ANALYSIS FOR COLLECTORS

CULTURAL CAPITAL

Cultural Capital: Talking about your collection

How to not sound like a pompous p**** when talking about the artists in your collection.

Cultural Capital: What’s it really like to be a VIP in the art world?

From first dibs to fancy dinners, Andrew Frost and Carrie Miller discuss what it’s like to reach uber-collector status in the art world.

Cultural Capital: Why do people collect? Part 2

To contribute to general knowledge? Or your own general ego? In the second of this three-part series, Carrie Miller and Andrew Frost explore some more of the reasons people collect art.

Cultural Capital: Why Do People Collect? Part 1

Is it a quest for immortality? Or a quest to match your couch? In the first of this three- part series, Andrew Frost and Carrie Miller discuss some of the reasons people collect art.

Cultural Capital: Curators, or my childhood was stolen from me and judged harshly

Andrew Frost and Carrie Miller discuss artist/curators, the most elusive of arts professionals.

AGENDA

Agenda: Fare is Fair

When an artwork is sold what’s the revenue split between the gallery and the artist, and is it fair?

Agenda: A New Playground For Digital Art

What is an NFT? And more importantly, what does it mean for the art collector?

Agenda: A place in the sun

Why should governments fund the visual arts?

Agenda: When Bigger is Better

The latest commercial gallery trend? Go big or go home.

Agenda: The Real Thing

With new technology opening up innovative ways of viewing and collecting art, what does it mean to attend a commercial show in the 21st century?

Agenda: Making It Possible

Beyond buying work, art collectors are always finding new ways to support artists. Offering studio space is the latest philanthropic endeavor taking off in Melbourne and Sydney.

Agenda: Moving On

With the imminent closure of one of Australia’s oldest premiere galleries, we ask: what happens to an artist when their gallery closes?

Agenda: Building Blocks

A new technology is promising to solve the age-old art world problem of provenance.

Agenda: Monogamy versus Polygamy

To go to the gallerists or to the gram, that is the collector’s question. Our editor Camilla Wagstaff looks at changing relations between the main players of the art world.

BEHIND THE SCENES

Behind the Scenes: Hard Done

The world’s mega galleries unashamedly poach artists from smaller galleries. It doesn’t seem fair to the galleries that have done the hard yards in discovering the artist and supporting their early, often lossmaking exhibitions. Or is that just the game we’re playing?

Behind the Scenes: The I in Collective

The first question still asked about an artwork is “Who made it?”. This needs reconsideration.

Behind the Scenes: All For a Good Cause?

Are the costs to an artist of donating their works to charity auctions ever worth the benefit of exposure?

Behind the Scenes: Art Life Post-Covid

Fighting funding cuts, organisation closures and social distancing requirements, the Australian art world is finding new ways to engage and evolve as the world wakes up to a post-Covid reality.

Behind the Scenes: The White Idea

Might we be seeing the beginning of the end of the white cube?

Behind the Scenes: Eye on the Prize

There are now more than 500 art prizes available to Australian artists. So, who are the real winners?

Behind the Scenes: Social Snobs

Will social media herald the end of the art world as we know it?

Behind the Scenes: A World of Difference

Do we need to reassess our current strategies for marketing Australian art to the world?

Behind the scenes: Going the distance

In the midst of some significant commercial gallery milestones this year, we ask their directors: What gives a gallery staying power?

Behind The Scenes: Is Global Success A Golden Ticket?

What effect does international success have on the Australian artist’s market back home?

Behind The Scenes: Great Lengths

What is the optimum length for a successful commercial gallery exhibition?

MONEY SULLIES ART

Money Sullies Art: Taking a Knife to Art

Fractionalism is reported to be taking the art market by storm, but do you really want piece of that pie?

Money Sullies Art: Hungry Art Student Eats Banana Artwork

When a public encounter with art results in damage to the work, intended or not, it’s almost always a source of amusement. And the resulting media reports invariably include the price of the work, to emphasise art’s ridiculous precarious preciousness.

Money Sullies Art: A Dealer’s Domain

What collectors should know about how economic disinterestedness is performed by contemporary art galleries.

Money Sullies Art: Influencer or Master?

There’s a remaining romantic notion of artists that would have them properly shunning self-promotion. But increasingly, artists are turning to social media channels to sell their work, and collectors are getting comfortable with that.

Money Sullies Art: Starving for Success

Unpacking the romantic idea that people born into wealth can’t ever become real artists.

Money Sullies Art: Starving artists

In this expanded Money Sullies Art, we address the cultural expectations that frame the economic plight of artists today.

Money Sullies Art: Good Value

When old rules founded on considerations of resale value and a return on investments get involved in decisions about buying contemporary art, the collector can get needlessly thrown off balance.

Money Sullies Art: Cashed-up and Collecting

A recent study reveals millennials are the most likely group to spend $1 million plus on an artwork. Is contemporary art the new Louis Vuitton?

Money Sullies Art: One less ear

Is the widely held view that art should never be produced with the market in mind a luxury of the privileged?

Money Sullies Art: Sovereignty Guaranteed

Is it possible for artists to undertake public or private commissions and keep their integrity intact?

Money Sullies Art: Gambler’s Logic

Jane O’Sullivan investigates the problem with prizes and how collectors can distinguish the meaningful wins from the blue ribbons in country halls.

Money Sullies Art: The Limits of Philanthropy

Philanthropy in the arts has always been about more than just money. Andrew Frost looks at where the influence of those who sign the cheques should be fettered.

Money Sullies Art: Your Career is Calling

What happens to the art when artists concern themselves with their career as well as their practice?

LIFECYCLE OF A COLLECTOR

Lifecycle: Pound of flesh

So, finally you've earned the status of established collector and you're invited to an artist's studio. But the studio visit can be fraught.

Lifecycle of a Collector: For Love or Money, or Both?

Whatever their motivation, there’s no doubt artwork donations by artists and collectors benefit our public art institutions.

Lifecycle of a Collector: Publish and be damned

There comes a time when a collector begins to toy with the idea of a book on their collection. Let’s examine the arguments.

Lifecycle of a Collector: The Split

In the final instalment of this series, we discuss the question: what happens to an art collection when a couple splits?

Lifecycle of a Collector: The Split

In the second of this four-part series, we discuss the question: what happens to an art collection when a couple splits?

Lifecycle of a Collector: The Split

In the third instalment of this four-part series, we ask the question: what happens to an art collection when a couple splits?

Lifecycle of a Collector: The Split

In the first of this four-part series, we discuss the question: what happens to an art collection when a couple splits?

Lifecycle of a Collector: Right to copy

Collectors beware: owning a work of art does not mean owning copyright.

Lifecycle Of A Collector: Expanded Collecting

Ready to take your collector journey to the next level? Introducing expanded collecting.

Lifecycle of a Collector: Final Solutions

Joanna Mendelssohn on the many paths art can take after death, decluttering or different taste.

WITH ALL DUE RESPECT…

With All Due Respect: Money Mad

The idea of art as investment is not new, but is it time for the artworld to reckon with its continuing illusions of virtue?

With All Due Respect: The Bigger Picture

A cautionary tale: Where did things go wrong with Santiago Sierra’s 'Union Flag'?

With All Due Respect

Should public galleries spend more of their acquisition budgets on local artists and less on big ticket international art?

With All Due Respect: Misery Money

How dependent are our art institutions on donations motivated by a desire to restore tarnished reputations?

With All Due Respect: Questioning the responsibility of ensuring provenance

In this special series where we aim to speak truth to power, we ask: How much responsibility does an auction house take for the provenance of an artwork?

With All Due Respect: Do we need an art world #metoo moment?

In this first installment of a regular feature in which we aim to speak truth to power, we start the conversation on the necessity of an Australian and New Zealand art world #metoo movement.

SURVEY

Survey: We Asked Leading Gallerists…

What's the one thing you look for when taking on a new artist?

Survey: Have you ever refused to sell an artwork?

We asked the directors of commercial art galleries.

Survey: How will the art world will change after Covid-19?

We asked directors, arts workers, critics, writers, artists and collectors.

Survey: What’s wrong with the art world?

We asked a group of people from directors to artists and writers.

Survey: Is it okay to negotiate price?

We asked gallerists across Australia and New Zealand.

Survey: Which art schools are turning out the best talent?

We surveyed artworld players about their thoughts on art schools.

Survey: What Makes A Collection Memorable?

We asked a people from the art world about art collections.

Survey: What is the most interesting collection you’ve ever seen?

We surveyed our writers, curators and artists about the most interesting collection they've ever seen...