How I Approach an Art Fair as a Collector

How I approach an art fair: before I arrive

People often ask me how to approach an art fair as a collector, expecting advice about stamina. Mine is about preparation. By the time I walk into a fair, most of the important decisions have already been made, and the fair is where I test them.

I also build in time. A fair is tiring, and tired judgement is expensive judgement, so I plan breaks, a fixed moment to review notes, and a clear end to each day. Beyond that, my preparation follows the same pattern every time.

• Agree the brief with the client: what we are looking for, where it will hang and the range we are working within
• Measure the walls and photograph the rooms, so every candidate can be judged against a real space
• Review what the client already owns, to avoid buying the same idea twice
• Study the exhibitor list and floor plan, and mark the booths I must see
• Ask galleries I know for advance previews of what they are bringing
• Decide in advance what is out of scope, so the fair cannot quietly change the brief

The first walk: looking, not buying

On my first walk I see the whole fair at a steady pace. I note works, take reference photographs with the label beside them, and keep conversations brief. I do not reserve anything. The point is to calibrate my eye to what is actually here, not to react to the first strong thing I see.

I make a point of walking the parts of the fair the crowds skip. Sections for younger galleries and focused presentations often have the most thoughtful booths, and they are usually quieter, which makes looking easier.

I also note work that will not survive a phone photograph. Lucy Bull's layered abstraction is built around slow looking. Alteronce Gumby works with gemstone, glass and pigment, and Jennifer Guidi builds her surfaces from sand and paint.

Reggie Burrows Hodges paints figures out of a black ground. None of these reads properly on a screen, which means the client needs to see them in person or I need to describe them honestly.

The second walk: the short list

The second walk is shorter and slower. I go back only to the works on my list and spend real time with each one. I look from across the booth and from very close, check the edges and the surface, and ask for a condition report on anything serious.

Fair lighting is bright, even and unlike almost any home. Colour-led painting, such as Stanley Whitney's grids, where colour is the entire subject, can look quite different under domestic light. I try to picture each work in the client's actual room, using the measurements and photographs I brought. Where it helps, I ask the gallery for an image of the work in daylight, so the client can see how it behaves in a more ordinary setting.

If a work does not survive the second walk, it goes, however much I liked it at first.

How I talk to dealers

Dealers at a fair are working hard in a short window, so I try to be useful to them. I explain in general terms who I am advising, what we are looking for and how serious the interest is. I do not ask for information I am not going to use.

The questions I do ask are consistent: the work's provenance and exhibition history, its condition, where it sits in the artist's current body of work, and what else by the artist might be available. I ask about shipping, crating and payment terms before I ask about price, because those details change the true cost of the purchase.

When I cannot answer a client's question, I say so and come back with the answer. Guessing about provenance or condition to keep a conversation moving is how mistakes get made.

The relationships that matter most in this work often begin with a courteous conversation at a fair and continue long after it closes.

When I reserve, and when I let go

A reserve, or hold, is a courtesy from the gallery, usually for a short time. I only ask for one when I would genuinely buy the work if the client agrees, and I release it promptly if they do not. Holding works speculatively takes away the dealer's chance to sell to someone else, and they remember it.

I confirm the terms of any hold in writing, including when it expires. If the client needs to see the work in person first, I say so at the start.

Letting a work go is part of the method. There will always be another fair, and the fear of missing something is not a reason to buy it. If a work sells while we are still deciding, the better response is often to ask the gallery about the artist's next body of work.

What I never do at an art fair

A few rules hold regardless of the fair, the city or the client. Each comes from the same principle: the fair should serve the collection, not the other way round.

After every fair I also review what we saw with the client, including what we chose not to buy and why. That record is often more useful at the next fair than the purchases themselves. The rules themselves are short.

• Buy on the first walk because a booth is busy
• Hold a work I do not intend to buy
• Discuss price within earshot of other collectors
• Commit to a work without a condition report and an invoice with clear terms
• Let the energy of the fair override the brief we agreed
• Skip the shipping and insurance paperwork because the fair is closing
• Buy anything with a plan to resell it