An Open Invite to Ruby Wax To Learn About How You Should Really Buy Art.

Interesting article by Ruby Wax about ‘What Does Your Home Say About You’ in this month’s issue of Elle Deco magazine. Here she talks about being sold art by (in her words) a hustler/art dealer. Given she obliquely mentions the Chris Ofili works I can’t help but think perhaps she has been buying art at a high level. I think she’s been working with the wrong people in the art world. She should have asked me – an art advisor:

a) I would have told her to buy what she loves (not quite likes, not what her friends love, not what Wallpaper says is cool – just what she LOVES) and not what the art press say is going to go up in price. This way, if they are wrong, she will never regret her purchase. 

b) As an art consultant I am independent. I can suggest work from any artist, any gallery, anywhere in the world. I think this means I am more likely to find the right work for YOU, rather than making the sale for ME or, my current gallery show.

c) I would never ever recommend a Chris Ofili elephant dung work for a domestic space. Surely the ants would eat the dung. 😉 Or the cleaner/maid would bang into the dung with her Miele hoover and then the picture wouldn’t be straight. And if there is one thing I can’t tolerate is a badly hung work. Domestic spaces have their own challenges (kids, visiting grannies, oh and kids again) – they are not museums and unless you like living in a museum quality space (one or two clients of mine do!) and have more of a domestic approach then you need art that’s going to work in that context and adapt with you as a family and as your interior changes. I’d keep tripping over the dung and then one day I’d kick it. And then the artwork would be ruined.

So there you have it. Three good reasons why Ruby Wax has been working with the wrong people in the art world. I’d like to invite her to come and visit me in my house, with my artwork that I bought all from the gut and then she can tell me ‘what my home says about me’. We can have a cup of tea or two and after she’s had a field day analysing my works (she is sure to notice that lots of them are missing eyes……), I hope she would change her mind about buying art.

(Ps Wax does know way more about being funny than me, has one more OBE than me and her book How To Be Human is a must read for anyone interested or struggling with mental health issues 👊)

If your name is Ruby Wax, or indeed if you answer to any other name and you would like to learn how to really buy art then contact me here. I have 15 years experience and actually know what I am doing now as opposed to in the beginning when I made it up (just a weeny bit).