It seems that many of you had questions about the art world. Here are the answers to a handful of the queries submitted over e-mail and to our Bloomberg Pursuits Instagram account. How do I begin to invest in art? The first thing you need to figure out is how much you can afford to lose, because investing in art is, generally speaking, not a great idea. Art is expensive to buy and even more expensive to sell, and that assumes there’s someone willing to buy it when you decide to sell it—by no means a guarantee. After that, you need to have some sense of what appeals to you aesthetically. Some out-of-favor artworks could be good buys but not great to look at. Even some artworks which are visually stunning and potentially great investments might, simply, not be your thing.  Eye-popping returns like this potential $200 million Warhol are the exception, not the rule when investing in art. Source: Christie’s Images Ltd. 2022 If you’re just starting out, it’s likely that it’s going to be displayed prominently in your home. Few things are worth owning if it means staring at something you hate for six or seven years just to eke out a return. Then, and only then, would I recommend looking at actual comparables to get a sense of an artist’s market performance, with the massive caveat that past performance is not an indicator of future results. Think of art the same way you’d think about fashion: just because everyone bought bootcut jeans in 2004 does not mean that they continued to buy bootcut jeans in 2016. And in fact, bootcut jeans’ momentary universal popularity all but guaranteed that their demise was swift and devastating. (Although if you still enjoy wearing your bootcuts, more power to you—same with art.)  Sotheby’s Cryptopunks NFT auction did not got as planned Photographer: Dolly Faibyshev for Bloomberg Markets Should I buy an NFT? If so, which? It’s funny because the answer to this question is basically the same as the one above. Just because some people are making (big) money buying and selling NFTs doesn’t mean you will, too. (What’s an NFT? Here’s a primer.) Some NFTs sell for very high prices, but most of them sell for a lot less, if they sell at all. And because crypto is, shall we say, a world in which hype is often rewarded, some people are just selling them to themselves. Together with my colleague Muyao Shen, I dug into the ramifications of the apparent limitations of the NFT market a few weeks ago when a heavily promoted live auction at Sotheby’s crashed and burned before a single paddle could be lifted. The takeaway is that a few NFT creators are quickly establishing steady markets, but that doesn’t mean that those markets are good investments. In fact, the opposite might be true. What’s the best city in the world for art? As with so much in life: that depends on you. Florence is a fabulous place to see Renaissance art but (pace) it’s not exactly a pulsing contemporary hub. New York undoubtedly has the best, largest concentration of commercial galleries in the world, but its historic treasures, while numerous, pale in comparison to what’s in Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum.  Herzog & de Meuron’s addition to the Tate Modern opened in 2016 and further cemented London’s art capital bonafides. Photographer: Jack Taylor/Getty Images Europe If I had to choose, I’d base it on some combination of breadth plus depth of offerings—and that leaves London, with Paris hot on its heels. Both cities have massive encyclopedic museums (the National Gallery and British Museum in London, the Louvre in Paris) but they also have extraordinarily robust contemporary art museums (the Tate Modern and Pompidou). And on top of that they have booming art scenes, which to my mind is critical: it’s nice to have great museums, but it’s even better when you’re surrounded by people who’ve devoted their lives to making, collecting, studying, and selling art, too. Last week’s newsletter said you were in Paris eating bonbons. Is that true? And if so, what’s your favorite? Finally, the first important question to be asked of any Pursuits columnist. Yes, I am in Paris, and yes, I am consuming an improbably vast amount of puff pastry. I do not presume to have discovered any hidden gems, and am happy to acknowledge that I am covering well-trodden ground. With those disclaimers out of the way, the hazelnut cake at Le Boulanger de la Tour, the opéra at Gilles Marchal, the apple tartlette at Poilâne, the chocolate eclairs at Stohrer, and the saint honoré at Sebastien Gaudard were particular standouts of the last two days. Ask me again in a week and I might have a very different list.  In case my amateur efforts have failed to impress, why not ask a top chef? Photographer: Céline Clanet/Bloomberg Our resident hedonist Justin Ocean (he edits a lot of the food and booze coverage) is on newsletter duty next week, so ask him anything via Twitter and Instagram or e-mail questions direct to Pursuits.
| 
No comments:
Post a Comment