Art Advisors Should Add Value To Collecting, Not Extract It

Welcome

Jun 7

There are few roles in the art world that collaborate as extensively across its ecosystem as art advising. Over the course of helping clients conceive, build, and steward their collections, APAA members are essential conduits that help facilitate the broader functionality of the art market. While we first and foremost serve the needs and interests of our clients, we are also communitarians within a cultural economy that we help sustain and grow. We bring efficiency, transparency, and rectitude to one of the largest unregulated industries, a marketplace obfuscated by the fact that transactions are based on a form of value that is socially constructed rather than intrinsic. Such an environment can be easily exploited by bad actors who see opportunity in the blind spots and a job title that requires no accreditation other than the aforementioned email address and business card.

APAA president Alex Glauber further comments on adding value to collecting in his op ed piece for ARTNews. By encouraging greater dialogue amongst APAA members and the advisory field more broadly, art advisors will not only strengthen our own practices to the benefit of our clients and broader ecosystem, but also further define and distinguish what constitutes art advisory best practices.