The pernicious effect of immersive art “attractions”

Plus, how to invest in NFTs [View in browser]( [Bloomberg]( Hi, I’m [James Tarmy](, Bloomberg’s art and culture columnist. I also moonlight as a luxury real estate reporter and very occasional [NFT apologist](. Like most of you, I spent the pandemic consuming culture on a screen. After returning to IRL exhibitions, I’ve realized that art appreciation takes practice. You can’t spend years of your life scrolling through digital images and then expect to have a profound aesthetic/intellectual/spiritual awakening just by stepping back inside a museum. No one’s born with an inherent appreciation of fine art. It has to be learned, and everything that’s learned can (and probably will) be forgotten if you’re not reminded of it often enough. Not merely beautiful, the Morozov Collection at the Fondation Louis Vuitton had a taut, geopolitical potboiler of a backstory. Photographer: Geoffroy Van der Hasselt/AFP That’s why it’s dispiriting but understandable when people walk up to paintings, take a picture with their cell phone, look at the picture they just took on their screen, and then walk away. And that’s also why I find immersive “attractions” mildly pernicious. ([Meow Wolf](, the [Museum of Ice Cream](, all those [Van Gogh exhibits](, I’m looking you.) They masquerade as artistic endeavors but in fact actively encourage visitors to treat art as a decorative backdrop for selfies rather than something worth stopping to absorb. Taking photos in museums is fine—[even encouraged, sometimes!](—but that shouldn’t be the entire point. Hungary’s pavilion during the Venice Biennale. Photographer: Giulia Marchi/Bloomberg The good news is that this spring and summer there are plenty of very, very good excuses to get your eyes back in shape, starting with the Venice Biennale, which opens officially on April 23. I will be reporting live, and I cannot wait. The Biennale fills the city with contemporary art, both in the sanctioned, massive exhibition in the Arsenale (a former shipbuilding factory), the Giardini (a garden filled with national pavilions), and then tons of “satellite” exhibitions, many of which are [inside palazzos]( that normally are closed to the public. Venice is probably the best introduction to art appreciation I can imagine, simply because it combines the visceral thrill of La Serenissima itself with some of the most [influential and challenging]( and [genuinely provocative contemporary art]( that the world has to offer. Fairs and biennials are where money, power-plays, and reputations are made (and lost) in the art world. Illustration: SANY You can connect with James Tarmy on [Twitter]( or [via e-mail](mailto:jtarmy@bloomberg.net?subject=Tips, ideas, saying hello). Recent cultural coverage. [An Exclusive Look at Maya Lin’s New Museum of Chinese in America]( With a rise in racially-motivated attacks against people of Asian descent, the new $118 million building is urgently needed. [Ukraine Art Dealers Race Back to Kyiv to Save Artworks From Warpath]( A sliver of good news from a disastrous situation. [The Art Market Has Fully Rebounded From Its Covid-19 Downswing]( As the rich get richer, they spend more. Way more. [Russian Art at Billionaire Arnault’s Foundation Set for Return]( Vladimir Putin helped make this tour de force of an exhibition a reality. Now, amidst sanctions, the French are returning the art to Russia. [Step Inside the Most Exquisite, Rare Interior in Paris]( Question: what’s as opulent as Versailles but hidden in the heart of Paris? Here’s your answer. The shows you should see right now. - [Holbein: Capturing Character]( (through May 15) at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York - [The Credit Suisse Exhibition: Raphael]((through July 31) at the National Gallery in London - [Donatello, the Renaissance]( (through July 31) at the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence - [Charles Ray: Figure GroundÂ]((through June 5) at the Met in New York - [Edmund de Waal, Letters to Camondo]( (through May 15) at the Musée Nissim de Camondo in Paris On the real estate beat. I live in New York, where more than one person has noted that StreetEasy has replaced the Yankees as a citywide passion. In the last few years the rest of the world has heated up, too, to the extent that nearly everywhere you look is a real estate frenzy. As you’ll see in the coverage below, it’s a very good time to be a seller and an increasingly miserable time to be a buyer, but it’s always a great time to look at [pretty pictures]( of [expensive houses]( and [secret compounds](. [Jeffrey Epstein’s Islands Stir Doubts Over $125 Million Price]( [A New Development Squeeze Will Push Rents Higher for New Yorkers]( [‘Invisible’ Kitchens Are No Longer Cool in Hot Real Estate Market]( [More Homes Than Ever Are Selling for $50 Million. What’s Inside?]( [Homeowners Spin Soaring Prices Into U.S. Real Estate Riches]( [The Trials of High-Risk, High-Reward Fixer-Uppers in a Red-Hot Market]( What I’m reading. Given that my job entails reporting on the news, by definition most of what I write about is… new. But it’s critical to be able to put everything in context, which is why in my free time I tend to focus on older things: - Mary McCarthy’s fantastic [Venice Observed]( from 1956 is a travel book with a heavy emphasis on art, edited by fabulous lecturer and art historian [Rosamond Bernier](. - Henry James’s The Ambassadors centers on [Americans abroad losing and finding their way](—more than appropriate for my pre-Venice stay in Paris. - Yet the [absolute best new book this year]( has been Jennifer Egan’s The Candy House. It’s deeply moving and oftentimes laugh-out-loud funny. So, You Had Some Questions… It seems that many of you had questions about the art world. Here are the answers to a handful of the queries submitted [over e-mail](mailto:daydreams@bloomberg.net?subject=I have a question) and to our [Bloomberg Pursuits Instagram]( account. How do I begin to invest in art? The first thing you need to figure out is how much you can afford to lose, because investing in art is, generally speaking, [not a great idea](. Art is expensive to buy and even more expensive to sell, and that assumes there’s someone willing to buy it when you decide to sell it—by no means a guarantee. After that, you need to have some sense of what appeals to you aesthetically. Some [out-of-favor artworks could be good buys]( but not great to look at. Even some artworks which are [visually stunning]( and [potentially great investments]( might, simply, [not be your thing](. Eye-popping returns like this potential $200 million Warhol are the exception, not the rule when investing in art. Source: Christie’s Images Ltd. 2022 If you’re just starting out, it’s likely that it’s going to be displayed prominently in your home. Few things are worth owning if it means staring at something you hate for six or seven years just to eke out a return. Then, and only then, would I recommend looking at actual comparables to get a sense of an artist’s market performance, with massive caveat that [past performance is not an indicator of future results](. Think of art the same way you’d think about fashion: just because everyone bought bootcut jeans in 2004 does not mean that they continued to buy bootcut jeans in 2016. And in fact, bootcut jeans’ momentary universal popularity all but guaranteed that their demise was swift and devastating. (Although if you still enjoy wearing your bootcuts, more power to you—same with art.) Sotheby’s Cryptopunks NFT auction did not got as planned Photographer: Dolly Faibyshev for Bloomberg Markets Should I buy an NFT? If so, which? It’s funny because the answer to this question is basically the same as the one above. Just because some people are making ([big]() money buying and selling NFTs doesn’t mean you will, too. ([What’s an NFT? Here’s a primer](.) Some NFTs sell for very high prices, but most of them [sell for a lot less, if they sell at all](. And because crypto is, shall we say, a world in which hype is often rewarded, some people are just [selling them to themselves](. Together with my colleague Muyao Shen, I dug into the ramifications of the apparent limitations of the NFT market a few weeks ago when a [heavily promoted live auction at Sotheby’s crashed and burned]( before a single paddle could be lifted. The takeaway is that a few NFT creators are quickly establishing steady markets, but that doesn’t mean that those markets are good investments. In fact, the opposite might be true. What’s the best city in the world for art? As with so much in life: that depends on you. Florence is a fabulous place to see Renaissance art but (pace) it’s not exactly a pulsing contemporary hub. New York undoubtedly has the best, largest concentration of commercial galleries in the world, but its historic treasures, while numerous, pale in comparison to what’s in Vienna’s [Kunsthistorisches Museum](. Herzog & de Meuron’s addition to the Tate Modern opened in 2016 and further cemented London’s art capital bonafides. Photographer: Jack Taylor/Getty Images Europe If I had to choose, I’d base it on some combination of breadth plus depth of offerings—and that leaves London, with Paris hot on its heels. Both cities have massive encyclopedic museums (the [National Gallery]( and [British Museum]( in London, the [Louvre]( in Paris) but they also have extraordinarily robust contemporary art museums (the [Tate Modern]( and [Pompidou](). And on top of that they have booming art scenes, which to my mind is critical: it’s nice to have great museums, but it’s even better when you’re surrounded by people who’ve devoted their lives to making, collecting, studying, and selling art, too. Last week’s newsletter said you were in Paris eating bonbons. Is that true? And if so, what’s your favorite? Finally, the first important question to be asked of any Pursuits columnist. Yes, I am in Paris, and yes, I am consuming an improbably vast amount of puff pastry. I do not presume to have discovered any hidden gems, and am happy to acknowledge that I am covering well-trodden ground. With those disclaimers out of the way, the hazelnut cake at [Le Boulanger de la Tour](, the opéra at [Gilles Marchal](, the apple tartlette at [Poilâne](, the chocolate eclairs at [Stohrer](, and the saint honoré at [Sebastien Gaudard]( were particular standouts of the last two days. [Ask me again](mailto:jtarmy@bloomberg.net?subject=Bonbons) in a week and I might have a very different list. In case my amateur efforts have failed to impress, why not ask a top chef? Photographer: Céline Clanet/Bloomberg Our resident hedonist Justin Ocean (he edits a lot of the food and booze coverage) is on newsletter duty next week, so ask him anything via [Twitter]( and [Instagram]( or [e-mail questions direct to Pursuits](mailto:daydreams@bloomberg.net?subject=I have a question). Follow Us Like getting the Pursuits newsletter? [Subscribe to Bloomberg.com for unlimited access]( to trusted, data-driven journalism and gain expert analysis from exclusive subscriber-only newsletters. You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Pursuits newsletter. If a friend forwarded you this message, [sign up here]( to get it in your inbox. [Unsubscribe]( [Bloomberg.com]( [Contact Us]( Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10022 [Ads Powered By Liveintent]( [Ad Choices](