How to Collect Art: Things to Read and Watch
Take the time to explore some of our favorite guides and films about collecting art in advance of Miami Art Week!
To Read
How to Buy a Work of Art in The New York Times, with interviews by Andrew Russeth and Megan O’Grady. “Where do you begin? What should you look at? The art world is no picnic, either, and if you’ve ever felt alienated or intimidated walking into a gallery, take comfort in knowing you’re not alone…” Read the full article.
Antwaun Sargent’s “Guide on How to Really Look at Art” for Interview Magazine, photographed by Adrienne Raquel. Step 1: “Walk up to it and take it in. While any way you choose to engage with a work of art is correct, except for, perhaps, destroying it, there is a deep, sustained looking that is possible. This kind of looking enhances the experience, moving you away from five-second judgments and the lame binaries of good and bad and like and dislike. Don’t read anything! Just experience it…” Get all eight steps from Antwaun.
To Watch
An informative talk that guides one person’s journey from art lover to strategic collector, Here We Are with Darryl Atwell is presented by the School of Visual Arts’s Black Student Union. Darryl developed a passion for art while residing in Cleveland and began attending events at the Cleveland Museum of Art as a social outlet. Since, he has focused on contemporary works from the diaspora, and created "Kinetic: Conversations in Contemporary Art" at American University and ongoing programming at the National Gallery of Art. Watch the talk.
The Price of Everything dives deep into the contemporary art world, holding a mirror up to our values and our times—where everything can be bought and sold. With unprecedented access to pivotal artists and the white-hot market surrounding them, this film offers an intimate view of big money and collecting. Here’s the trailer, the film is available on HBO.
An oldie but goodie, Herb and Dorothy redefine what it means to be an art collector. The film tells the story of two middle-class collectors of contemporary art, Herbert and Dorothy Vogel, and the enormous and valuable collection of conceptual art and minimalist art they amassed in spite of their relatively meager salaries as New York City civil servants. Here’s the trailer.