budget and collecting

Collecting is choosing. Every budget is limited, so is mine. May is the month I usually spend the most money on art. This has two main reasons. The second is ArtAmsterdam, that is the biggest art fair in the Netherlands. It's mainly Dutch but it has a sturdy international component. Quality is high, some art is within my budget. The last two times I bought art and I never intended too when I went.

The first reason is the art and design sale in the Tac in Eindhoven. That's the place I started to buy art in such quantities I started collecting. Since the first time year it's kept I go and buy. This year won't be different.
Janneke Sprenkels will be there and probably Marleen v/d Heuvel or Matthijs v/d Kerkhof. Merel van Beukering and Liselotte de Groot (both on my watch list) might be there as well.
Tac is short for Temporary Art Centre. It's situated in an old Philips building. (For the Football fans: the Philips stadium, home base for PSV,is right across the street. Philips was founded in Eindhoven.) Tac is meant for creating art. There are dozens of ateliers in the building and a small dozen of multi purpose spaces. Exhibitions parties, workshops and the Art and design sale are held here. Many artists from my buy or watch list will be there so I will leave Eindhoven with a trunk full of art and ann empty wallet.

That's the easy part. There are however artists who are high on my watch list, but I'm sure I won't meet on ArtAmsterdam or in the Tac. So I'm helping faith a little bit. I e-mailed Liselotte Schuppers for a price query on the photography and I will go tomorrow to an exhibition from Liesje Reijskens in Amsterdam. Next to this I received lists from gallery Aeroplastics for Amanda Besl and Shadi Ghadirian.

The problem gets obvious far too many artists and works and not enough budget. To make things worse I've already decided to buy one large work from Carla van de Puttelaar. My biggest buy ever considering size (205 x 78 cm) and price (twice the amount from my second largest buy.) Although I will pay this in 36 months it still creates a gap in my budget.

I alomst forgot the works from Boukje Janssen which came back from New York but are stuck now at customs.

So this month it's decision time.

The least likely to buy this year is the work from Amanda Besl.
She makes paintings on small panels depicting adolescent girls.
To compensate here her picture "a beautiful moustache"



Artist's Statement of Amanda Besl:

In my recent work I try to evoke an open-ended fiction while speaking of the documentary quality of photography, the language of fashion photography, the viscosity of oil paint, and the transient nature of memory. My paintings emerge from a cultural feminine perspective, exploring the complexities of an aesthetic that fetishizes youth. The images are a string of metaphors that build series of events. The paintings are small in size in order to allow a more intimate viewing experience and to recall their history as photographic images. They pop from the wall off beveled edges to create a staccato rhythm of frozen suggestive moments. My pieces are cinematic in nature. I link seemingly unrelated sensory images which inform each other as narrative moments. The subject matter balances on the fine line between the mundane and the obscure. To view these paintings is to partake in a visual eavesdropping on the secretive world that engulfs today's girl.

I focus upon metaphors of the transient nature of adolescence. Horses act as a suggestive counterpart in paintings which are mostly devoid of human males. The fetishistic quality of these pocket-sized worlds emphasizes the idea of obsessive crushes. I am interested in heroic transformations of ordinary events which exist both as dark psychological secrets and as adult fairy tales supplanting their predecessors. These paintings are not nostalgic, except as personal nostalgia. They are not apologetic or hedonistic and have any number of possible endings or possibly no ending—just a pause, a breath.

collecting and connecting

As a single and more living inside my head than outside it is often a lonely job being an art collector. My colleagues and friends are at least bewildered when they find out I pay as much as an inclusive two-week Holiday to Turkey for a few works of art I bought at ArtRotterdam and considered cheap.

I don;t have the budget to go with the crowd when buying, so I chase my own taste. I have no spouse or children who are dependent on me. So all the money I have left I can put in my art-budget and no one complains about it.

So I do have some urge to connect with fellow collectors who understand my problems like will I buy three photographs from Marije Arends or one from Hellen van Meene?

As an IT-consultant, to keep the headhunters away I will not specify my specialty, I have a profile on linkedin. I'm already connected to three different art groups.
The problem is however is that those artgroups are spammed by professionals in the art scene who want to sell their services, their own art work, or the art work they represent.

Somehow I was delighted when I was made aware of www.independent-collectors.com A networking site for collectors only. It's Germany based so most collectors are European. And for me an important German area as the Ruhr area is about a two hour drive by car. So very close.

The site is just starting so to start up they asked Tommi Brem to start a blog about starting collecting art. So he did here.
He is a really new not in collecting, he collected SF-books and records before this, but he is in art.

Although he is confronted with the same problems as I am. Many impressions, small budget, what to buy, why to buy. There also huge differences. He has a wife, who must be devoted to him and sometimes in complete denial of his actions. (She picked up a piece of art at German customs containing a drawing with a swastika, which is illegal in Germany.) So he cannot exceed his budget without getting up in a row with his wife. I can decide to enlarge my budget whenever I feel like it.
The other one and more important one is that I started to paddle in the sea of art by buying a painting somewhere in 1999 at a local second hand bookshop in Middelburg.
A picture of it, I show in this post. He really plunged in the deep. He has been to Art Basel with side shows and Art Basel Miami, these are fairs I've never been to.
He decided to collect. I somehow found out two years ago that I was collecting art when I had been buying for 8 years and collecting for two years.

The similarities are, we both blog and both collect and enjoy it.

Tomorrow I will go to my first foreign ArtFair. Art Brussels is just abroad, someone from my MFAC students will join me to the always surprising Belgians. Let's see what happens.

just another day at the office

So what does a collector do on a quiet Wednesday. Due to circumstances I was early away from work. So I went to the inner city of Utrecht.
At first I bought the book Puur (pure) from Mery dedicated to her project of photographing Teenage mothers.
Next I bought some white gloves to handle my art more cautiously. Some works form Boukje Janssen I recently bought, require more subtlety on handling.
After that I went to Flatland gallery to see their exhibition. It was a nice exhibition in a very nice building. I'd actually never been to that gallery. They focus on photography which I like but their aim is a little bit too high for my budget. After that I went to a second hand bookshop and bought an old catalogue from Sotheby's "photographs from the Bert Hartkamp collection" It gives a nice overview for the contemporary photography.
Finally I got home and found a letter from gallery Smarius. They sent me a special guest badge for the fair Art Amsterdam, so I can enter the preview and enter during this fair whenever I like for free.

Lost and found

In a previous post I was looking for the creator of a work of art from which I knew the first name. "Cathalijne"
That one was identified by Sanneke as a work from Cathalijne van Gent, which she confirmed.

Now it is more difficult. These works below I know nothing from except that I bought them on kunstveilingazie.nl. This was an online benefit auction for aiding the victims from the tsunami that struck the Asian coast in 2005.

Who recognises these? The cat is on canvas and about a square meter. The woman is about 40 x 50 centimeters.

more lists

In a previous post I wrote about my two lists of artists. The list with artists I own works from and the watch list. The latter consist of artists I think are interesting to buy work from, but I haven't done so. You can find those lists at the right hand side of my blog.
A few days ago I added a third list, the alas list. These are artists I like but won't buy work from. There are plenty of reasons I don't put them on my watch list. The main reason is I want to keep my watch list small. Because the supply of art is huge I can maintain a high standard. Because I have a third list I won't "lose" the artist but can still reconsider her position. The price is an important factor in my considerations. I just decided to put Erwin Olaf on my alas list. He was on my watch list, although in group E. I like his work, but he is way too expensive. I'm afraid Hellen van Meene and Carla van de Puttelaar will leave the same way. Remarkable is that they all are represented (or in stock) by the Utrecht-based Flatland gallery. For me the Gallery out priced itself. However there are many collector with much deeper pockets than mine. So Flatland won't need my purchases. While writing this I realised one of my guiding principles. Because I like collecting and buying art I don't want to spend my yearly budget for a few works. I want to buy many works and the only way to collect this way is by buying many cheaper works.
This finally takes me to my fifth list. (My fourth list is still work in progress)
On this list I put the specific works of art I want to buy. This is less intuitive way of buying art then I'm used to, but this is the only way to more or less structure my collecting. After 36 year I got to know myself. I like too many thins so must force myself to enforce my own collecting policy.
There are 6 works of art on my want list. Three of them are form Marije Arends (Arends means "from the eagle")I just own now one picture from her, which shows in this post.

Collecting

Most of my art I bought on intuition. But I was soon aware that buying art from the same artists added value to my collection. (Although I wasn't aware I was collecting) That's why I sometimes bought works, which I would never have bought if they were single. The body of works of an artist sometimes demands to buy it too. This work is from Janneke Sprenkels from whom I own a lot of works. I wouldn't have bought it If wasn't part of the body of works. But now I own and sometimes display it. I've started to appreciate it more and more. Have a look for yourself and you could perhaps compare it with "feeling blue"

Catalogue (wip 2)

I'm still trying to catalogue all my works of art. Before I collected art, I bought irregular but frequently. I jotted nothing down about the works I bought and that's a pity because now I have lots of difficulties to try to find out whom I bought work from and if I know from whom, who she is.

I've got two examples. The first one is Han Mol. I own a print of him. These prints were made to raise money for TAC (Temporary Art Centre)in Eindhoven. The print is clearly signed so I know his name. But that's really all I know. Googling had no real effect. So I'm gonna ask some people. Maybe they still have information.

In the Tac I really started to collect (at first without being aware of this) and that is where I bought this work (see picture) It's a picture in a small wooden box (15cm x 15cm) and signed "Cathalijne" That's all I know....
It can be worse, next week I'll show some works from someone I don't have a clue who he is.

My second Art collection

Collecting art should be more than buying a bunch of works of art.

The question is: what defines "more" ?

Of course I do have my own taste in art. And all the works I collected are a reflection of my taste. But I want my collection to be more than an bunch of works of art representng my taste. I want my collection to represent the time I live in. Better the development in art of the time I live in.

That's why I am collecting in two fields of art: Collecting artists and collecting art.

I've been trying to find out which artists I'm collecting. So I made a list. Every artist I have a work of art from and every artist I'm interested in is on that list. There are now 54 names on that list.
Within the list I made groups. Group A to group E. I'm more likely to buy art from someone in teh A-group than the E- group.

To get high on the list the artist must make: likable, available and affordable work.
There are 42 artists in my collection: divided as:
A: 2, B: 4, C: 6, D: 15, E: 15

There are 12 artists on my watch list: divided as:
A; 0, B: 3, C:1, D: 7, E, 1.


So what do A to E stand for. I'm actually not sure. The outer groups A and E are the easiest to distinguish how I'm going to act towards them. From these two groups I've been working to the other groups.

Group A: I really like your work and think you have great potential. I will buy art from you at least every year.
Group B: I'm closely watching you, if possible I buy art from you.
Group C: I like your work but luck or good marketing must help to buy art from you.
Group D: I like your work, I try to watch you , but don't expect anything.
Group E: You're on my list most probably because I once bought a piece of at from you. But it's unlikely it will happen again.

Marijan Gluhak is in my E-group. I own several pictures from him. One is shown at the right. I still like his pictures. But his availability is low. I met him in Dubrovnik (Croatia) on my holiday and that was probably the last time I have ever seen him.

Please be aware these groups are the means to structure my thoughts about artists. I first liked or bought the artist. Later on I made the groups and connected my actions to them.

There is another thing: I do not limit my buying to these artists, if I really like a work of art. I buy it and will add artist 55 to my list.
The huge amount of artists in my D and E-group shows that has happened many times in the last years.

That's why I seem to have two art collections. My first following the artists and my second following my guts.

Catalogue (wip 1)

The more and longer I'm collecting the more and more I'm wondering what or who am I collecting.

I thought I was collecting artists. However I seem to be collecting a plethora of different works and styles. I really thought I was trying to collect in depth. But that doesn't seem to be true.

Trying to grasp the meaning out of those works I'm starting to catalogue them. First step is to get to know all the names of the artists I've collected so far.
Today I had found 36 people I collected work from. I was really amazed by the huge amount I thought it to be 20 to 25 but there seem to be more than 40.

There are at least 4 more which I haven't identified yet.
I will continue to search and gradually I will start cataloguing the works themselves.
How many works of art I own I don't know but my estimate is 93.

Most artists I have only one work from. Janneke Sprenkels is a huge exception. I own more than 10 works from her.
Below you see "Feeling Blue"

My first art collection

Once upon a time I collected stickers together with my sister. Later on I collected footballpictures, sugarbags, chess clippings and finally books.

Now I'm collecting art. More than ten years ago I bought my first painting. That was in a second hand book shop offcourse. I actually han't been to any gallery or art fair. I wasn't really aware those existed. The painting was a nude with incredible long legs lying on a beet red couch with a dark blue wall behind it. I had become an art buyer.
Two years ago I had several dozens of art works and more art than walls. I had become an art collector. Realising this I had to make the next step. What art am I really collecting?

In this Blog I'm searching the answer to this question. I don't know the answer yet. But I'm going to find out.

(The picture is from Janneke Sprenkels. It's called Sunday Afternoon. I own a copy of it. )