When I work with art collectors on collection-building, in addition to education one aspect I constantly emphasise is focus. Stop buying art reactively, and start buying proactively; be a hunter not a gatherer. Through this broken-record approach, what eventually dawns on developing collectors is that once you’ve overcome the initial unfamiliarity with buying art and learned how to say “yes”, you must immediately need to learn to say “no”. Like any new experience, enthusiasm and excitement can be overwhelming, and I end up playing defense 90 per cent of the time. Once you realise you can buy art, every piece of art becomes a potential purchase and what used to be a window of opportunity becomes a vista (apologies to Microsoft). It makes me think that all new collectors should be issued a pair of blinkers along with their secret abstract art decoder ring (you didn’t get yours?).

I must admit, saying no is difficult… as any man will attest. Saying no assumes you’re confident in why it’s not a good piece, and determining that can be even harder than taking a punt on why something is good. Don’t get me wrong, even though you may like the piece, that doesn’t mean it will stand the test of time. Some of you are frowning now. I feel frowns. “Well if I like it, that’s the only thing that matters!” you protest. “Not exactly,” I reply. Liking your art is a prerequisite, but shouldn’t be the sole reason for collecting art. Factors like the artist’s career, exposure, significance and place in the collection as well as many other aspects should also be considered. Of course, those who are really only looking to fill their walls with pretty things should feel free to turn the page now.

To put it another way for those numerically inclined, ever since the Big Bang, many, many millions of artists have churned out many more millions of artworks. Out of all those artworks still in circulation, only 0.00001 per cent have stood the test of time through museum or private collections. The rest are compost. With those odds, the probability of randomly walking into a gallery and picking up a good artwork without knowing anything about the artist is somewhere between improbable and impossible. Therefore, as a new collector, your default answer to casually buying pieces should be a sonorous and grandiloquent “NAY”. Nay, that is, until you’ve done your homework and figured out whether the artist is creating work truly worth your ducats. Treat unknown art like tap water in the third world; assume it’ll make you sick until you know otherwise.

I know, I know, first Uncle tells you to “Be bold and buy!” and now I’m saying, “Slow down there, son!” What can I say; it’s a mixed-up world. The bottom line is that collecting art is a great thing; and once you have more experience and knowledge, it becomes even greater. So once you’ve got the bug, slow it down – you’ve got plenty of time until the next Big Bang.

Jehan Chu

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Photo credit: Motohiko Odani, Skeleton, 2003. Photo by Keizo KIOKU. Courtesy of YAMAMOTO GENDAI, Tokyo