Young Art Collectors

It is common belief that collecting art is something that only those belonging to a much older generation do. This may be true when it comes to works of art by the so-called Old Masters—Rembrandt, Caravaggio, El Greco and many others—which often go for sums that can only be described as astronomical. But with the advent of contemporary art, an entirely fresh bunch of thirtysomething and fortysomething art collectors are crowding art galleries all over the world trying to get their hands on masterpieces by contemporary art figures such as Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol. These young collectors, who range from hedge fund managers to scions of wealthy families, are slowly taking over the art community. And unlike the older generation of art collectors, these young art enthuisiasts would rather spend a significant part of their money on the contemporary artworks of the likes of Takashi Murakami and Jeff Coons than on the Picassos and Dalis that their predecessors have bid to high heavens on.This new generation of art collectors is not as interested in the Degases and the Van Goghs as the older art collectors are. But it’s not really a question of taste. Partly, it’s because of the sky-high and undoubtedly crazy prices these types of paintings usually command. More often than not, a masterpiece by a famous contemporary artist, say, New York painter John Currin, costs a little over a million dollars. Compare that to the $82.5 million Van Gogh’s Portrait of Dr. Gachet fetched at Christie’s New York in 1990 and you’ll see the difference.That’s not saying that these young collectors could not afford them. As previously said, most of these young collectors are pretty wealthy themselves, and could probably outbid everyone else in the game. It’s just that to many young art collectors, contemporary art is just more exciting, and it’s something new. On top of it all, young art collectors claim that there is just something terribly energetic about contemporary works of art that just looking at them are more than enough to pump their adrenaline.But with this rise in the number of young art collectors comes a rather expected result. As the demand for contemporary art rises, so do the price tags. While the prices of paintings by the Old Masters and Impressionists have considerably gone down in the past few years, the works of artists such as Gerhard Richter David Altmejd are now worth much, much more. And these artworks can only get more expensive if the artists have already passed away, like in the case of Basquiat and his good friend and mentor, Andy Warhol. Their works to this day continue to command high prices in the art market, and these young art collectors are only too willing to get their hands on them.

By Patrick Altoft [ 12/10/2006 ][ viewed 634 times ]

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