Esteemed British contemporary dealer Victoria Miro offers some choice advice about collecting art in her Financial Times interview. Quick to criticize collectors who focus solely on investment value, she encourages a more diverse approach to seeking out emerging artists - spend time to look deeply, ignore herd instincts and listen to your intuition.

Being a dealer, she says, “is very much getting people to kind of fall in with what you are proposing. What you are trying to do is present the artist in the very best way possible so that other people see in that artist what you see.”
The best part is “the work, being close to the work, studio visits – you see the work appear, radically change, progress, you know why you’re interested in it, you see the daring.”
The worst is “art fairs. They’re tough, it’s very much about commerce – how much, what discount can I get – it’s very blunt, there’s no time for interesting conversations. There’s too much emphasis on investment. There’s always an element of speculation in a collector but now too many collectors buy with investment in mind. The sad thing is that everyone is chasing the same artists and fewer risks are taken. I can even tell from my own stable – some are so sought-after, others as good are finding it more difficult – it’s such a shame.”
Her response is “to keep showing those whom you really believe in who are not at the top, keep promoting them, make sure they are seen. If you just saw it from a financial angle, you would drop them – it would be awful. You can’t predict [an artist’s career]; you have the right feeling, intuition, but you don’t know.

Victoria opens her second gallery space tomorrow in Mayfair with Yayoi Kusama: White Infinity Nets. See installation shots here.