Art Politics & Collecting with Russ Basin

5 Minute Read

Do you remember the first work you bought? Do you still have it?

I do actually! It is hanging in my bathroom. The artist is Justin Bunting; he is a young artist with a bit of Picasso flare who has really been stepping his game up.

Does collecting feel like an “art practice”?

Collecting mostly feels like an addiction. The biggest issues being: too many artists to choose from and lack of money to buy what you want. It is extremely difficult to keep up with the ever-growing art world. Instagram has been a game-changer, as the interaction between collectors becomes a factor. I personally to not care about “influencers”, most of the time they are buying pieces at a much higher price point than us savvy collectors. If social media did not exist, we would find ourselves back in the golden days when galleries and advisors would curate our taste and introduce us to delightful artists and works we had never heard of and could not have possibly imagined.

Do you have a golden rule when it comes to collecting?

Buy what you like. Period. Do not chase the hype and do not have FOMO. Just stop caring about popular tastes and opinions.

A lot of people just buy art to resell it. It is all about the hustle and the value appreciation. I believe these people should be blacklisted from the community.

How important is seeing a work in person and/or meeting the artist before acquiring the work?

Makes no difference to me. There is a certain breathtaking feeling that strikes you when you see something new on a screen. I remember seeing an Ivy Haldeman piece for the first time on my phone, and I literally ran to her show from where I was at the moment. My knees buckled when I saw the work in person.

Another pitfall of meeting in person is that some artists are not as good as their work. I have personally met some unsavory characters in the real world. I would still buy a great piece, but I feel like there should be an understanding that I am a “fan” so to speak, and that many of us look at the artists themselves as “celebrities”.

Do you have any interesting stories about how you acquired a particular work?

I will not mention the artist’s name, but I fell in love with a piece I had found and immediately reached out to the gallery to inquire about it. They sent me a list of three available works, all of which I found beautiful and wanted to purchase all three. Apparently they had been around for a while and so my request was granted. I paid the invoice and then the next day the director informed me that, in fact, the pieces I had bought were already sold and that she had not been made aware. I was disappointed, but she was amazingly professional and said she would see what she could do about it and get back to me. She eventually found a work for me directly from the artist’s studio and it was better than all three combined! Of course I bought it and she even promised to find me another piece down the line. These are the transactions that make people stand out in the art scene. This director will always be a queen in my book.