On buying art in Philadelphia

On the rack this month, in a bookstore or news agency near you, is Philadelphia Magazine's annual home issue, this year focusing on that troublesome subject, how to buy art. The headline reads, "Get Inspired! 101 Easy Ways to Decorate Your House With Art!" But then there is the qualifier: "Local Experts Show You How…"

The reality is that relatively few Philadelphians trust their own taste sufficiently to venture into the risky business of buying art, especially contemporary art. Art is often purchased at the behest of "expert" advice, if it's purchased at all.

So what do the experts at Philadelphia Magazine suggest? With a quick perusal of the October issue, one finds some homes featured that vary in style from rustic early colonial to contemporary, where art is seamlessly incorporated. Readers are led to believe that perhaps they might imitate these decorating styles and purchase art such as the owners have!

Pages of sources for decorative objects, lighting, tile dealers, etc. can be found in the back of the magazine. Not one name of an art dealer is provided here, however.

A Barnes wall, by the numbers

So what else do the experts advise readers to do with those blank, polar ice cap walls? A whopping big surprise for me was finding a page with a reproduced image of a wall ensemble at the Barnes Foundation, counseling the reader to copy the special Barnes display method. One can purchase a look-alike Pennsylvania Dutch chest or some decorative candlesticks! No word on where to buy those Matisse canvases, though.

At one time, amateur Philadelphians studied two years and more at the Barnes to acquire the skill to design their own personal environments. Now Philadelphians are being counseled to adopt a "paint by numbers" approach to decorating their homes Le Look Barnes. As if Albert Barnes didn't need more reasons to roll over in his grave.

The editor's confession

Local art experts— the design professionals, gallery owners and art consultants— are hard to find in this issue ostensibly aimed at educating clueless consumers of art, decorative objects and design services. Even this issue's editor-in-chief confesses to being not so well versed in how to incorporate art into one's personal landscape.

To be sure, the professionals often aren't terribly helpful either. Rather than insult a customer's intelligence, art consultants can be vague when providing guidelines for the selection and purchase of art. Several years ago, the Main Line Art Center hosted a symposium on choosing art for one's home. "Buy what you LOVE!" gushed the art consultant in attendance to her rather puzzled audience.

This isn't very useful advice to people unsure of their taste. With such dubious guidance, novice art buyers are likely to take the path of last resistance and delegate the whole task to an expert. But, that can be problematic too.

How dealers make art expensive

In an age when really capable salespeople at galleries and auction houses can convince a buyer to part with millions for a rotting shark in a tank of formaldehyde, one wonders just how sound art purchase "advice" from dealers and auction houses can really be in the long term. "What I love to do is put people in front of art and make them feel it, make them stop everything they are doing and experience it deeply," the well-known Tobias Meyer of Sotheby's once observed. "That is how I make art expensive. And that is my job."

Meyer cleverly perceives that viewers will go to great lengths to fill in any blanks that the art by itself or the dealer doesn't provide. The viewer will yearn for the mystique, the pleasure of making the daring purchase and thereby gaining entry to Meyer's arty-sophisticated Euro-cosmopolitan world.

Check out this month's issue of Art News, where the aforementioned shark artist Damien Hurst chats with his fellow artists about the philosophical foundations of their work. In the process, these artists reveal themselves to be remarkably shallow. So the less said, the better… for the sellers and makers of some art, anyway.

For love of my father

I count myself fortunate to possess a collection of art that I've been given over the years by my father, himself an artist. I love my father's abstractions, his landscapes, his still lifes and portraiture. Why wouldn't I, given a lifetime of his positive influence?

So in fashioning my personal environment, I started with his work. When I buy art from other artists, the work must somehow fit with what I already have from my father— in colors, in balance or counterpoint. Indeed, my wall color, rugs and furnishings have been chosen in deference to the design in his paintings.

You don't need millions to collect and enjoy art. You just need to know who you are, and then craft a personal environment that reflects what's important to you. Why not start with the art first, and the sofa later in your home design purchase decisions? The rest should follow quite naturally. It should organically emerge.

What a joy it is to enter a home of friends who've made a truly personal statement in their choice of art and furnishings— where the most popular style from a magazine hasn't been copied, lemming-like. Experts should be used judiciously. They can be a world of help in preventing really large design faux pas, and assisting in selection of colors, spacing of objects and lighting options. But they cannot bestow an identity. That's the one thing you'll have to do on your own— slick consumer magazines notwithstanding.♦


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