Lay-buying art?….you heard me

Contemporary art – don't run away, reverse snobbery is so very unflattering.

A while back I was talking to Joanna Strumpf, one half of the Sydney contemporary art gallery Sullivan and Strumpf Fine Art, about the do’s and don’ts of collecting contemporary art.

Strumpf and business partner Ursula Sullivan have positioned their gallery deliberately as one that encourages young women to spend money on art.

They offer an art lay-bying service as an incentive to encourage that part of the market. Strumpf explained that fifty percent of the gallery’s sales are done by lay-bying, “You might put an expensive handbag on lay-by but no matter how much the fashion magazines want to label it as an investment really very few people who have bought a handbag for a thousand dollars have been able to sell it for five thousand dollars after they have worn if for ten years.”

Offering a lay-bying service is a brilliant strategy to connect emerging artists with emerging professionals.

Personally I find the idea of forging a bond between the two communities exciting but I worry this is just because I work in the field of contemporary art.

Often the mention of contemporary art, among both young and old, receives quite a defensive response -‘I don’t understand it’ and ‘I don’t get it’.

My theory is that there are two reasons for this.

There are those who, justifiably, simply don’t like contemporary art as it does not evoke a response in them or even more to the point they just don’t like art. Yet there is another group who respond this way because contemporary art is seen as unapproachable. There is probably an element of reverse snobbery at play here.

In saying that it is understandable because an appreciation of contemporary art it is not fostered within the Australian community. In turn people are not aware of the community benefits that come from the arts and the sense of community that could be fostered from further supporting contemporary art.

In February 2010 the Australia Council released a report, More than bums on seats: Australian participation in the arts. 

The report showed that, “Australians more readily associated the arts with individual benefits (such as a form of expression, inspiration and personal growth) than community benefits (such as understanding others and feeling a part of the community).”

The report goes on to list the community benefits of participating in the arts. It shows how the arts foster social tolerance by helping us to understand the lives of others that are different to our own. Involvement in the arts can create a sense of communal meaning by helping to express and define what it means to be Australian and they also create a sense of belonging by helping to make one feel part of their local community.

Another benefit of contemporary art is that it also challenges its audience to re-engage in the act of looking by looking at our contemporary society.

Contemporary art is a response to the world around us. When we engage with it we are forced to re-look at what surrounds us or more specifically at ourselves.

It’s this contemporaneous aspect that makes it relevant for all, and not a select few.

Appreciating contemporary art is not about trying to uncover the exact meaning that the artist intended. Rather through looking one finds their own meaning relevant to their own context of looking and their own experiences with the artwork. Unlike what a lot of people believe there is no universal definitive meaning. Rather contemporary art engages the individual encouraging an individual response, which inherently creates a community around the artwork.

This might sound obvious but contemporary art is all about looking.

As Strumpf explained in relation to starting a collection, “You need to be educating your eye.” Some things you will like some things you will hate but appreciating contemporary is and should be for everyone. It should not be viewed as a snobbish act fit for only a select few of the cultural elite rather it is something that can and should be carried out by the whole/ broader community.