Art Basel 2014: look for your own path

 

 

An art fair is always an art fair, thus a place where artworks are on exhibition to be sold – of course not to anyone and not in all cases. It follows that here the artworks’ setting doesn’t usually reflect any specific idea, theory or statement, except that of a pure market functionalism organized according to the booths’ arrangement.

 

This is why we believe that giving a path to follow at Art Basel – as we are doing with our photo gallery – is not a just an academic and pretentious exercise, but a way to help the general public not getting lost in this jungle of hidden information, what an art fair generally is. Any professional collector will tell you that even the least expensive art purchase makes sense only if referred to your own collection’s theme.

By the way, are you sure that you have yours?

 

The right way to collect is ultimately driven by the informed collector. There are many young buyers who want to acquire the art of their time, and that’s a perfectly legitimate approach, and perfectly appropriate to this generation. I applaud it and I approach the art world in that way, as do many of our collectors. Still, the process is benefited by a lens that goes back over the history of art and says: “This object has some merit. Why does it have a merit, what makes it interesting?” It’s not just that everyone says, “You’ve got to buy this thing.” You have to see what the art is saying. A photograph can’t be just what the photograph is of; the subject of the photograph does not mean it’s interesting as a work of art. If it conveys something beyond the subject matter – transcends what is depicted – then it’s compelling and important. To know what that is, is to know what art is about.

 

Thea Westreich, on “Collecting contemporary art”, 2006.

September 22, 2014