The many ways to collect art
Buying, trading, stealing (just kidding)
The other night was SNAP’s annual auction, a fundraiser for ACT Toronto, where I’m lucky enough to be on the curatorial committee. Last year, I got a little carried away when bidding. I made the conscious decision not to claim my paddle this year, lest there be reckless bidding.
Lucky for me, I was sitting near a friend who let me use their paddle to bid. My feelings around auctions are complicated (the way the secondary market can hurt an artist’s career), but my feelings around bidding are not: I love the feelings of putting my paddle in the air with a practiced nonchalance and going tete-to-tete with someone else and winning. I’m a very competitive person. The rest of the night, people kept congratulating me on my win, and it always took me a minute to realize what they were saying.
The buzz of collecting always feels like this. Like you’ve won something and are lucky. This is, in many ways, true, but not great if you’re trying to save money. I think every serious collector is chasing the high of acquisition.
I wouldn’t say I’m a collector, mainly because I’m so many other things in the art world first. But we do have a lot of art in our home. Below the paywall today, I talk about how we built our collection of over 40 pieces through traditional means (buying from a gallery or artist) and also through trading and gifts. The idea is to demystify collecting and demonstrate that there’s not just one way to collect.
I’m also including my favourite IG account that sells art for $50 a piece.
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