Reading time: about 4 minutes.

Happy Friday, friends.

This week, I want to share some data on the global art market gathered by one of its most well-known experts in a book published last year.

Magnus Resch is basically the art world’s version of my friend Cornelius, the young genius behind Politico’s election data aggregator Poll of Polls. You’ve never met some more excited about numbers.

Except maybe this Magnus guy — but I’ve never met him, so I don’t know. I wonder what would happen if we put Magnus and Cornelius in a room together. I bet they’d count all the numbers in the world.

“How to Collect Art” is a field guide meant to help prospective buyers navigate the art market. Part of learning to navigate is, of course, knowing how it operates. This book filled in some blanks for me.

Here are some interesting facts and lessons, based some 200 interviews he conducted with collectors, dealers, art advisors and artists.

• Those exorbitant prices we hear about (like the $6 million banana) are a very small fraction of transactions worldwide. In reality, “more than 90% of all artworks sold at auction go for less than $10,000.”

• 7 out of 10 artworks sold worldwide sell for under €5000. Most people who buy art don’t spend more than a few thousand euro per year on it.

• In the past 20 years, art fairs have become a market staple: in the year 2000 there were about 50 fairs, now there are over 300 worldwide — and 51% of those take place in Europe.

• Most art collectors are private buyers (individuals) rather than corporate entities (big banks, for instance, tend to collect art as well). They are still predominantly white men aged 40-64, but female collectors now make up about 30% of the global total.

• Rather than buying art as an investment, he advises people to think of it as “responsible buying”: you are not just purchasing an item, you are supporting an artist and their community. “Art is not a good investment, but artists can be,” he says.

Lastly, I want to share his take on good and bad art — a topic that comes up in most discussions about contemporary art, particularly when the matter of pricing is brought up.

The quality and price of an artwork are not necessarily correlated. Here is his explanation:

“The art world is a people business: in the absence of objective criteria for good art, the network takes over. Good art is decided by a few influencers based on subjective criteria. ‘Bad art’ is everything else. I suggest we reject these terms. Everything can be good or bad art. It’s all about positioning and it’s highly subjective, so don’t listen to anyone when buying art. Whatever you like is good art.”

Piece of the week

This week, I want to talk about an artwork I bought myself at the Affordable Art Fair in Brussels, in January 2024.

When you first see it from afar, it looks like a written letter. After getting closer, you realize there are no words on the page at all: these are squiggly lines, broken up to mimic word form — the way a child might draw them when pretending to write.

They are made of cardboard, and they were placed on the page by an adult. I met the artist behind it, Hanne Winkler, at the fair, after stopping in front of this piece to admire it.

While the piece did draw me in solely based on looks, hearing Hanne’s story made it that much more impactful. She told me it’s “a letter that was never written” — a feeling never expressed, a text she was too scared to really write.

This piece makes me think of my own relationship with writing — how it started with squiggly pretend words when I was little, became an aspiration, stayed with me throughout my youth and continues following me in my old age (I’m about to turn 30 this summer).

This piece now lives on the wall next to my desk at home, and I see it every time I sit down. It’s a helpful reminder for me to get over myself and write what I want to write.

A year and change later, I look at it every time I sit down and enjoy it just as much, if not more. It inspires me, it brings me joy and it makes me laugh.

For full transparency, I’ll share the price: this piece was 325 euro. Not a negligible cost for me at the time.

But like Magnus said: if you like it, it’s worth it.

What’s going on?

• Fondation CAB, near Flagey, opened a new show last week called ‘Super Conceptual Pop.’ Word around town is it’s very good.

• 'Painting After Painting’ is a new show dedicated to celebrating the medium at the S.M.A.K. museum in Ghent. It opened yesterday and features works from many artists currently living and working in Belgium.

• Next week, the Centrale for Contemporary Art in Brussels will open two new shows as well.

Enjoy the weather this weekend,

Ana