining what it is that actually interests you enough that you can become passionate about what you want to collect, you can start to build confidence in what it is you are actually looking for. It does take a lot of research to become clear about your objectives. It is good to study the current field but to really understand what the conversation is that artists are having through their work, it helps to be able to recognize the historical context that artists are working from and responding to.

In my own case for instance, my interests are primarily in the realm of abstraction and ideas and proposals of abstract art over the last 100 years or so. Hence, I have spent a great deal of time studying the roots of abstraction all the way back to Cubism. Now, Cubism itself was really not about the idea of abstraction but it did lead other artists to start thinking about the possibilities of abstract art. One of the big problems was, none of them had any idea HOW to think about abstract art because no conversation had yet been started on the idea so it was a mental wilderness and this actually scared many of the early painters. But pretty soon things were off and running with new proposals of what abstract art might be and what significance it might have but nobody really knew for sure. 

To me that is fascinating to think about and then study the different artists and how they dealt with that problem. And you can see that if you are interested in abstract art but have never really thought about what it is or what it means or where it came from or why it is significant, then you might be missing a lot of the back story that will make experiencing abstract art much more enriching and a lot more fun to experience.

Then my interests widened to collage, assemblage, fluxus art, asemic writing, visual poetry, mail art, vernacular photography etc. and the interconnected networks of artists working in these mediums and styles.

Granted, even a lot of artists these days don't understand the very foundations of the historical thought processes that they are working from but still, that should not stop an interested viewer/collector from being able to identify those foundations for themselves with their own knowledge of the history and meanings of images. The study of art and the history of art is a deeply enriching lifetime project.

So one strategy you can try out at the beginning is to set up a pinterest.com page and start collecting images of the art that you are strongly attracted to and do that for a while and then try to figure out what all of those images have in common, what elements or style or color schemes etc. and then look at the page as a whole to see how all of those images look as a group.

If you have a home and you have walls that need filling then you can purchase fine prints and start filling those spaces with prints and when you are feeling really confident about what you want to collect then you can replace the print with an original work. But then maybe you will love the print after looking at it everyday and not be willing to 'upgrade' to original works and that is just fine too.

Start figuring out what you love and start putting them on your pinterest page until you are ready to start collecting. Develop your eye.

You can then start following favorite artists online and watch how their body of work develops over time and when you are ready you can inquire how to buy their works either directly or through their gallery dealers. As a collector you are an important element to complete and strengthen the ecosystem of the art community through your attention and support.