Five expert tips for investing in upcoming artists.

Built atop an arcane eco-system capable of pretension, one-upmanship and exclusivity, the art world can be an unforgiving place. Establishing a reputation holds myriad pitfalls, even for the initiated. Just ask the organisers of Modigliani, an exhibition devoted to 20th-century Italian artist Mr Amedeo Modigliani, which opened to considerable fanfare at the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa in March 2017. Billed as a triumphant display of 21 of the late master’s famous elongated nudes and portraits, the exhibition was forced to close early when it was discovered that 20 of the 21 artworks were fakes.

Such humiliations are best avoided, particularly if you are new to the art world. Fortunately, Mr Ryan Stanier, founder of The Other Art Fair, is here to help. Intended to make contemporary art accessible to a mainstream audience, The Other Art Fair does away with middlemen gallery representation in favour of placing emerging artists in direct contact with their buying public. “I had lots of artist friends who were trying to get their work out there and putting on shows, but they weren’t gaining much traction,” says Mr Stanier, who founded the fair in 2011 and is now preparing its latest edition at Victoria House in London between 22 and 25 March. “You walk around a gallery fair, and you’re incredibly intimidated. Having artists on the stand makes it far more approachable.”

Mr Stanier specialises is investing in emerging artists and helping people build collections around relative unknowns, artists whose works will some day grace auction blocks worldwide. With the prices attached to contemporary art rising – 10 months ago a Mr Jean-Michel Basquiat canvas sold for £85m – this kind of expertise is veritable gold dust, and provides a much needed edge when trying to discover the art world’s next big seller. MR PORTER sought to get ahead of the game by sitting down with Mr Stanier to learn the tricks of the trade. Here are his five tips for investing in emerging artists.

“My number-one piece of advice is to buy something you enjoy and connect with because, regardless of what happens, that alone should be enough,” says Mr Stanier. “And I would recommend talking to the artist. A gallery is there to sell you a work, but that’s not necessarily the artist’s primary aim. They obviously want to sell their art, but what they really want to do is talk about their work and engage in conversation with people who are enthusiastic about it as well. Ultimately, that is going to be what gives you an emotional connection to an artwork.”

“It’s always worth looking at an artist’s background. Do they have a well put together website? What exhibitions have they done? What school did they go to? If they went to one of the main London art schools, they’re going to have a good background. What you’re looking for is a good track record and signs that they’ve been consistent. What sometimes puts me off about an artist is when you can see that they were out of school for three or four years, did some good things, but then disappeared for five or 10 years. That is never the best sign.”

“If a high-calibre gallerist has bought work from an artist, that’s a good marker that they’re worth looking at. In London, Anita Zabludowicz, the curator of the Zabludowicz Collection in Kentish Town, does an amazing job and any artist who is shown in her collection is probably going to have a big future. Before The Other Art Fair, I founded a gallery and the first artist I showed was Dan Hillier, who produces hand-finished illustrations. Dan spends a lot of time in Peru, going into the Amazon with shamans, and a lot of that then gets shown in his artwork. Back in the gallery I was selling his work for £150 a print. At a recent show, one of his prints sold for £6,000 and last year he was commissioned to do a solo show at the Saatchi Gallery. To be able to follow an artist’s trajectory is the best part of the job.”

“In art schools now, there’s a real movement away from painting, with students learning across different media, but at the fair we still receive more applications from painters than anything else. There is one artist, Ernesto Cánovas who was selling paintings at the very first fair for £1,500. He has recently done a sellout show at the Halcyon Gallery, and his works now sell for £20,000. So, if you have one of those early paintings, it’s probably worth in excess of £20,000. If you buy from an artist really early in their career, there’s a good chance that the price will increase over time. If you’re concerned with resale, it’s always better to buy an original rather than a limited edition. They’re typically much easier to sell on.”

“At the upcoming fair, we have an artist called Bluestone Babe coming over from Brooklyn, who will be selling hand-poked tattoos for £75. That may seem unusual, but who’s to say a tattoo cannot have value attached to it and that it couldn’t be worth more in future? There’s quite a famous documentary by Garage magazine about a tattooist called Mo Coppoletta, who executed a bunch of tattoo designs by Damien Hirst on people’s bodies. That raises the whole question of whether you have an original Damien Hirst artwork on your body. Is that tattoo valuable? Could you take a skin graft, put it on a wall and it be worth the same as a painting? These are interesting questions and for any seasoned collectors coming to the fair, I would highly recommend getting a tattoo. They’re expected to go up in value.”

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