A Chance to Buy Ahead of The Game — Ally Long

In a world with an acknowl­edged global con­tem­po­rary art fair circuit-ARCO, The Armory Show, Art Basel, Frieze, FIAC, Art Basel Miami-not to men­tion the auc­tion house sales in Feb­ru­ary and June-the col­lec­tor is well sup­plied with oppor­tu­ni­ties to see the art that com­mer­cial gal­leries around the world have decided is “good” and to buy it at the prices that are com­manded by artists who are shown at these fairs.

But, how do you get to see (and buy) the work of artists before they become super­stars of the art fair? You can, of course, comb the grad­u­ate shows around the world (more than 25 grad­u­ate shows are held each year in Lon­don alone) and trawl the (thou­sands of) one-off exhi­bi­tions, often ini­ti­ated and staged by the artists them­selves, in unlikely tem­po­rary spaces in cities all over the world. You also need that “good eye”-the skill to spot whether a young artist will really make it in the long run.

Recog­nis­ing the time and energy that this entails, way beyond the means of all but the most avid and com­mit­ted con­tem­po­rary art col­lec­tor, ART­fu­tures at London’s Bloomberg SPACE, offers the indi­vid­ual an oppor­tu­nity to see and buy the work of around 150 artists who are deemed by a team of cura­tors to be pro­duc­ing some of the most col­lec­table and cutting-edge work being made today. What’s more, many of these artists are those who have yet to reach the peak of their careers-some straight from art school, oth­ers just start­ing to be bought for pri­vate col­lec­tions and muse­ums while also being recog­nised at biennales.

The cura­tors who select for ART­fu­tures are either inde­pen­dent cura­tors or are cura­tors for the Con­tem­po­rary Art Soci­ety, the organ­i­sa­tion that runs ART­fu­tures, and which also works with muse­ums, indi­vid­u­als and com­pa­nies devel­op­ing inno­v­a­tive con­tem­po­rary art col­lec­tions. Embark­ing on a year-long pro­gramme of exhi­bi­tions, stu­dio vis­its and con­ver­sa­tions, these cura­tors ulti­mately select not just the artists who exhibit in ART­fu­tures, but also each piece of work that is offered up for sale.

What speaks best for ART­fu­tures is the track record of the artists invited to exhibit. Of course, of the 150 artists who are invited each year, not all are next year’s Turner Prize win­ners, but they are all artists that the Con­tem­po­rary Art Soci­ety is closely watch­ing as they work with the museum, cor­po­rate and pri­vate col­lec­tions. In the early days, ART­fu­tures showed work by Damien Hirst, Sam Tay­lor Wood and Dou­glas Gor­don (and with a price range of up to £5,000, this must have been in the early days for the artists). Mark Titch­ner exhib­ited work at ART­fu­tures 2004, two years before he was nom­i­nated for the Turner Prize. Also in 2004, a then rel­a­tively unknown Brazil­ian artist, Alexan­dre da Cunha, showed his whim­si­cal and beau­ti­ful sculp­tures made from found objects such as plas­tic fizzy drink bot­tles put together to resem­ble antique coloured glass dec­o­ra­tive objects. Less than twelve months later, work by da Cunha was bought for the Tate from the Frieze Art Fair, through the Frieze Art Fair Spe­cial Acqui­si­tions Fund.

Many of the artists at ART­fu­tures are straight out of art school. In 1999, ART­fu­tures showed the work of the young painter Tim Braden, just as he was grad­u­at­ing from the Ruskin School of Art. By 2004, he had a solo show at the highly reputed Tim­o­thy Tay­lor Gallery in London’s West End. 2004 included the work of Jamie Shovlin, prior to his solo show at Tate Britain Art Now in 2005. More recently, the pick of ART­fu­tures 2005 included grad­u­ates Katy Moran (Royal Col­lege of Art) who had a solo show with the cutting-edge East End gallery, Mod­ern Art in Octo­ber 2006, and the Dan­ish painter, Thomas Hylan­der, (Royal Col­lege of Art), who was selected for Bloomberg New Con­tem­po­raries in 2006 and is now with Vilma Gold Gallery with numer­ous pieces of his work now in one of the most sig­nif­i­cant pri­vate col­lec­tions in Lon­don. When it comes to bien­nales, sim­i­lar sto­ries emerge. Stephen Bran­des was included in ART­fu­tures the year before he was selected to rep­re­sent Ire­land at the Venice Bien­nale 2005. In 2005, Heather and Ivan Mori­son exhib­ited at ART­fu­tures; in 2007 they will par­tic­i­pate in the Welsh Pavil­ion at the Venice Biennale.

Stand­ing beside these stars of the future are always a num­ber of suc­cess sto­ries from the past-artists who have worked with the Con­tem­po­rary Art Soci­ety in other ways, or that have had their work included in ART­fu­tures when they were younger. These artists often make some­thing spe­cial for ART­fu­tures, or find work that fits in the price bracket (gen­er­ally £500-£5000). In 2005, you could buy care­fully selected pieces by Gavin Turk, Liam Gillick, Lang­lands & Bell and Cather­ine Yass at ART­fu­tures. By show­ing the work of promis­ing emerg­ing artists next to that of artists with high pro­file, acknowl­edged suc­cesses, it keeps the con­text sharp-there is lit­tle room for error, and the buyer can choose in line with per­sonal taste in the com­fort that every­thing there is good-and some of it very good.

Ally Long