Art Investment Funds?

No time for galleries.. too busy with work.. Went to the Flatiron's newest most hip Restaurant yesterday..Aspen.. in the old Lola space on 22nd street/5th ave.. Pretty cool..tres chic (how couldn't it be if MAO was there!).. But, they had 3 Huge Clear Lucite Bucks mounted over the bar.. they reminded me of the work of one over-hyped Bellwether Gallery artist Marc Swanson.

Going to see The Pajama Game tonight with the rents.. Not a huge Bway queen fan.. but at least I'll get to see Harry Connick Jr, Woof! in bed!

So, Art Investment Funds?? Flash in the Pan? Great Investments? All Hype..?? or just All Hat and No Cattle??

I saw an interesting story this morning on Bloomberg News by Deepak Gopinath.Download ArtInvstFund_Bloom060125.txt . It's interesting to see the financial press covering the art market with such frequency.

It's the second story in 10 days on Bloomberg about Philip Hoffman and his Art Investment Fund.

Philip is one of the only Art Funds to get off the ground and is actually trading art for a profit. I think the only other one is Fernwod Art Investments. Interestingly, He refuses to say how big (or in other words it's way tiny!), or what he's purchased (not much..one painting by Ed Ruscha, pictured to the left) to date.

But I think these funds are here to stay.  And as they continue to get attention by the press, and build their total return track records. They will start to lure institutional clients and the more Doe-Rae-Mee.

My guess... it just makes the prices of "established institutional quality art" go up further, as more capital comes into the art market looking for investment opportunities.

Note.. Stay tuned.. MAO Readers.. We're now only 6 days away from the Second MAO Art Contest!!! And I promise.. this one will be easy... so easy.... even an Artforum critic will know the answer!!!

Comments

[Jay Woolsrake]

--Cute "Artform critic" remark--

Thanks for the info about the Art Investment Funds. This is new stuff for me and very intriguing. As someone who finished art school almost 15 years ago, I realize the art world has moved on with out me and there's plenty of stuff going on now that them there teachers didn't learn us too good in school.

[A.J.]

um... shouldn't that photo caption read "Sprüth (as in monika) magers lee gallery" ??

[Mike @ ModernArtObsession]

AJ... you are very correct!! Thanks for pointing that out!

I got the photo, caption already in place, from Bloomberg News..So I didn't check it.

Plus I still haven't figured out how to type a U with 2 dots on top of it yet!!

[A.J.]

option/U and then U again.
i lived in Köln for 5 years.