COLLECTING CONTEMPORARY ART

Confessions of a connoisseurInsiders' tips on how the design art market really works"Art is about life, the art market is about money." —Damien HirstWhether you're an art fan, aficionado, or collector, this completely uniquebookshould be on your required reading list. Like a textbook for a classgiven by all of the world's leading experts, Collecting Contemporary Art isthe one and only book to teach you everything you ever wanted to know aboutthe contemporary art market. The introduction explains the ABCs of buyingart on the primary and secondary markets, at auction, and at art fairs andgives an overview of the world art scene and its social circles. The mainbody of the book brings together tell-all interviews with the biggestplayers in the global art market: the Critic (Rimanelli),the Dealer (Boesky, Brunnet/Hackert, Coles, Deitch, Fortes, Gagosian,Gladstone, Glimcher, Hetzler, Lybke, Perrotin, Rosen, Shave, Wirth),the Consultant (Cortez, Fletcher, Heller, Segalot, Westreich),theCollector (Brant, Broad, Habsburg, Joannou, Lambert, Lehmann, Lopez,Paz, Pinault, Rothschild Foundation, Saatchi), the AuctionHouse Expert (Cappellazzo, de Pury, Meyer), and the MuseumCurator/Director (Dennison, Eccles, Heiss, Lowry, Peyton-Jones).Rounding up the book are chapters on the year in artcollecting—giving a timeline of the most important annual auctions,exhibitions, fairs, etc. around the world—as well as a glossary ofterms every art savvy player should know. The text is illustrated by thework of the hottest artists in today's market, including Matthew Barney,Jean-Michel Basquiat, Damien Hirst, Mike Kelley, Martin Kippenberger, JeffKoons, Takashi Murakami, Richard Serra, Cindy Sherman, Andy Warhol, LisaYuskavage, and many more.All in all, these elements add up to the equivalent of an invaluable andprivileged real-world collector's education—all between the covers ofone book.