Advertisement Some old-fashioned advice: For people who go to galleries and museums, the Web is a good complement, but rarely should it be used as a primary source.
I say “old-fashioned” because, in our post-everything world, collectors at the highest financial reaches of contemporary art are alleged to buy from digital images sent them, without seeing the actual artworks. This indifference based on name recognition of the artists follows upon a notion that gained force in the last 20 years: that the most important contemporary art is interesting less for how it appears than for ideas behind it that don’t have to be visible.
How art appears can only be because of craft, which, so the thinking goes, anyone can learn. But a work’s conceptual base, that’s what’s singular, giving the object its significance. And if it often is invisible, how much do you really need to look?
Of course, the dealers who service such collectors look a lot. They scrutinize repeatedly works at auction in which they’re interested, sometimes asking to view them in private, in darkened rooms under infra-red light, the better to determine condition. There’s a lesson in that, no matter your price range: Just as you shouldn’t buy a sound system you don’t first hear, you shouldn’t buy art you (or a trained, designated agent) don’t first see — unmediated, in-person, one-to-one.
IT HAS TO BE SEEN
Visual art has to be seen. And true collectors, as opposed to acquisitors and traders, derive pleasure from it because, beyond the social and financial promise of collecting, the firsthand experience of art gives something we cannot get any other way. Works of art are not only ideas. They’re objects with nuances that can be perceived solely through direct encounter. Just as recordings do not capture the experience of live music, so do art objects’ reproductions, electronic or otherwise, fail to convey the nuances in visual art that in most periods throughout history have determined desirability and real value.
Until buying art online becomes entirely buying art on approval — meaning the work itself, not a reproduction, is sent, viewed, purchased or sent back — I cannot recommend it for much beyond the most inexpensive decorative objects. Even then, however, you’ll pay insurance, postage and handling to see what an art gallery displays for free, stands behind and frequently educates you about. That, I would think, outweighs shopping convenience.
So you’re going to do it anyway? OK. I am here to suggest how the Internet can help beginners. First, grasp that digital reproductions merely have taken the place of unreliable slides and catalog illustrations. Drastically reduced in size and minimizing qualities of surface, they give a highly imperfect idea of a work’s impact, conveying little detail and less about physical condition.
In my experience, discrepancies between artworks and their reproductions occasionally have been so great as to convince me I saw entirely different pieces.
That hurts least at the lowest end of the spectrum. Should you only want something for over the couch, you can get it, without the mildest pang of conscience, from eBay, where seller-provided images generally are adequate for calendar art and other items of home decor. You may be unpleasantly surprised by the condition of older pieces, such as plates from books suitable for framing; I have yet to see the condition of any volume described there with the accuracy of the dealers at, say, Abebooks.com. But countless agreeable decorations do turn up, and nice enough ones can be had cheaply.
Sometimes, too, older, more expensive pieces listed on eBay are being sold by an auction house, which requires you to register before bidding. The auction house represents a step up in terms of knowledge and responsibility. Before bidding, you can get a condition report, which is the result of direct examination by a professional.
I once was told by a former employee of Sotheby’s that 80 percent of the condition reports made by experts in contemporary art remained in files and never were asked for by bidders. In areas other than contemporary, that would be owing to faith or foolishness.
Professionals should be available by phone or e-mail to answer questions prompted by any work seen in an online auction or auction catalog. Ask them. Through questions about the condition of an artwork, you are brought closer to the work itself. If you do not get thorough answers, look elsewhere.
SORTING THROUGH
Prices, especially at the highest reaches, may be difficult to understand, as they reflect desire and not, as many assume, value. Works by artists who have changed history often fetch lower prices today than backward-looking artists of the present. How to account for it? Near the end of his life, just before the first boom for contemporary art that extended through the 1980s, Harold Rosenberg, one of the most prominent critics of the 20th century, used to ask and answer a series of questions: “Want to know what’s behind contemporary art? P.R. What’s behind the P.R.? Money. What’s behind the money? Nothing.” Thirty years later, during a boom time madder than the first, little need be added.
For anyone who might look at auctions with frequency, I recommend the price database at Artnet.com, less because it answers questions of value than because it presents a desire index. Works sold at auction by more than 180,000 artists are represented, and for a one-day, monthly or annual subscription fee you can search them. Printed monographs on artists still are unmatched for the highest degree of art-historical immersion, but the price database lets you know which of their works have been out there and what collectors paid for them over an extended period. At the least, it’s a tool that helps determine realistically what the funds you have could buy.
To begin sorting artists out you can visit one of the big virtual sale rooms, such as Saatchi Online (for emerging artists worldwide) or Fine Art America (U.S. artists with a spotlight on the Midwest), and start scrolling through thousands. Here my recommendation is halfhearted, thanks in part to The Wall Street Journal report that Charles Saatchi, one of the biggest collector-dealers of the ’80s and ’90s, took more than a year to even consider buying from the site he himself founded. If, however, through any such bazaar, contact with an artist can be made that leads to the viewing of actual work, you are on the right path. If not, you have at least witnessed some of the vast sprawl of the art scene, not just the segment professionals have edited and ordered.
So where are we? The Internet offers for sale millions of artworks from many countries and periods, at many prices. With persistence at the trial-and-error explorations characteristic of learning online, you can achieve some familiarity. Take advantage of every relevant Web site there is. Still, understand that it’s not a substitute for seeing the art objects. Look first. Buy later.
