06

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Art Collecting: The Artists

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"Artists see what seems hidden at first glance; learning to understand how they look is essential."  (HPA)

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In the previous text we discussed the collector: what they do, the effect of their decisions and the responsibility that comes with taking part in the market. Now for the other half of that relationship: the person who makes the work.

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Artists play an indisputable role, but it is worth stressing that they do not play it through their work and exhibitions alone; they also serve as cultural ambassadors, agents of change with an impact on their societies.

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For that reason, when acquiring a work — whether to begin or to enrich a collection — it is important to pay attention to the artists we choose, seeking a balance between the aesthetic and technical quality of their pieces and other equally important elements, such as track record and trajectory, whether we are dealing with a young talent or an established master.

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1. Track record

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The first step is to examine the path an artist has travelled, starting with the general facts: age, training, grants, prizes or distinctions, exhibitions, publications, works held in private collections, the galleries that have represented them and the projects they have developed.

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With that information we can tell whether their output has been consistent, how their technique and language have evolved and, consequently, gauge their professionalism and standing. At this point we can establish whether we are looking at an emerging artist or a master. Doing the research also lets us know whether the artist works only locally or whether their work has crossed borders and, if so, where it has been shown, what demand exists for their pieces and how much media exposure their work has reached. All of this helps us better understand how the value and the price of their work are built.

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2. Trajectory

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As a second step, it is important to know where the artist we are considering is headed; that is, at what point of their career we are meeting them. This calls for looking at elements of their present: current and future projects, the maturity of their visual language, their technical capacity and whether they have the judgement needed to recognise the exhibition potential of their own work.

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By examining their past and their present it becomes possible to trace an imaginary line of what might happen with that artist. It is an exercise that demands objectivity, a great deal of information and time spent following their work, and it is one that galleries carry out regularly when choosing the artists they represent — as do serious museums when planning their exhibition programme.

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3. The artist as a person

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Even after an assessment of this kind, one element remains that no record documents: it is essential to know the artist, their surroundings, their habits and, above all, their character.

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There are artists who serve as excellent ambassadors for their own work. They hold a clear discourse about what they do, honour the commitments they take on, respect agreed prices and understand that their career is built together with the institutions and galleries that accompany it. There are others who, with the same talent, undermine their own work through poor management, informality or a lack of professional ethics: pieces sold below the established price depending on who is negotiating, exhibition commitments left unmet, work delivered without documentation, or a relationship with the market that erodes the very trust their work had built.

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For a collector, this is the hardest dimension to assess, because it appears in no résumé and no catalogue. It becomes known through direct contact and over time. And it is precisely what a gallery that has represented an artist for years is able to observe.

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One pattern we have seen over these ten years is that of the artist who fully conquers their local market. Their work enters the most important collections in the city, is exhibited in the most prestigious venues and reaches high prices. Up to that point, everything suggests a successful career.

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The problem appears later. Feeling fully recognised within that circle, the artist begins to space out exhibitions and to dismiss opportunities beyond their own territory, while collectors in the area absorb almost all of their production. What forms is a market closed in on itself: the work circulates, sells and holds a price, but it does not travel. And when it finally does leave, it competes with artists whose work has been validated in wider circuits, and the price built locally does not always find support elsewhere.

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This is not a problem of quality, but of reach. And breaking through that boundary is precisely part of a gallery's work: sustaining an artist's presence beyond the territory where they are already recognised, even when in the short term it would be more comfortable for everyone to stay inside it.

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4. The artist beyond the work

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In 1975, a drawing teacher of almost fifty put on his first solo exhibition at a gallery in Cuernavaca. Rufino Tamayo attended. What he did afterwards is what matters here: he recommended to his own collectors that they buy that work, asked the gallerist Estela Shapiro to represent and promote it, and the following year signed the catalogue text for the exhibition she organised.

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Tamayo acted, in the fullest sense, as a promoter of the artistic circuit. That gesture did not change his own production or add to his own exhibitions; he vouched, before his own circle, for an unknown man of fifty, and in doing so became part of the story of Rodolfo Morales.

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Something similar can be said of Francisco Toledo. He founded the Institute of Graphic Arts of Oaxaca, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Casa de Cultura in Juchitán and the Taller Arte Papel; he used his emeritus creator grant to fund scholarships for young people of limited means, and later renounced it, asking that the money go to the Oaxacan artists who needed it most. None of that happened in his studio and yet it is part of his legacy.

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We do not know what they were thinking when they did it. What we can observe are the results: an artist sustained by an ecosystem — workshops, museums, collectors, other artists — stands a better chance of building a solid career than one working in isolation, even if the two paint equally well. It is not the same thing to be the finest painter in a place where art barely exists as to be so in a territory that has a school, an audience and a circuit.

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For a collector it is worth knowing that an artist teaches others, opens spaces and takes part in the cultural life of their surroundings, because it means they are doing something that bears on their legitimacy and on the permanence of their work.

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Knowing the artist gives an advantage to anyone approaching collecting. There is real interest in exploring their intentions as a painter, their creativity and their sensibility. To do so, it is important to seek advice from established and trustworthy galleries, able to match the needs and preferences of each collector with the character of the artists and their careers.

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Helio Pareja Amador
 

* Sources: Confabulario, El Universal, "Rodolfo Morales: pinceladas oníricas de Ocotlán." Secretaría de Cultura, "La otra faceta de Francisco Toledo: un luchador social incansable." La Jornada, "Francisco Toledo renuncia a la beca de creador emérito," 1 December 2018.