• << Back to Product Reviews

Skate's Art Investment Handbook

Posted June 22, 2007:

Skate's Art Investment Handbook is without question one of the more entertaining and well-researched prognosticatorial art market tools I've ever laid my technical faculties on. It's loaded with charts, graphs, percentages, postulations, hypotheses, and analyses, much of which are at least thought provoking and at best, eye opening. I love when people attempt to "tangibilize" the intangiblity of art, assaying to assess it like product off an assembly line, a leap that's perennially laughable. But hey-- the exercise inevitably yields some rather interesting upshots, not the least of which are informed conclusions relating to the low transparency and fragmented decentralized nature of the business, the fact that art cannot be priced according to quantifiable critera such as size or date, that fine art transactions are typically subject to stiff commissions, and that limited liquidity is generally (and justifiably) associated with the idiom.

Skate's focuses primarily on the high end of the upper echelon of the pinnacle of the zenith of the art market where prices regularly range into the millions of dollars, data is relatively plentiful, and sales are substantially documented, however even in this rarified realm, pinning down constants is improbable at best, and expecting them to play out in any predictable manner over time, nigh on ludicrous. That said, the moral of the story appears to be that you pay your money, you take your chances, and you buy your art. Why? Because you love it and, most importantly, you understand the eternal truth of all creative endeavors-- that they enrich and enhance your quality of life in ways that nothing else can. Capiche? Excellent. And who can ever put a price on that?

The bottom line? Anyone thinking about "investing" in art would be well advised to read Skate's Art Investment Handbook. It's an edifying uncompromising safari into the abstruse recesses of an inscrutible trade-- and all for only $50. Skate Press also publishes an art valuation newsletter and provides a variety of art services. Visit the Skate Press website to learn more.

Skate's Art Investment Handbook by Sergey Skaterschikov. Skate Press Limited, New York, 2006. Hardbound, dust jacket, 289 pages. $50

Available from Skate's, P.O. Box 369, 81 Taylor Road, New Kingston, NY 12459 or call 1-212-973-8144 or visit the Skate Press website and order online.