A few weeks ago we had the privilege to sit down and speak with Susan Kloman of Christie’s about tomorrow’s Art Africain et Océanien auction in Paris and other relevant topics. Susan is the International Specialist Head of Christie’s African and Oceanic Art department based in New York.
The following is a summary rundown of the talk, focusing on advice for collectors and potential collectors of African and Tribal Art. According to Ms. Kloman, the African and Tribal Art market is a “conoisseur’s market” – unlike the rather hasty collectors and purchasers in the contemporary market, those in our field are more contemplative, more professional, and more studied with intense “intellectual curiosity.” When compared to the contemporary or impressionist markets, the Tribal Art market is also more stable – there are “not the same peaks and not the same valleys” of the market. This means that while the contemporary art market saw a significant downturn earlier this year and many auctions took a turn for the worse, the Tribal Art market has remained significantly more level. She noted that in the field there is an identifiable “core group” of people who will and will be able to bid aggressively regardless of the economic climate for those rare and special pieces.
I asked her for some advice for new buyers of African and Tribal Art and those areas that she considered undervalued. Ms. Kloman’s biggest piece of advice is to “buy what you like.” But she did mention that Indonesian works are lacking in extensive education, museum shows, prominent collectors, dealers, and have a general lack of connoisseurship in the field. All this contributes to a lack of interest and significantly lowers prices for the quality of works available. She also mentioned works from South Africa (like those that we offer at Jacaranda Tribal) as well as Polynesian weapons and Tanzanian Objects have not yet received the widespread recognition for the quality available. With all of these objects, as well as those in fields that are doing extraordinarily well, she noted that there is a growing and “exponential divide between good and great pieces.” This means that for those truly great works that are becoming ever rarer, the prices will continue to rise so long as collecting interest remains strong.
Our conversation turned to price and collecting trends in the African and Tribal Art market. As any professional in the field, Ms. Kloman seemed hesitant to make any real predictions saying that “we’ll see where the trends go” but that there remains an “international market for African art” and collections have become quite the “mature audience.” I gathered this to mean that she believes the market will remain strong and continue increasing in price and significance. She added that this “mature audience” is clearly different from that in the 1950s and 1960s where there was “so much material available….[but] not the same kind of connoisseurship. [At that time] people were still educating themselves.” Now we have museums, auctions, impassioned collectors, dealers, and arts professionals like Ms. Kloman providing important and significant information for the collecting public. It’s no wonder that the collecting base has matured so greatly and that the market has done so well over the last few decades.
Stay tuned for our auction preview of the Christie’s auction, including more information from our talk with Ms. Kloman, coming up.
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