Frieze London: How Advisers Help Shape the Art World

The art world is notoriously opaque and hard to crack for newcomers.

How much is that painting in a booth at this week’s Frieze London? You have to ask, because most likely it will not have a price tag. As you inquire, a gallery staff member may well look you up and down to see if you are worthy of knowing — let alone, of buying it. Popular artists have a waiting list of potential collectors, and galleries get to choose who can buy works.

Using an art adviser is one approach to surmount these barriers to entry. Knowledgeable, veteran collectors also use advisers to smooth out what can be a complicated activity. Many wealthy buyers are not personally involved in every part of the process any more than they mow their own lawns.

Typical activities for an adviser include identifying art to collect, looking into the provenance of an artwork and seeing to the shipping, payment and storage of art.

And there are ever more collecting options available.

“Arguably, there’s more art in the world than there’s ever been,” said Alex Glauber, who runs AWG Art Advisory and is the president of the Association of Professional Art Advisors (A.P.A.A.). “The big thing is not figuring out what to say yes to, it’s figuring out what to say no to.”

The A.P.A.A., founded in 1980, has more than 170 members who undergo “rigorous” vetting, Mr. Glauber said, including a requirement of five years’ experience, recommendations and interviews. He acknowledged that art advising is not a field that requires a specialized degree or a license. “The field is amorphic and ill-defined, and anyone can call themselves one,” he said.

High-profile lawsuits against the adviser Lisa Schiff, of Schiff Fine Art and SFA Advisory, have underscored the importance of trust between collectors and advisers. Two of Ms. Schiff’s former clients, Candace Barasch and Richard Grossman, have accused her of fraud and embezzlement, and others have filed claims, too. (Neither Ms. Schiff nor her lawyer could be reached for comment.)

“An art adviser allows you to navigate the complexities of an art world that moves so fast,” said Abigail Asher, a partner at the New York and Los Angeles art advisory firm Guggenheim, Asher Associates. “We’re there to guide and give access.”

According to its page on the A.P.A.A. website, Guggenheim, Asher’s clients have included Coca-Cola, Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise, though most of them “prefer not to be named,” Ms. Asher said, given their wealth. “Our crowd doesn’t even want to loan to museums with their names attached.”

Regardless of a client’s wealth, some rules apply universally.

“A good art adviser is someone who puts their client first,” said Hugo Nathan, a founding partner of the firm Beaumont Nathan, with offices in New York and London. “You have total transparency with them, and it’s a collaboration.” His firm works with only 10 to 20 clients at a time.

Art advisers typically draw on their relationships to help clients buy work from dealers, whether at fairs or in a gallery, as well as at auctions.

“Art advisers are a big part of the business,” said Alexander Acquavella, part of the third generation to run the family business, Acquavella Galleries in New York. “Seemingly more and more collectors have art advisers. We work closely with them. They’re very useful.”

The collector Pamela Hornik was not so sure about their utility when she started collecting art a dozen years ago.

“I said I would never use an art adviser,” she recalled. “And my opinion completely changed.”

Ms. Hornik and her husband, David, are based in New York and in Palo Alto, Calif. Her skepticism, she said, was based on the looseness of the term “adviser,” which in some cases seems to denote a shopping buddy more than a seasoned, independent counselor.

“That’s the slippery slope. It’s like how everyone claims to be a ‘curator,’” she said.

But Ms. Hornik met the art adviser Adam Green a few years ago, and they hit it off.

“Adam sees more art than I see, and he has a lot of relationships,” she said. “He has access to art I don’t have. Sometimes you need someone to go to bat for you, as these pieces are in high demand.”

Ms. Hornik has acquired around 300 pieces overall, including works by Amoako Boafo and Deborah Roberts. With Mr. Green’s help, she bought Timothy Lai’s 2023 oil “Apologia, Apology;” Amy Sherald’s 2021 print “Hope is the thing with feathers (The little bird);” and Anthony Cudahy’s 2021 painting “Josh in warm light.”

“Adam gets me,” she said. “A big focus of mine is art with dogs in it, and he’s helped me do that.” (Mr. Lai’s work features a canine subject.)

Though Mr. Green will sometimes “suggest artists I’ve never heard of” and the ideas are welcome, she said, Ms. Hornik made it clear that the collection reflects her taste, not his.

That is the stated ideal of top advisers. “I have to learn their taste and then wear their taste like glasses,” Mr. Glauber said of his clients.

He said that some advisers could be heavy-handed.

“You can walk into some homes and know it was a collection built by a certain adviser,” Mr. Glauber said. “I don’t want to leave my fingerprints on someone’s collection. I’m a conduit.”

The collector Lonti Ebers, who founded the private museum Amant in Brooklyn, said that she uses an adviser, Jacob King, only on a limited basis, for occasional research.

But she said that there should be no stigma about using one: “Dealers seek advice. Why wouldn’t a collector?”

As Ms. Hornik put it, “I don’t want to pretend that I’m not using someone.”

Perhaps most significantly, Ms. Ebers connected Mr. King with her husband, Bruce Flatt, the chief executive of Brookfield Asset Management, which resulted in two public works at Manhattan West, the Brookfield Properties development adjacent to Moynihan Train Hall at Penn Station.

Unveiled in June were Charles Ray’s outdoor sculpture “Adam and Eve,” two figures in stainless steel, and the indoor lobby mosaic “Crosstown Traffic,” by Christopher Wool.

Corporations frequently use advisers for their art commissions. “I’m the translator between Brookfield and the artist,” said Mr. King, who also has noncorporate clients.

He said that his emphasis was on seeking quality, even if it is expensive. “Overpaying for a masterpiece is one of my favorite things,” Mr. King said. “The collectors I know are happiest about the times they stretched to buy something really great.”

Quality is subjective, though. Ms. Asher said some collectors have told her that they bought all the right artist names. “But they’ve bought all the wrong examples,” she added.

Art advising isn’t free, of course. “We favor a blended fee structure of a retainer and then a percentage fee on successfully completed transactions,” Mr. Nathan, of Beaumont Nathan, said of the two primary methods of paying an adviser. “But different people do different things.”

Sometimes a retainer may not reflect all the value of the advice, if a collector is buying many pieces; on the other hand, a pure percentage may lead a client to question why an adviser is recommending purchases.

Ms. Asher, of Guggenheim, Asher Associates, emphasized the importance of finding a fully independent counselor.

“They can’t have a horse in the race — they can’t have inventory,” she said, referring to advisers who may also be private dealers on the side and are trying to offload their own stock.

“We’ve never taken stock in anything or bought anything. That’s a conflict of interest.”

Mr. Nathan said that counseling a collector against buying something was one of the more challenging interactions. He said it came down to “deciding what’s worth buying and what isn’t, and having the strength when they’re wavering.”

He added, “Ultimately, it’s about trust.”