Renowned throughout the art world, Josh Baer has been editing and publishing his ‘insider’ newsletter The Baer Faxt since 1995. Time and time again, his newsletter gives the low-down on who bought what at prominent sales, usually only a short while after the auction itself has closed. How he manages to garner such information often becomes a matter of wild conjecture and wins him a measure of grudging respect. I spoke with Josh Baer, discussing how he does what he does, and solicited his opinion of the VIP virtual art fair, art funds, gallery-collector ‘loans,’ and the difficult question of art market transparency.

Chris Moore: I want to start by asking you about art market transparency. In many ways, greater transparency has been one of the fundamental reasons for the dramatic growth of the international art market since the 1990s, following the birth of the Internet age.

Josh Baer: Well, the market is both non-transparent and transparent. It’s smart to keep things very expensive by making it difficult to know what’s going on. If galleries just opened the door, which [for instance, the famously exclusive club] Studio 54 didn’t do, no one would want to go. Once collectors have earned that spot, they like it; they don’t want to give it up.

CM: What about conflicts?

JB: I am myself in a conflicted position, as the publisher of the newsletter and as an art adviser. But a high-end deal has to be transparent. Deal by deal, it has to be or you can’t make it work. Otherwise everyone [in the deal] would lose trust. The result would be no sales at all.

CM: Do the auction houses tell you who the buyers are, officially or unofficially?

JB: Ha! They’re never going to tell you—unless they have permission! I have to observe people in the room, or people tell me. Because I’m not a professional journalist—I’m in the field, I have a greater ability to obtain information because I know more people.

CM: And what do the auction houses themselves think of the Baer Faxt?

JB: Oh, the auction houses like the Baer Faxt!

CM: Oh really? Why?

JB: They [the auction houses] like it because they get to see who bought what at the competition! Sometimes they’re surprised at how I manage to get the information. Often they are accused of giving the information out but they never do.

CM: So how do you get the information?

JB: Some people like their names in the press. Some of the bigger collectors like to show off to other collectors. I do it [write the newsletter] within an hour of the sale ending. So when all the professionals are having dinner, their Blackberries ring at the same time and it’s a conversation starter.

CM: Isn’t it helpful to have more information in the contemporary scene, and good for the market generally?

JB: What’s going on is all about perception and illusion, especially with auctions. We want the illusion of transparency without the actuality. I like to say ‘we’re over-informed but under-educated.’ Just because you have an auction database of prices paid doesn’t reflect the condition or quality of works, just the prices.

CM: Could you comment on the VIP art fair that has just concluded, and also on art funds?

JB: VIP wasn’t an art fair; it was a giant website. There wasn’t much in the way of transactions; it wasn’t an e-commerce sort of thing. People [galleries] were afraid to put up their best inventory, and the prices were definitely not transparent – there were just price-bands that tell you nothing, really. Insider information is good form in this business. The buyers are in the know too: they know what’s going on. We’re not trying to protect anybody here; we’re not stopping anyone from having more information. They [collectors] are already well-informed or have good advisers.

CM: And art funds?

JB: With art funds, more people have more access to information, but their information isn’t better than anyone else’s. Often they have less information, and they are guarded [with the information they have]. The problem with art funds is that they’re rife with conflicts. If you have the chance to buy a work for 50k or 25k, do you buy for yourself or buy for your client? They’re doing their own deals first. Anyway, the art fund sector is only doing a couple of hundred million [in turnover]; it’s small and insignificant, it’s not driving the market one-way or the other.

CM: They are quite popular in China and South East Asia, often propping up collections.

JB: There it’s a way of investing a little bit and having a work on your wall. They [art funds] are rarely particularly successful. However, there are billions of dollars of loans backed by art. Now that’s a big article, individuals and galleries owning together.

CM: Could you expand on that?

JB: That’s not transparent at all. As art becomes more of an asset class, these loans can have a significant effect on the perception in the market.

CM: Would you mind commenting on how China and the Asian art scene fits into the international context?

JB: Well, I’m not an expert on Chinese or Asian art. I think India and China may become more significant in years to come. It’s always a mistake to think of anything as one art market, so the market for real Chinese history and traditional heritage will be one market with many sectors. Then there’s the contemporary market, where smiling faces rule and where everyone looks the same, and then there’s the market for Western art.

Then there are the issues of finance—who can move art in and out of China. Art is very transportable and the Hong Kong market is now bigger than that of France without many people knowing what’s going on. On the mainland, there are a lot of other issues. And there are lots of private museums now too; worldwide, there are about 2000 of these museums.

CM: This is definitely a problem in China.

JB: It’s easier to build a building and harder to raise the cash to pay for it. Those private museums in China will have to compete for art or figure out ways to be unique.

CM: Any conclusions?

JB: It still feels like there’s a big bubble.

It’s a bubble when people don’t really care about what exactly they are buying and are just riding a short-term wave.

CM: I want to finish by asking what your predictions are for 2011.

JB: I’m going to predict that Christies is going to go public, and then they’ll be in the same situation as Sotheby’s. Now that’s a transparency issue! Then what their sales are like and how they are doing will both have to be put on the register.

I also think we’ll have more of an illusion of transparency. People need to keep information to themselves. The galleries don’t want to give the big information, prices, et cetera. So, how transparent is that?