Collect contemporary art, as you are coming into terms with recognizing your own nascent artistic talent, and getting to realize what it takes to lead the challenging lives of authentic, hardworking artists in our midst. You must have known and read a lot about art, and have created pieces of art yourself. Certainly, contemporary artworks, nowadays, by well-known artists, have become very expensive – surprising not a few art dealers themselves – as the art-world is very much a demand driven market, as pushed to all directions due to hype, and affected by other factors not at all connected to creating artwork. But despite these observations, you can still venture into collecting contemporary artworks, while you go about pursuing your own art endeavors.
You can do something like these steps, even if you have not much spare money in your pocket:
1) Have a long term outlook when it comes to collecting art – it’s silly, but we’ve always known that artworks become more valuable when the artists who created them have passed away. As such, you have to possess a vision plus a personal mission as to why you’d collect contemporary art. Write down both personal statements about your efforts to collect, and breakdown your objectives, and revise it when the proper time comes.
2) Pay special focus on one or two specific areas of contemporary art. Most notable and successful collectors focus on certain areas in the field, so they get better results in time. For example, if you like “nudes done in watercolor,” then focus on collecting the most affordable and well-done pieces of such works – this will help you leverage your position as a collector with a budget since it’s not strategic to buy, collect, and own all pieces of everything of your heart desires.
3) Have ready space where you can place these artworks that you will start to accumulate – depending on the kind of artworks you get, you will have to find space where they can be safely displayed, or stored in the meantime. Spend money, too, on framing drawing and paintings, so you can hang them, and be pleased whenever you look at them. This is also useful when you want to unload certain artworks for one reason or another, and you can then easily show the works to those interested.
4) Have documentation on these artworks – this actually is a hallmark of a serious art collector, so get a
separate folio with plastic leaves where you can slip in all notes, photos, proofs, receipts, updates, news-clippings plus the dates when each artwork has come to your place. Also include the dates when they get to be traded, sold, bartered, or borrowed with other parties – you’ll need such documentation in case you get yourself entangled with claims about ownership – you can actually use such ready documentation.
5) Try to work part-time or volunteer to work in art galleries, where you’ll have easy access to artworks. Particularly take special steps to befriend and keep good relations with the curators as they usually make critical decisions on behalf of the artists they represent.
6) Be active in doing networking with people active in the arts scene, in your own way. Identify those artists whose works are worth being included in your now-budding collection. Show up regularly during exhibits of these artists, and get to know them personally. Make sure they get to remember you, so that you’ll be included next time in the invites to be sent for succeeding exhibits.
7) Plan to hang-out where artists tend to congregate. Or live within a community or neighborhood that has good reputation of having artists actually living and working in the area. It’s a few steps to getting to know the artists themselves, and yourself enamored by them – in due time, you’ll get invites to visit their studios or work areas – and you’ll be then given opportunities to be offered artworks that are priced reasonably lower than those found in the market.
8) Share photos of your collection online to your social network – you never know when one or more of them will get interested, and perhaps, do business with you, that maybe related to your art. It’s important that you go out of your way to promote your collection.
9) Be on the look-out for notable pieces of art works in thrift stores, auctions, and garage sales. Keep copies of the latest catalogues you can get hold of, like those from Sotheby’s, and Christie’s, to gain more knowledge on contemporary art works that collectors, dealers, and buyers are storing and unloading. You may also find time to attend and observe how auction houses do their work with their clients.
10) Be level-headed enough to know when to unload pieces from your collection, so that you’ll gain from increments in monetary value of the work/s when this time comes. Learn to let go, and let others enjoy the piece or two from your collection, so that you’ll have the opportunity to acquire some other works you may have been targeting to own.
Word gets around, as people will eventually know you’re a serious collector, so artists will then keep you in mind if they know you have their work/s in your collection. Soon, they, or their agents, will approach you in time. And remember, you have good company as an art collector on a budget, as a lot of known artists, some deceased, actually have done active collecting of “contemporary” art-pieces themselves, while they continued creating their artworks. We know for sure Pablo Picasso did this, who in his poverty days, actively kept and collected gifts from his contemporaries – these artworks must have brought more value to his estate when he died, or he used a few of them to conduct valuable transactions in between artists, dealers, collectors, and the general public. So start collecting artworks now.
