Dealer Dilemma
PERSONAL FINANCE | 4th Quarter 2012
Specialist art and antiques dealers are losing market share and they need to reinvent themselves.
Revered Land
PERSONAL FINANCE | 3rd Quarter 2012
In April, the Karoo, icon of South African landscapes, was the inspiration for two creative events that seemed to differ like chalk and cheese.
Bowing to Stern
PERSONAL FINANCE | 2nd Quarter 2012
Can you imagine a world where all art would be worth exactly the same: nothing?
Into the rough
PERSONAL FINANCE | 1st Quarter 2012
I know absolutely nothing about golf; in fact, all ball games leave me cold. Yet it was a conversation about a all game that got me thinking about the world of art and the current state it’s in…
The road to fame
PERSONAL FINANCE | 4th Quarter 2011
Years ago, I was employed by the university of Stellenbosch to work on a three-year project at the Institute of Futures Research.
Beautiful bubbles burst
PERSONAL FINANCE | 3rd Quarter 2011
In June 2007, a very famous work of art went on display at a very famous art gallery in London.
Is it art or craft?
PERSONAL FINANCE | 2nd Quarter 2011
A friend who is a well-known writer of cookbooks always says that a good recipe is a good recipe.
An old way back to whole
PERSONAL FINANCE | 1st Quarter 2011
Recently my husband and I were lucky enough to get a table at an award winning restaurant in a small country town about an hour’s drive from Cape Town.
When a book is not a book
PERSONAL FINANCE | 4th QUARTER 2010
The artist’s book is a 20th-century art form that is notoriously difficult to define. And context counts, as a recent project showed.
The art of redemption
PERSONAL FINANCE | 3rd QUARTER 2010
Integrating the detritus of discontinued mining operations with the surrounding landscape has given rise to a unique art form.
Money bags
PERSONAL FINANCE | 2nd QUARTER 2010
Would anyone even think of paying tens of thousands of pounds for a second-hand handbag? Yes, if it’s made by Hermès.
For what it’s worth
PERSONAL FINANCE | 1st QUARTER 2010
Just because an object is old or beautiful, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s valuable. So what does determine its price?
Ancient city, modern art
PERSONAL FINANCE | 4th Quarter 2009
Every second year (the odd ones), Venice, the ancient city of gondolas, transforms itself into “Venice, the city of contemporary art”.
Heads … you lose
PERSONAL FINANCE | 3rd QUARTER 2009
The furore over the auctioning of two sculptures looted from China has fuelled the controversy over who should own cultural items of “national importance”.
To have and to hold
PERSONAL FINANCE | 2nd QUARTER 2009
For centuries, collecting art was the domain of institutions and wealthy individuals in search of rewards beyond the purely financial.
The tough go shopping
PERSONAL FINANCE | 1st Quarter 2009
“The foundations of us capitalism have shattered,” wrote financial journalist Marc Pitzke on September 18, 2008, commenting on a day on Wall Street where every single stockbroker and spectator alike probably experienced the same emotion: panic.
Not the same old things
PERSONAL FINANCE | 4th QUARTER 2008
Say “Paris” and “antiques”, and the Louvre comes to mind. It is the most visited museum in the world.
Hot property
PERSONAL FINANCE | 3rd QUARTER 2008
Think Modernist masterpiece, and flat-pack prefabs aren’t what immediately spring to mind. But when it comes to investing in art, it pays to think outside the box.
Value Judgements
PERSONAL FINANCE | 2nd QUARTER 2008
The artist’s book is a 20th-century art form that is notoriously difficult to define. And context counts, as a recent project showed.
A sense of perspective
PERSONAL FINANCE | 2nd QUARTER 2008
The artist’s book is a 20th-century art form that is notoriously difficult to define. And context counts, as a recent project showed.
A change in values
PERSONAL FINANCE | 1st QUARTER 2008
A few months ago my editor called. “I want you do a 4 000-word article on art as investment.
How collecting gathered pace
PERSONAL FINANCE | 4th QUARTER 2007
Once the preserve of emperors and aristocrats, the desire to own beautiful and rare objects has developed into a popular obsession.