YOUR FIRST ARTWORK: VENTURE YOURSELF IN THE WORLD OF ART COLLECTING
Mar 1, 2019
art madrid
Perhaps, at first glance, getting started in the collection of contemporary art may seem complicated and even more if the potential buyers are not part of the specialized sector. However, from Art Madrid we want to encourage young collecting and accompany all those interested in entering the wonderful world of private collecting.
Perhaps we can highlight some keys that will help the audience to decide on a work: on the one hand, choosing artists whose careers are in an initial or intermediate state; on the other, start with those small format works made on paper. In addition, if possible, seek advice from gallery owners or even being able to meet the creator, will greatly help in making decisions. Of course, we must erase the possible barriers that still would condition the contemplation and acquisition of contemporary art and simply dare to know it from respect, imagination and personal background.
Contemporary creation is much closer than we think; we have to remember that these artists live in our time and therefore may have very similar aspirations or concerns to ours. Although it seems otherwise, especially because of the variety of languages used by the contemporary artist, we can delve much better into his world view, since we have more tools to understand and it is closer to us than the one Titian, Goya or Picasso had. Anyone who has a real interest in entering the world of current art will discover that it is not as complex or encrypted as he may have thought, and if not understood, it must not be rejected either. Many times it is not about understanding or justifying each of the forms, it is more about enjoying, knowing the creative proposals and letting yourself be surprised. Of course, the viewer does not have to like everything that exposed, for the simple legitimizing act granted by the gallery or the museum, but neither has to deny all creation because of certain prejudices. Painting, sculpture, photography, audiovisuals, graphic work, technological art, living arts, action art... Art was never more open than in our days.
In a fair like Art Madrid, which has always stood out for being cosy and close, you can find very interesting and affordable works to get introduced into collecting such as the special edition of Guest Artist, Rubén Martín de Lucas. It is a limited series of photographs part of the series "Repúblicas Mínimas" and corresponds to the "Republic No. 12". Likewise, the work on paper by the young Rūta Vadlugaitė (Contour Art Gallery) could interest the starting collector. Her work, characterized by the roundness of the shapes and the large spots of colour, can be found in one of the stands of the One Project of this edition since this artist has been one of those selected by the critic Nerea Ubieto. Other participants of this curating program are Virginia Rivas (DDR Art Gallery) and Manuela Eichner (RV Art and Culture), from which you can also buy some of the pieces from their series at a very good price. It is the same with the work on paper by Cristina Alabau, poetic abstractions of nature.
In this edition, furthermore, the potential collector can also acquire works of different techniques or supports at fairly affordable prices. In this sense, it is possible that many would be interested in the work by Silvio Alino (3 punts), a young artist who creates a fun, fresh and colourful work within pop culture, through mixed techniques on canvas. Equally, surely the small format painting by Pepa Salas (Robert Drees) will captivate more than one: from a beautiful game of black and white and colour touches, her work usually hides mysterious stories. They are other worlds in which to introduce ourselves, such as the most naturalist by María Ortega Estepa (Galería Luisa Pita); the urban ones by José Juan Gimeno (Alba Cabrera Gallery); or the most imaginative and enigmatic by Carolina Bazo, Jacques Custer o Jessica Schneider (O-Art Project).
Another work that could seduce the young collector is that by Carlos Tárdez (Bea Villamarín): wonderful sculptural pieces that stand out both for their aesthetics and for their critical messages. Between sculpture and silkscreen lies the work by Iván Baizán (Arancha Osoro), an artist that investigates the technical possibilities of printing to the point of arriving at a three-dimensionality very coherent with its maximum preoccupation: the architectonic and urbanistic tracings and our ways of inhabiting them. And if what interests you is sculptural abstraction you can get to know, in the same stand, the fine work in glass by Luis Parades (Arancha Osoro).
Finally, we highlight the special editions of interesting artists that can be found in many of the galleries participating in Art Madrid, such as BAT Alberto Cornejo, Moret Art, Fucking Art or Rodrigo Juarranz, among many others. You just have to dare to get acquainted with contemporary art and chat to gallerists and artists.
It is true that there can be many reasons that explain the purchase of art, a wide range that goes from the pure passionate impulse that can be felt before a piece to the coldest, but also very necessary, purchase as an investment. In the first event, there are such famous cases in Spain such as Pilar Citoler, a great collector who always remembers with affection her first acquisition: the work "El Andaluz Perdido" by José Caballero in the Juana Mordó gallery in 1970. From that date, Citoler has continued to expand a rich and very heterogeneous collection, the result of the passion of a "pure", pioneering and avant-garde collector, concluding with the transmission of more than 1,200 works to the Government of Aragon. Almost a disease that continues to feed today: "there cannot be art without obsession" read one of the great exhibitions on her collection curated by the critic, and specialist in the collection, Alfonso de la Torre. In the second case, there are numerous outstanding national corporate collections, especially those that seek the art of new technologies such as the BEEP Collection, Inelcom or BBVA. It only remains to us to decide how and why we want to collect, with all options being as interesting as they are legitimate.
