Collecting art saved my life with author and educator Alvin Hall

Welcome to S1 E3 with collector Alvin Hall.

Alvin and I have been friends for almost 20 years. He bought work from my gallery right when we opened and we've stayed in touch ever since. He's a collector but he's also a celebrated educator, TV presenter, and author. He has a gift for conveying the essence of collecting art in a way that is highly compelling and crystal clear.

In this episode we discuss the thrill of falling in love with art for the first time, how one's understanding of art evolves over time, meeting artists, asking for discounts, plus some hot tips on where to hang your most recent purchase, and how to ameliorate art viewing when you can't physically see art in person. 

Alvin Hall is an award-winning television and radio broadcaster, author, and renowned financial educator. His 10-episode podcast series, Driving the Green Book, was the winner of the inaugural Ambie Award for Best History podcast (2021) and winner for New York Festivals Gold Award as the Best Narrative Documentary Podcast (2021). His numerous radio programs include Alvin Hall’s Other America (BBC World Service), Diane Arbus: Intimate Portraits (BBC Radio 4, winner of New York Festivals Finalist Award),The Tulsa Tragedy That Shamed America (BBC Radio 4), The Green Book (BBC Radio 4), and Jay-Z: From Brooklyn to the Board Room (BBC Radio 4, winner of the Wincott Award for financial and business journalism). For five years on BBC2 television, he hosted the highly rated and award-winning series, Your Money or Your Life, on which he offered both practical and psychological advice about personal finance. His children’s book, Show Me the Money (Dorling Kindersley) has been published in several foreign language editions. His most recent book, Driving the Green Book (Amistad) was a winner of the 2024 Honors Award for Nonfiction from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. He is currently producing his first feature-length documentary on the iconic Lorraine Motel. He is chair of MoMA’s Black Arts Council and co-chair of the Bowdoin College Museum of Art, as well as being a board member of the New York City AIDS Memorial and The Conversation US. 

This episode is brought to you by SeeSaw - the best way to learn about gallery exhibitions in five cities: New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, and Berlin. Pick your shows, map your route, and take off! 

(the art map app, not the elementary school app!) 

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Lisa Cooley: Welcome to Oko, a podcast for collectors and other art lovers. I'm Lisa Cooley, your host. I have 25 years experience working in this field, and I want to share it with you. For our first season, I'm taking you on a tour through the power centers of the art world. We're talking to artists, journalists, gallerists, critics, auctioneers, curators, and art fair directors, and especially collectors, about what defines the art world right now, and how we got to this moment.

[00:00:33] Lisa Cooley: Today I'm talking with collector Alvin Hall.

[00:00:41] Lisa Cooley: Welcome Alvin, how are you? 

[00:00:43] Alvin Hall: I'm very good, glad to be here. 

[00:00:45] Lisa Cooley: I'm so happy you're here. I've known you for 20 years, but will you tell our listeners who you are? 

[00:00:52] Alvin Hall: Yes, I'm Alvin Hall. I collect contemporary art. Mostly art by living artists, not dead artists. I started collecting back in 1982, seriously, when I came to New York City and discovered the wonderful art world.

[00:01:10] Alvin Hall: At the time, I was doing training classes on Wall Street, something I stopped doing in December of 2023. These days, I spend my time writing books. I've written about 15 books, many about personal finance, but recently, I've been writing books more about cultural information and history. My recent book is Driving the Green Book, A Road Trip Through the History of Black Resistance, and I'm also working on a feature film.

[00:01:41] Alvin Hall: I've also produced a short film called Driving the Green Book. On Long Island, this won several awards. 

[00:01:49] Lisa Cooley: Incredible. I met you, I think in 2008 you were one of the first visitors to my gallery and it's been so rewarding to watch how you've just, evolved through all these different projects.

[00:02:00] Lisa Cooley: And I'm always cheering you on because the next one is just always more interesting than the previous project. It's been great to see. 

[00:02:08] Alvin Hall: I remember that first visit to your gallery. 

[00:02:10] Alvin Hall: Really? 

[00:02:11] Alvin Hall: Because you were showing, I think, Erin Sherriff. 

[00:02:15] Yes. And 

[00:02:15] Alvin Hall: I think she had that video, which was based on Roden Crater.

[00:02:21] Alvin Hall: Roden Crater. 

[00:02:22] Alvin Hall: That's right. It was Roden Crater. And I wanted that video, but the Guggenheim wanted it also. Yes. And so it was one of those negotiations I always remember. I'm always happy to see an artist go into a museum's collection, although I love that work. I still remember seeing that. I still remember that work so vividly.

[00:02:41] Lisa Cooley: Yeah, that was definitely a moment of pride for me. 

[00:02:45] Alvin Hall: Yes. 

[00:02:46] Lisa Cooley: Where did you grow up and how did you come to art? 

[00:02:50] Alvin Hall: I grew up in the Florida panhandle in a rural part of the world and a very religious part of the world. So, one of the things that we did not have in our house is art. And because I grew up in such a remote area, there were really no museums in the county where I grew up.

[00:03:09] Alvin Hall: The nearest museums were in Tallahassee. And in those days of segregation, you could only go on certain days and we never went because we were never in town on those days. Art really came into my life in 1969 when I went to Yale Summer High School. a program that was started by Dr. Joel Fleischman. And while there, art really came into my life in 1969 when I was at Yale Summer High School.

[00:03:38] Alvin Hall: That was the summer that Claus Oldenburg installed Lipstick on Traction, I think the work is called, in front of the Beinecke Library. I had never seen anything like that in my entire life. I remember walking over to Beinecke Library and walking around that and looking at it and thinking about it and asking people questions about it.

[00:04:05] Alvin Hall: And then that led me, for the first time, to really start, started to go into museums because if that was art, what other kind of art would I discover in those museums? So that really was the. the thing that opened the door to my curiosity about art because it was never in my life growing up. And then when I went to Bowdoin College, Bowdoin had a very small but very good museum, and I saw more art there that intrigued me, as well as furniture and other things that became of interest to me.

[00:04:37] Alvin Hall: I really only began collecting art when I came to New York City, and I met Marvin Heiferman, who was then working at Leo Costello's gallery, and Marvin represented some photographers, on the side. And I bought some of that work and that started me on the journey. One of the earliest photography, photographers I bought in that period was Nan Goldin, pictures from the book, The Ballad of Sexual Dependency.

[00:05:04] Alvin Hall: And that really opened my eyes to how Art can move you. I still remember, Lisa, and I will always remember this, the day I first saw the Ballad of Sexual Dependency, the slideshow with music. I'd been working on Wall Street doing a training class, an all day training class, and it ended early, and so I got in the subway, the number 6 train, came back, got off on 23rd Street.

[00:05:32] Alvin Hall: This was when Aperture was in a townhouse on 23rd Street. Near the end of Madison Avenue. And I walked in, having no idea what this show was, having no idea about Nan Golden. And I sat down, and I remember this to this day. The opening song was when you're alone and life is making you lonely, you can always go downtown.

[00:06:01] Alvin Hall: I've never forgotten that. That's a Petunia Clarke song. And it came through again and again. I sat there mesmerized, mes I sat through it again, and I sat through it again. I think that asked to actually leave so they could close. 

[00:06:20] Alvin Hall: I, that changed my point of view of looking at art and the wonders that you can feel and see when you really discover something so rich as that work remains.

[00:06:36] Alvin Hall: That changed everything for me. 

[00:06:38] Lisa Cooley: Wow, and did you say that the first work you purchased was from, was a Nan Goldin work or was it a different work? 

[00:06:46] Alvin Hall: I think the first work I ever purchased from Marvin was Nan Goldin's Skinhead Having Sex. 

[00:06:54] Lisa Cooley: What, what a way to begin. 

[00:06:56] Alvin Hall: I know.

[00:06:57] Lisa Cooley:  I keep thinking, for a kid born in the world.

[00:07:01] Lisa Cooley: No small gestures. No small gestures, just like full on. Full on. Full on.

[00:07:04] Alvin Hall:  You know, Lisa, you know, until you said that. I never thought about it. When I was at, when I was at Yale that summer, I had never gone to the movies. And so I always wanted to go to the movies, but, you know, being religious, movies were like temptation.

[00:07:22] Alvin Hall: So the first movie I ever went to was, The Ten Commandments, because I thought if I saw a movie about God, then God would not like me. That was my queer logic.

[00:07:34] Lisa Cooley: So you went the total other way with Neon Golden, you're just going to be as transgressive as possible. Exactly, exactly.

[00:07:44] I never thought about that until you said 

[00:07:46] Lisa Cooley: that. Oh my gosh, um, well then how did you, how did you make your way forward after Nan Goldin? That's just such a declarative art body of work to bring into your life, like did you continue to buy photography after that? I'm really fascinated with how people just understand the art world because it's so many people have to do it by themselves.

[00:08:10] Lisa Cooley: And it's sometimes like feeling your way in a dark corridor. And, not really knowing what's next and it tends to not be so helpful sometimes. And so I'm curious, how you sort of went forward after that first purchase. 

[00:08:24] Alvin Hall: My friendship with Marvin Heiferman. 

[00:08:26] Lisa Cooley: That was it.

[00:08:26] Lisa Cooley: Friendship. 

[00:08:27] Alvin Hall: I mean, I would go out with Marvin. And when he was looking at photography exhibitions, I would go along and I learned so much from him about looking and seeing and about the prices of things. He was really my mentor. There's no doubt about that in my mind. Without Marvin, I'm not sure I would have learned as much as I did Sir early on.

[00:08:53] Alvin Hall: And also, Remember, at that time, the art world was quite small, so now legendary people like the Vogels, for example, you'd see them in the morning, because I went to look at art primarily in the mornings, I really didn't enjoy looking at art in the afternoons, and so you'd see a lot of these collectors at that time out early in the mornings and people would talk to you.

[00:09:17] Alvin Hall: What have you seen? Hi, my name is, what have you seen today that you really liked? And that opened my eyes to a lot. And then the dealers from that period were also willing to talk to you. I remember, going into the Josh Baer gallery on Lafayette street and seeing an early show by Lorna Simpson, I remember going into PPOW when it was, over on the lower east side and seeing a show, I think of David Wojnarowicz's work, and you could talk to the dealers and everybody was much more open about sharing information and if you were interested in something, then they might say, you know, we can offer you A discount and let you pay over time, which is something I didn't know 

[00:10:04] Lisa Cooley: a lot of people.

[00:10:04] Lisa Cooley: I think that is still generally possible, especially right now, when the market is slower. I would encourage anybody to always ask. It doesn't hurt to ask. 

[00:10:17] Alvin Hall: Yeah, sometimes if the price is too low, I won't ask for a discount because I worry that the people will be insulted by it. 

[00:10:23] Lisa Cooley: Or they have to make money just to, you know, 

[00:10:26] Alvin Hall: pay 

[00:10:27] Lisa Cooley: the bills.

[00:10:28] Alvin Hall: But I think it was also the times that I came into the art world. I didn't feel the need to buy immediately. I had become smart enough from conversations with Marvin and conversations with other people I met. My friend Charles Lottie, for example, who is an artist. I can think of a lot of people I met from that period of time.

[00:10:51] Alvin Hall: And all of them said, make sure you look a lot before you buy your first work. Because often that first work you buy will be something you'll look at in five years and wonder why I did that. And so I didn't buy until something actually moved me or haunted me in a way that left me repeatedly thinking about that work.

[00:11:15] Alvin Hall: It was in me. And those were some of the earliest and best things I bought. And I had most of that work for a very, very long time. 

[00:11:22] Lisa Cooley: And do you still feel that way about those works? Did you feel that way five years after you bought them? And do you feel that way about them now? 

[00:11:29] Alvin Hall: Yes, I still feel the same way about those works, but I don't feel the need to own them after living with them for over two decades, some, in some cases, almost three decades.

[00:11:39] Alvin Hall: At some point, your eye has grasped everything it can in that work. Your soul has feasted on that work as much as it can. Now, this is not true for all works, but many of them have a certain light. And then when you look at it, you don't get that rush that you got when you first saw it. I have works that I've had for 30 years, and I still get an incredible rush because those works have evolved over the years.

[00:12:09] Alvin Hall: They are not the same, or they speak to so much to a part of me, a part of me that's living, a part of my identity, that when I see it, It takes me on a, on an internal journey, and some of them take me on an external journey out into the world. Those works I tend to keep, but some things I will sell, and then I'll use part of the proceeds to try to support, a living artist, a new artist.

[00:12:34] Lisa Cooley: I want to ask you about the living artists, but I want to first ask you about, or just to share my perspective on that, which is when I'm dealing with, or when I meet people who are new to collecting, I always tell them not to worry so, I guess I kind of give them opposite advice, but in a way it's saying the same thing is that like the thing that you, the things that you like in the beginning of your, story with collecting your relationship with art, are, yeah, those things are going to change because you're going to grow as a collector, your eyes are going to grow.

[00:13:10] Lisa Cooley: Also, you as a person are going to grow and that is actually what is, I think, extremely exciting because if you're not growing then that's stasis and that's death. There's like, there's a great, I want to say it's a Roman general quote, but I don't remember exactly, which is you can never step in the same river twice because the water and the river is always flowing and then you as a person are constantly changing.

[00:13:37] Lisa Cooley: So I always try to remind people that, we are alive and dynamic and changing. And that is a good thing. Maybe you'll get tired of your favorite food or there are things that. Like when I growing up in Texas, like I could not stand the Rolling Stones now. Yes. Then I read Keith Richards biography and I'm like, oh, okay.

[00:13:53] Lisa Cooley: I get it now. . 

[00:13:55] Yeah. 

[00:13:56] Lisa Cooley: So things just, things just change. That's what happens, no condition is permanent. And your 

[00:14:01] Alvin Hall: eye becomes Yeah. More educated. Yeah. Your eye becomes more sophisticated . You see more, you. Gather more in looking at a work for the first time. I find that thrill.

[00:14:16] Alvin Hall: That's why I don't, and this is a personal thing, I don't really look at art as JPEGs on a computer. 

[00:14:26] But that's 

[00:14:26] Alvin Hall: a, that's a deeply personal thing. I will do it sometimes if I'm just curious. But most of the time, I'll make the effort to see the work in person. 

[00:14:36] Because 

[00:14:37] Alvin Hall: I want to get the feeling of what it's like to stand there and see it and be surrounded by it, the scale of it, and the texture of it.

[00:14:45] Alvin Hall: Then I can know it. Then I can tell what it might give to me. Something I might not get by looking at it on a JPEG. 

[00:14:52] Lisa Cooley: So you're not buying anything from London Galleries, 

[00:14:57] Alvin Hall: unless you're there. The only things I buy from London Galleries, or LA, I do buy from those galleries. But it's almost always with working with a person I work with and bought an object in person from before so that they have a sense.

[00:15:15] Alvin Hall: Of what I like, what I'm looking for, and they can help me make a good decision from a distance. I don't buy a lot. I'm not a person looking to buy something, every year from a gallery, in LA or London. But sometimes a work will come my way. A gallery will send me an email with an image of the work.

[00:15:36] Alvin Hall: And sometimes it will captivate me. But I buy after quite a long conversation. And maybe several conversation and if somebody else buys it, that's okay, right? Because the artist isn't dead. They're still creating work. There'll be something else that will come along. 

[00:15:49] Lisa Cooley: I found in those situations that FaceTime actually works really well because you can get ambient light.

[00:15:54] Lisa Cooley: You can see the work in relationship to other objects. So you can get a sense of the scale. You can get a much, much more accurate sense of, the work. than through a JPEG. So if you haven't tried that, try FaceTime, if you get in that situation, again, it's hot tip. 

[00:16:09] Alvin Hall: I never thought about trying FaceTime.

[00:16:11] Alvin Hall: It works really well. 

[00:16:12] Lisa Cooley: I've sold very expensive artworks with a FaceTime and a condition report 

[00:16:17] Alvin Hall: or fantastic. 

[00:16:18] Lisa Cooley: It almost always works. Okay. So how did you decide to focus on living artists? 

[00:16:24] Alvin Hall: I think it's because I want art that speaks. to the time in which I live. I had looked at collecting older artists, trying to build a collection, that would have some classic, for example, African American artists.

[00:16:40] Alvin Hall: Norman Lewis was one. Romare Bearden was one. And in the end, I find that that work While it has some resonances to today, it still just didn't quite capture the vibrancy of doing something today or the wonder of it. An artist really commenting on what they're seeing on television or in media.

[00:17:09] Alvin Hall: I am quite, focused on that. I want art about my time. I want when I walk into my living room to see art. That really speaks to now. 

[00:17:21] Lisa Cooley: Yes. Okay, so you decided to collect art. You're moving forward in your collection. You're building it. You're meeting people. You're experiencing the community that I think is a really unsung, untalked about part of the art world.

[00:17:39] Lisa Cooley: And so, did you ever start running into challenges or, roadblocks to building your collection? 

[00:17:46] Alvin Hall: Well, I didn't even see it as building a collection at first. That came years and years and years later. At first, I was just Sort of creating a world in my apartment that was stimulating for me and for the people who came to my apartment, but it was primarily about me and what interested me.

[00:18:09] Alvin Hall: And I was often very happy to talk about the work when people were really horrified by it. I remember, a piece that I bought of a little girl standing on a towel, by Kiki Smith. And I remember that an older woman came to my house and demanded as she walked in, the piece was in the entryway, that I take the piece off the wall and turn it face away from her because she did not want to look at that work of art.

[00:18:33] Alvin Hall: She found it Very upsetting. And, so we talked Why? 

[00:18:38] Lisa Cooley: What did she say? Why? Was it a personal reason? 

[00:18:41] Alvin Hall: I think it was, it dealt, it was a little too for her full of sexuality, 

[00:18:48] but 

[00:18:48] Alvin Hall: I didn't see it that way at all, but she did. And I think it was problematic for her. So I didn't think I was building a collection.

[00:18:57] Alvin Hall: I was just putting things together. It was only years later. When I reached a certain threshold of pieces and then museums started to, borrow pieces and curators that I realized it was sort of a collection, of my voice and my time. 

[00:19:13] Lisa Cooley: Interesting. I always think that's the funnest part is getting to talk with art historians and museums and to start interacting with these institutions that are telling, the story of human communication across the entire existence of humanity. 

[00:19:28] Alvin Hall: Can I tell you a little secret,  something most people don't know? 

[00:19:35] Lisa Cooley: Yes, I would love to hear that. 

[00:19:37] Alvin Hall: Yeah, when I first started collecting, I really didn't want to get to know the artist.

[00:19:41] I had 

[00:19:43] Alvin Hall: no interest in getting to know the artist whatsoever. I just wanted to know the work. I wanted to get as knowledgeable just from being in the presence of the work and reaching my own conclusions about the work as I read about the artist, as I read essays and comments from curators. Many years later, I would meet the artist, but initially Knowing the artist did not influence whether I would buy that work or not.

[00:20:13] Alvin Hall: I want it just to know the work. 

[00:20:15] Lisa Cooley (2): And does that affect you, does knowing the artist affect your decisions now? 

[00:20:20] Alvin Hall: I still often don't know the artist when I buy the work. It's odd. A lot of people want that journey of connection to the person so they'll have a deeper meaning of it. I want the work to be able to stand on its own.

[00:20:36] Lisa Cooley (2): I do too actually. 

[00:20:37] Alvin Hall: And then have the artist voice. add dimensionality to it that I did not know or things that I did not consider in my understanding of the work. So I view it as having my own creative experience and then having that experience augmented by The voice of the artist, the perspective of the artist after I've had time to live with and understand the work in my own way.

[00:21:02] Lisa Cooley: So interesting. I am glad to hear you say that because as we've talked about, I ran a gallery and I worked very, very closely with artists. And a lot of what I did was really taking care of them. And I enjoy having a little bit of distance from artists now. And I also, You know, they're just human beings.

[00:21:24] Lisa Cooley: They all have all the challenges and personality issues that every group of human beings has. And, some of my best friends have become artists, but then some of the people that I've had the most challenges with are also artists. One of my earlier guests said that she thinks that millennial and, Gen Z collectors are much more interested in meeting the artists and having that connection with them.

[00:21:49] Lisa Cooley: I am curious to see how that works out in the future because there's still just. People like you may like that film director, like maybe they, they're amazing, but maybe they're not the nicest person. I have a much more nuanced view of that.

[00:22:06] Lisa Cooley: So I think that your perspective is actually a more healthy template. 

[00:22:11] Alvin Hall: Thank you. So by the time I get to know the artist, I'm really comfortable with their work. I know I've done a lot of reading. I'm pretty comfortable with them. And if they want to, if they want to have a, you know, a cocktail or have a conversation, I'm more than willing to do that.

[00:22:25] Alvin Hall: And then if it becomes something more, that's fine too. But basically I'm living with. The work, not the artist. 

[00:22:32] Lisa Cooley: Right. So maybe if people are nervous or don't exactly know how or what to say to an artist, do you have any advice, about that since you are so gregarious and, have so much experience?

[00:22:47] Alvin Hall: I always think it's interesting to share. what you see in a work to an artist and what moved you about this work to the point that you were willing to buy it or that you come back to this show repeatedly. You can ask them simple questions like, where did this come from? Was this idea something you worked on a long time?

[00:23:09] Alvin Hall: Some artists don't like to answer that question. I was recently with an artist who is also a teacher. And he said he's never gonna do another interview. And he really didn't like those kind of conversations with collectors, but yet we had a lovely conversation, but we talked about none of this.

[00:23:26] Lisa Cooley: Oh, right. 

[00:23:27] Alvin Hall: We talked about his work. We talked about us just being people and how we negotiated aspects of our lives day to day. Some artists, that's what they want to talk about. Right. I think you have to be a flexible conversationalist when you're talking to artists because not every artist wants to talk all the time about their work.

[00:23:45] Alvin Hall: Some do, some don't. 

[00:23:47] Lisa Cooley: I agree. I agree. My only thing I would add to that is, usually, artists will not stop talking about their ideas. And I remember when I was making decisions about who to show. 

[00:23:57] Yeah. 

[00:23:58] Lisa Cooley: If I was on the fence and I would just try to spend more time with artists to get to know them better and try and understand them better.

[00:24:05] Lisa Cooley: Remember there was one artist in particular who, just did not talk to me at all about their ideas. And I just felt in my gut, that, this is so wrong. Yes, I can see 

[00:24:17] that. You 

[00:24:18] Lisa Cooley: know, like, you're, you're like, this is a potentially professional relationship and usually, every artist I know, when they do start talking about their work, which would be appropriate, and, you know, a potential gallery artist relationship, you usually cannot stop them from talking about their ideas.

[00:24:33] Lisa Cooley: Yeah. 

[00:24:34] Alvin Hall: I think that's different from being a collector. That's different. It is different. 

[00:24:36] Lisa Cooley: It is different. 

[00:24:36] Alvin Hall: Yeah, yeah, because they want you to represent them and you become their voice. 

[00:24:41] Lisa Cooley: Right. 

[00:24:42] Alvin Hall: And you have to have the deep understanding of it. 

[00:24:46] Lisa Cooley: I need to be able to absorb all of their, information so that I can then, turn it back around to the world.

[00:24:52] Yes. 

[00:24:53] Lisa Cooley: Do you have a community of other collectors that you trade notes with? And, or how do you learn about new artists? 

[00:24:58] Alvin Hall: I look a lot. There was a time in my life, Lisa, when I had a rule that I never worked. On Fridays after one o'clock. 

[00:25:09] Lisa Cooley (2): Oh. 

[00:25:10] Alvin Hall: I would then go out into the world, and I would generally see eight to ten shows on Fridays.

[00:25:19] Alvin Hall: And then on Saturday mornings, I'd have another list of shows, and I'd go to see four or five only. And I was done by noon. Twelve thirty, the latest. So that was part of my discovery process. 

[00:25:33] Okay. 

[00:25:33] Alvin Hall: I have Some close friends, three of them, who are out and about in the art world a great deal. And they'll say, I saw this show and it interests me, I think you should go and see it.

[00:25:48] Alvin Hall: But that's about the extent that we share. I think it's because we have different tastes. 

[00:25:55] Mm, sure. 

[00:25:56] Alvin Hall: We have, different ways we approach collecting. Who we listen to, who we don't listen to. And I tend to follow my instincts about what I like. And I don't mind missing something. I don't suffer from fear of missing out because everybody else is buying something.

[00:26:17] Alvin Hall: I don't have that, I don't have that fear or that emotion at all. I like the discovery. I like the hunt. 

[00:26:24] Lisa Cooley: I know.

[00:26:25] Alvin Hall:  I'm coming across something that just It stuns me or leaves me thinking, God, that's really good. I'm not sure where it's going to go, but right now it's really a good idea. 

[00:26:39] Lisa Cooley: So you don't worry so much about distinguishing between who has longevity and who is going to, is not going to have longevity because you're going off something immediate in the moment.

[00:26:53] Alvin Hall: No. 

[00:26:54] Lisa Cooley: No. Okay. 

[00:26:55] Alvin Hall: I think that, one word answer, no. Okay, that's 

[00:27:00] fine. 

[00:27:01] Alvin Hall: I think that the longer you look, in the antiques business, and I collected antique furniture and ceramics and silver for many, many years, the sort of, loving, uh, discovery in a junk store and an antique market. I love that. And I learned that there's what's called a comer.

[00:27:28] Alvin Hall: You discover an object or some furniture that just, you just have that sense that nobody's discovered this yet, but it has all the elements of something that people are going to discover and understand and make a market in. And you get that from looking and looking and looking. 

[00:27:54] Lisa Cooley: Yes. 

[00:27:55] Alvin Hall: And it becomes ingrained in you.

[00:27:57] Alvin Hall: It becomes a part of your, your intuition. And I think that it's automatically a part of my intuition when I look at art. 

[00:28:05] Lisa Coole): Because you've been looking for such a long time. 

[00:28:07] Alvin Hall: I've been looking for such a long time, and, you know, the time when, Gavin Brown was showing these small little Peter Doric paintings at the Gramercy Park Art Fair, Gramercy Hotel Art Fair, and they were, just sitting on the floor in a room, and I still remember walking in and looking at those Peter Doric paintings.

[00:28:29] Alvin Hall: And I'd never seen anybody paint quite like that before, or images like that before. And that just really haunted me. It stayed with me. I came back and looked at it again. I went away, came back, and the paintings were still there, and I looked at it again. And because there was just something distinct, and I knew that eventually that would just catch on.

[00:28:47] Alvin Hall: The same thing with Chris Ofili. The first time I saw that work, there was something in that work that you could tell it touched on history in a way. that would evolve as Chris became more daring, as his understanding to communicate about various aspects of history that he had yet to learn about would evolve.

[00:29:09] Alvin Hall: It was fantastic. 

[00:29:10] Lisa Cooley: I struggle sometimes to explain, like, how I know, and I just know sometimes, and I forget that it is because I've been looking at art for several decades. And sometimes you'll be wrong. Oh, of course. We're all wrong. No, you're wrong sometimes. 

[00:29:27] Alvin Hall: But that's okay. I tell everybody, you know, have a friend.

[00:29:30] Alvin Hall: Who has a country house, who needs a place, who needs some art on their walls. Put all your failures there. 

[00:29:38] Lisa Cooley: Strong advice. So how has the art world changed since you first started interacting with it? 

[00:29:46] Alvin Hall: It's so much bigger. That's the thing that probably stuns me the most when I'm out on a Friday's. on Fridays or out on Saturdays.

[00:30:00] Alvin Hall: There's so many more people out. The intimacy of the art world is gone. You don't have a lot of time to talk to the gallery owners the way you used to. You can develop relationships with gallery directors in that way, but gallery owners you don't know as well as you used to. And there's a competition going on for who's gonna buy a lot of the work.

[00:30:24] Alvin Hall: And I have refused to participate in that competition. I just refused. 

[00:30:29] Lisa Cooley (2): Right. 

[00:30:30] Alvin Hall: I want to Take my time, feel that what I'm buying is what I want and sensing that it will fit in with what I already have and enhance what I already have. That has changed a lot. The price points are, of course, much, much higher.

[00:30:48] Alvin Hall: Crazy prices. 1, 500 to 2, 500 now, it starts out at 15, 000 

[00:30:55] to 20, 000. 

[00:30:55] Alvin Hall: For a young artist who has never had a show, who is just showing for the first time it's just, I find that amazing. Amazing is one 

[00:31:03] Lisa Cooley: word. 

[00:31:05] Alvin Hall: I find it amazing because if they have the courage to ask for it, 

[00:31:09] Lisa Cooley: fine 

[00:31:10] Alvin Hall: for them. 

[00:31:10] Lisa Cooley: Right. And if it works they can get it.

[00:31:13] Alvin Hall: And I think. The trends, I don't think there were that many trends before where a body, a group of artists were doing Work that was so similar. 

[00:31:28] Lisa Cooley: Right. 

[00:31:29] Alvin Hall: I see a lot of work that combines elements from different artists into a canvas and the artists who created the new work feels that this is inventive.

[00:31:41] Alvin Hall: It's derivative. It's not inventive. 

[00:31:43] Lisa Cooley: Right. Yes. 

[00:31:44] Alvin Hall: So I don't feel there were those trends so discernible before. There were much more individual voices. So now you have to pick and look. More carefully, you know, Lisa you and I had this conversation. A lot of people buy with their eyes, some people buy with their intuition and their eyes.

[00:32:07] Alvin Hall: And some people buy with their ears leading their eyes. And the last one, the ears leading the eyes, means that you're buying into trends, the buzz that is out there, and the buzz may not last. 

[00:32:23] Lisa Cooley: Right. Well, interesting you say that, and the episode right before this, Marion Maneker made a point about how in the art world we disparage people who buy with their ears, and he says, Everybody buys with their ears in a certain way because that's the social nature of the art world.

[00:32:40] Lisa Cooley: But I think that aspect is something different from what you and I are thinking about. I can think of one collector in particular who seems to only buy what other people are buying without having a deeper engagement with it and that's, that's really the problem.

[00:32:54] Lisa Cooley: And that's, what you're talking about when people are only doing it, like getting Pokemon and checking something off a box and then not, Engaging with it in a deeper way. 

[00:33:07] Alvin Hall: Lisa, can a person who does that put together a really good collection? 

[00:33:12] Lisa Cooley: It depends on who they're listening to.

[00:33:14] Alvin Hall: That's right. It depends on who 

[00:33:16] Lisa Cooley: they're listening to. 

[00:33:18] Alvin Hall: I agree. 

[00:33:19] Lisa Cooley: I 

[00:33:20] Alvin Hall: agree. But to what extent is that collection a reflection of them? 

[00:33:26] Lisa Cooley: Right. Right. Ideally, collectors would have art advisors that can really tailor things to them. And a great art advisor could do that, or if you're just talking with your friends, just like you were saying, you're aware that you have different tastes from your friends.

[00:33:41] Lisa Cooley: Yeah, ideally. But then also, there's also a certain aspect where if you go to different private, Museums, they've got their, George Condo and their, this and their that, and they can sometimes look the same because there can be a certain kind of homogeneity, which is boring. But also there's just so much, so much nuance to what we're talking about. Um, we talked about payment plans and discounts a little bit, and I want to share. When I, like a couple of years ago when my son was younger, we were on the playground at his school and I met this other dad and I was talking to him and I told him what I did and he said, you know, I guess you can't get a discount on artwork because we tried to buy something one time and we couldn't get a discount on it.

[00:34:35] Lisa Cooley: And I realized then that he was taking an isolated example and then applying that lesson to every single possible interaction, a transaction where you would ask for a discount and deducing something that was incorrect. And so, you've been collecting for a long time, when you have tried to engage gallerists in talking about discounts or payment plans, are they more often than not receptive?

[00:35:02] Lisa Cooley: Or how, can you give a sense of the percentage or willingness, that you experience in all of your time collecting? 

[00:35:12] Alvin Hall: I think if you're a nice person and you've shown a true interest in the work and they're happy to place the work with you, with the idea that you're not going to flip the work, i.

[00:35:22] Alvin Hall: e. sell it out, they will offer you a discount. 

[00:35:26] But 

[00:35:26] Alvin Hall: you have to be, remember, you have to respect them. It's their business. They're protecting the artists. They're not Looking to sell you a work that you're going to then flip out in five years into the marketplace and you need to be a nice person, just because the gallery gives a discount, you know, you can say, well, what about my discount?

[00:35:49] Alvin Hall: That's a good way for them to say, I'm not going to give you a discount just because you asked in this unpleasant way. It's a business and it's a business about relationships and. You know, sometimes we all make mistakes and you may, want to buy a work and then your financial situation change and you can't pay for it.

[00:36:08] Alvin Hall: Uh, but you have to be nice about it with people so that there are no hard feelings or the hard feelings don't last long. And if you ask for a discount, you have to ask in a, way that is appropriate to the situation. I remember that a dealer told me a story about a big collector who came in who wanted a substantial discount and, they quoted it with the standard discount in the industry, which is, uh, 10 percent after a little bit more negotiating.

[00:36:42] Alvin Hall: And the person pushing, pushing, pushing, they gave them a 15 percent discount but made it clear that that was going to be the final discount on this work. And the collector said to them, you know, that price is just not distressed enough. 

[00:37:01] Lisa Cooley: Oh my god. Oh, my God. 

[00:37:03] Alvin Hall: That term distress is a direct borrowing from the bond markets where you have distress bonds, those that are on the verge of bankruptcy or their ratings being lowered, their prices drops substantially.

[00:37:20] Alvin Hall: So, you can see that some people use financial models and financial languages in their heads as they're negotiating discounts because they're used to seeing the world through a different lens, the lens of the investment markets. And I tell everybody, you need to be nice to people in the world because you never know who later on will have something that you really, really want, and you may want it, and they may not be willing to sell it to you. 

[00:37:54] Lisa Cooley: I think that is generally very good life advice. 

[00:37:57] Alvin Hall: Yeah, it is. 

[00:37:58] Lisa Cooley: You never know. 

[00:38:00] Alvin Hall: Never, 

[00:38:01] never, never, never. 

[00:38:02] Lisa Cooley: How do you handle thinking about an artist's biography? We're coming out of a period where artists' biography are sometimes like really pushed to the foreground.

[00:38:11] Lisa Cooley: But it hasn't always been that way. And I have a feeling that you get everything that you need from the artwork itself. I asked this question because I heard an antidote recently where, someone was, Working in a gallery and talking about how, like somebody very new, about how it seemed like the artwork almost didn't even matter because the way the gallerist was selling the work was just like listing off facts about the artist's biography.

[00:38:42] Lisa Cooley: And that seemed to hold more importance. And I suspect that that's just like the, the informational selling style of that particular gallerist. But, what do you think about how biography, goes into your decision making? 

[00:38:59] Alvin Hall: This is why I don't get to know the artist at first. I have been caught in situations where I've been interested in the artwork until the person starts to talk about The piece.

[00:39:14] Alvin Hall: And the entire conversation is about the person's life. 

[00:39:19] Lisa Cooley (2): Right. 

[00:39:20] Alvin Hall: I thought, well I don't see that in the work. 

[00:39:25] Lisa Cooley (2): Right. 

[00:39:26] Alvin Hall: So, what am I buying here? Am I buying the story or am I buying the work? Some people say, well, you're buying both. I don't believe that. I don't want that. I don't want to have to know that my whole life is about everyday waking up and thinking about this person's biography when I look at that work.

[00:39:45] Lisa Cooley (2): Right. 

[00:39:45] Alvin Hall: Uh, I find that. Putting the story in front of the artwork isn't sufficient justification for calling the piece great, or interesting, or even good. 

[00:39:57] Lisa Cooley (2): Yes. 

[00:39:58] Alvin Hall: It's just another aspect that people use in the sale. And it, and every time that has happened with me, I have not bought the work.

[00:40:07] Alvin Hall: Because I think, if I have to know your story to understand this work, then I need to use my brain power for something else. 

[00:40:17] Yeah. 

[00:40:17] Alvin Hall: I may not say that, but that's the thought bubble above my head. 

[00:40:27] Lisa Cooley: Are there artists or curators who you think are moving art history forward? right now? Or even gallerists? Or is there anybody who you really think is like, sort of moving the conversation forward?

[00:40:39] Alvin Hall: I think there's so many curators and gallerists in the world that it's very difficult to tell which one is really moving the needle. I think we all live in certain silos in the art world and depending upon what silo you're in and what connections you have. The person you know in that silo is moving that group of artists.

[00:41:07] Alvin Hall: The person you know in another silo is moving another group of artists. I think that the day when we could say one person can move the art world that much, that's dissipating. I think some people still, I think there are myths around people who once did that. 

[00:41:27] Lisa Cooley (2): Right. 

[00:41:28] Alvin Hall: And those myths remain, and they, and they remain, deservedly so.

[00:41:34] Lisa Cooley: Well, I think Yeah, that time is also like the media environment was so different. Like there was like, it was like the time of like Walter Cronkite, you know, like the most trusted man in America and art critics were that way also, but I just don't think I, I, yeah, I don't think there's a singular person.

[00:41:51] Lisa Cooley: But I think there are people we all keep an eye on every now and then. 

[00:41:54] Alvin Hall: Yeah, I don't follow curators so much. I do tend to look at group shows by curators. I'm always interested in who are they pulling together? What narrative or what story are they trying to tell in this show?

[00:42:10] Alvin Hall: And are they doing it in a way that will touch people? Some of them are easy shows. Uh, you can stroll through them in 30 minutes and you get the ideas. 

[00:42:20] Yeah, 

[00:42:21] Alvin Hall: but There's some shows in particular There was a show at the Guggenheim about blackness that was going 

[00:42:32] Lisa Cooley: dark 

[00:42:33] Alvin Hall: going dark Yes, 

[00:42:35] Lisa Cooley (2): it was so good.

[00:42:35] Lisa Cooley (2): I 

[00:42:35] Alvin Hall: saw that show Ten times 

[00:42:38] Lisa Cooley (2): so good 

[00:42:40] Alvin Hall: I would go back to that show and just walk up and down it because there was so many good ideas in the show, but then there were ideas that were sparked by being in front of the work and thinking about Uh, why the curator put these together. Or, what other items in the world that would have gone in to replace this, that would have added a different dimensionality to it.

[00:43:10] Alvin Hall: Um, yeah, that was a really, really good show. That show really quite, Moved me in a way that I have not been moved recently. 

[00:43:22] Lisa Cooley: I strongly second that. The one thing I would add for listeners who don't know, this show is called Going Dark. I think the curator's name is Ashley James, at the Guggenheim.

[00:43:32] Lisa Cooley: And it was about blackness. And yet the title of the show, or the conceit of the show was also about using invisibility as a strategy for survival, I think . Does that feel accurate to you? Yes. Yeah. Very accurate. Um, um, and I just thinking about, uh, the news and generally today at the end of February, 2025, that seems like we're just going to have to have all kinds of strategies.

[00:44:03] Lisa Cooley: And it's an interesting one to consider now. Yeah, 

[00:44:07] Alvin Hall: and you think about that, and that's what I loved about that show. That's, the meaning of that show is going to change over time. 

[00:44:13] Lisa Cooley: Yes, yes. People 

[00:44:15] Alvin Hall: will look at that show and the work in that show, and it won't mean the same in 10 years. 

[00:44:20] Lisa Cooley (2): Right. 

[00:44:20] Alvin Hall: It'll be something richer, more varied.

[00:44:23] Alvin Hall: Yes. That's what I call an interesting idea. Yes. You walk through and you don't know you're getting all of this, this visual information, , these ideas that will grow and change as society grows, as we live through various times like today. What does that show mean today? 

[00:44:44] Lisa Cooley: Right, right. Yeah, I, I try to, I also try to emphasize that with anyone that I talk to.

[00:44:50] Lisa Cooley: , not just younger collectors, I have clients that I've worked with for 20 years who, this one in particular, I've talked about this before, but he asked me, isn't there just like a curator I can follow, and I always tell him, no, , it comes over time. You need the patina of history the lens to look through because it changes the meaning of things because it adds additional context.

[00:45:13] Lisa Cooley: Is there a current artwork in your collection that is your favorite right now? 

[00:45:20] Alvin Hall: Ooh, is there a current artwork that is my favorite? Or 

[00:45:23] Lisa Cooley: most on your mind? 

[00:45:25] Alvin Hall: It is probably Bethany Collins Southern Review, which consists of 59 small works of redacted text. From the Southern Review. 

[00:45:40] Oh, 

[00:45:40] Alvin Hall: she takes black oil stick and she erases out all of the texts by the authors, leaving only the title and the footnotes to the original sources in the information.

[00:45:55] Alvin Hall: And it's really looking at. how information is distorted. It's a beautiful work that recalls infographics, but it's also a work that makes you think about censorship and who's telling whose story from the different perspectives. And some of the titles of the articles are about people going to malls or things about Martin Luther King.

[00:46:22] Alvin Hall: It's a huge work. And as I've always done when I get A new work. I hang it at the foot of my bed so that I see it before I go to sleep and see it first thing in the morning. And that gives me a sense about the work, about where the work is, might evolve and where it might go. 

[00:46:43] Lisa Cooley: What a great strategy instead of just immediately looking at your phone.

[00:46:50] Lisa Cooley: I should do that. 

[00:46:51] Alvin Hall: And the work, the work is fantastic. It's one of those works. In my collection, along with, uh, Carrie Mae Weems from Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried, along with, uh, Seven Mouths by Lorna Simpson, or Strange in a Village by, um, uh, Glenn Ligon, uh, or, uh, All My Red Letter A's by Raymond Pettibone, that just speaks and evolves over time.

[00:47:25] Alvin Hall: I mean, that work The Southern Review work by Bethany Collins, it's both smart, but there's a huge amount of visual intuition in that work. That when you look at it, you know something more is going on there than just what you're seeing. And that's what's gratifying about having that work at the foot of my bed.

[00:47:48] Alvin Hall: So that work I think about A great deal right now. And there is an artist, uh, H Hannah Malechik. M E L E C H 

[00:48:01] I C. 

[00:48:01] Alvin Hall: And I am intrigued by her weavings. Because they're based on broken windows, broken car, rearview mirrors, cracks in windows, and stuff like that. It's about how an artist would take things in regular society, a broken car mirror, a cracked door, a window that's broken, and she weaves the shape on a jaccard loom, and it becomes different. It becomes something translation that evokes the past, but also has its own curious beauty that when you see it.

[00:48:43] Alvin Hall: You have to think about it. 

[00:48:45] Lisa Cooley (2): Right. I 

[00:48:46] Alvin Hall: like art that takes me on a journey like that. I like art that transforms or translates something from one situation into another. And in that translation, there's a possibility of other translations. And I enjoy looking at her work and coming to understand the creative process behind it.

[00:49:04] Lisa Cooley: Alvin, you have to invite me over so I can see these works. I want to see them. You did such a great job of telling us about them. 

[00:49:10] Alvin Hall: I, I first saw them in a group show. This is why I see group shows at the David Nolan Gallery. And I will never forget, again, I walked in and I saw many things that I liked.

[00:49:20] Alvin Hall: Uh, but these just haunted me. I mean, again, I walked out, I walked home, two days later, I was still thinking about them. 

[00:49:28] I thought, 

[00:49:29] Alvin Hall: there's something there. There's something, I'm, again, I'm not sure where she's going to take it over time, but there's something in her thinking and in her process that no one else is doing who is doing fabric art.

[00:49:43] Alvin Hall: Only she is doing this. 

[00:49:44] Lisa Cooley: I love how you talk, the way you describe your thinking and your experience of looking, it's so clear that it's an aesthetic experience, but it's also really an intellectual experience of trying to just figure out like, what is this person trying to say? And That's why I wanted you to be a guest.

[00:50:01] Lisa Cooley: I knew you would be so eloquent about the process of looking at art and understanding art. So thank you. Oh, you know what? I almost forgot. I asked everybody, at the end to tell me about an artwork that was their transformative experience, but I think you already did. I think you already told me how much, Nan Goldin's Ballad of Sexual Dependency, changed your life.

[00:50:24] Lisa Cooley: So that's amazing. Thank you. 

[00:50:27] Alvin Hall: But the truth about art for me? And this remains true. When I was working in the financial markets, doing training classes, I love that work. I still can do bond math. I can do options evaluation. I love doing that stuff. And I like quantitative information.

[00:50:50] Alvin Hall: I do. I love writing about quantitative information. But I also like turning off that part of my mind and going out and doing something that you just have to use your senses for. 

[00:51:05] Lisa Cooley (2): Yeah. 

[00:51:06] Alvin Hall: And in truth, Art helped 

[00:51:10] Lisa Cooley (2): save 

[00:51:11] Alvin Hall: me. It helped save my soul 

[00:51:15] Lisa Cooley (2): because 

[00:51:16] Alvin Hall: I was really, really good at the work I did on wall street.

[00:51:21] Alvin Hall: And I love my work. I love my work. Which is why I was good at it. I really hated it. But I needed something to nurture that part of me, that, that as a kid, and I only thought of this recently, when I went to see a Dawoud Bey show at the Sean Kelly Gallery. that I used to walk through trails in the woods to get from my house, to my grandmother's house, to my cousin Reda's house, to, Aunt Berger's house.

[00:51:55] Alvin Hall: And those trails were often, paths that would change in the spring when things grew over them, in the winter when stuff fell away. And there was something about going through those trails and seeing how they had changed from season to season, from year to year, that I found thrilling. And when I walked in to see that Dawoud Bey show, it made me understand why I have always loved going out and looking at art.

[00:52:22] Alvin Hall: Because it's a journey. You may think you know that path, but an artist can walk down that same path and capture it differently, in a way that will open up your emotions and your perspectives and your senses. to something new and art kept that part of me alive while I was being successful in this other part of my life.

[00:52:48] Alvin Hall: And that's why I would say art helped save me. 

[00:52:51] Lisa Cooley: Incredible. I have nothing. I have nothing to add. That's one of the most eloquent stories anyone's ever told. It's true. I mean, I do think that there's something essential about it. And you know, maybe visual art isn't for everybody, like the symphony isn't really my thing.

[00:53:11] Lisa Cooley: Opera is not my thing. I can enjoy it. But I think each one of us finds our thing. Maybe it's music or literature that allows us to connect with a deeper part of our humanity. And I do find people don't talk about that so much, so I really appreciate you sharing that. 

[00:53:29] Alvin Hall: Thank you. You're welcome.

[00:53:30] Alvin Hall: Yeah.

[00:53:35] Lisa Cooley: That's our show. Thank you for listening and check out our website at askoko. com, that's A S K hyphen O K O dot com. You'll find lots of resources to help you become an art expert. You can also support the show on Patreon. When you become a member you'll get all sorts of special bonuses and exclusive episodes, you'll help the show grow, and you'll have a chance to ask me and our guests questions about collecting art.

[00:54:01] Lisa Cooley: See you next week!