Art is personal expression, relating and conveying one’s view of the world to others.  Sometimes we may never know what an artist was trying to convey to us in his or her art.  Look at, for example, the Mona Lisa, and all the speculation, not only about her smile, but about the painting, itself.  Often, in fact, that kind of hype or speculation even adds to a work of art’s cachet.  And people, sometimes make a business of making that kind of conjecture.

When I was at NYU’s graduate school of business, I had a friend who was an artist.  He was a Brooklyn Jewish boy.  He made a large basket ball court with rusty rebar and rusty backboards and hoops at each end.  He showed me a write up about his sculpture, in a prestigious art magazine, that went on to talk about how the sculpture was a manifestation of his youth, in Brooklyn, where all the Jewish boys spent their time playing basketball (the Italians played football).  I asked him, “do you really believe this crap that they wrote about you and your work?”, and he said, “no, but they believe it.”  We both had a great laugh (at a price of $40,000, especially, back then, he was laughing all the way to the bank).

It’s not that I object to such speculation.  In fact, as a physicist, as an investment professional, and as an inductive reasoned, I often come up with various scenarios about many things.  Sometimes, I even try to convince others that one of my scenarios is the correct one.  However, for example, when my protégé begins to conjecture about things to which she could get an answer by asking the right person the right question, I simply tell her to stop guessing and ask.  After all, the basis for our business is information.

In our art business, we base everything on information.  To that end, we have developed relationships with artists or with the families of artists from the past.  As a result, we don’t have to speculate about why one of them did a certain thing in their art: we just ask them why.  We even find out things about dead artists by talking to their families, if we have questions.  Thus, we know why Da Zhong Zhang did his Red Guard Girls series.  We know why Guang Zhi Zhang sometimes does realism and, sometimes, impressionism.  We know that Jin Ming Lee is a playful little imp, just like me. We know why some people say that zisha clay is rare, and we also know the truth about it.  We know that the best way to tell if a teapot from a dead artist is real or fake: we just ask someone from their family to take a close look; then, we know with complete certainty.  We even have unpublished materials from a famous teapot art family about zisha and teapot art.  We know what is on Yi Xing Ma’s mind because we talk to him on qq, and we know that he doesn’t just put horses in a lot of his paintings just because of his name (his last name is Ma, which means horse).  We do know, however, that he actually bought one, so, that he could paint horses well.

In turn, those people might ask us for an opinion of something that they are working on, and we give them our honest opinion and advice.  Recently, a very famous Chinese artist was working on a painting, and he asked my protégé for her opinion.  She proceeded to tell him that she thought the colors were off and that he need to also work on some other details to make it right.  He was taken aback, at first, because no one ever criticizes him, but then my Chinese partner told him that he should listen to her because she is my protégé, so he listened.  At a luncheon following the opening of an exhibition of the art of several second generation twentieth century Chinese artists (now, in their 80's), that same artist told the group that I have been writing about the Chinese art market as an inefficient market, and that they should listen to what I have to say.  Often, artists will come to us to ask one of us for our opinion about something that they are either working on or even thinking of working on.  One artist has called my partner, in the middle of the night, on several occassions, to ask him what he thinks about a new idea for a scultpure that he just though up.

Some people take art so seriously, but in a not so good way.  We believe that art should be fun and should not be taken so seriously and pondered from a distance.  Art is a personal thing from the artist to the world, and we think that you should get up close and enjoy it.  After all, art is something we all had fun playing with when we were little, and so should that childish playfullness ratain.  The original art from our ancestors, left to us in caves, was playful, yet instructive.  It showed what their lives were like, in a childlike manner.  If you think that artists have not remained playful, through the ages, take a closer look at "The Good Samaritn" by Rembrandt or the portrayal of judgment day on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo from several hundred years ago when it seemed as though people were all so serious.  That's also part of the reason that we buy and sell art.  It's fun to own something so intimate and it's also fun to pass it on to someone else to get some up close and personal delight.  Through our approach, we have been able to forge a more intimate relationship with art.  We hope that you will, too.