01 · Looking, reading, buying
Art
How to stand in front of a painting, what a price actually contains, why paper is afraid of light, and how the first work you buy changes the way you see the rest.
Looking
How to Read an Abstract Painting
There is nothing to get. There is a great deal to see, and most of it takes four minutes, two distances and one question you are allowed to ask out loud.
3 further stories
The Anatomy of a Price
Six thousand euros for a canvas is not a number somebody felt like. It is the sum of a size, a career stage, a gallery share, a tax and a strategy, and every part can be asked about.
Paper Is Afraid of Light
Drawings, prints and photographs are the works most people buy first and damage first. The damage is slow, invisible for years and permanent. Fifty lux, museum glass and a mat that costs more than you expected.
The First Work You Buy
It will be smaller than you imagined, cost more than you planned once the frame is paid, and hang in the wrong place for a year. Buy it anyway, from a gallery, with an invoice, after looking at a hundred others.
From the Show
Four works
to stand in front of.
Every section of the magazine has walls in the Show. These are hanging in it now.
07Eight questions
Collector Type
Not what you like. How you live with it: walls, patience, budget, the urge to rearrange. One of six collector types comes back, with three works from the Show and the tools that fit.
08Numbers in the margin
Edition Guide
Print type, edition size, signature, the stage of the artist, condition and where it came from. The tool turns them into a share of what a unique work by the same artist costs.