When Your Taste Misbehaves

If you only collect what you immediately understand, your art will never surprise you. And frankly, my dear, that’s boring.

Last year I bought a painting I had already rejected. Preview PDF. Quick scroll. “I know this artist.” Pass. And then I see it again, and it refused to cooperate with my previous opinion.

She is rendered in the sparest possible combination of marks that still read as woman — not decorative woman, not generic woman — a very specific woman. If you isolate the marks, they barely resemble features at all. A dash of yellow. A bruise of purple. A swipe of white. Loose. Disparate. A little unruly. By all logic, she shouldn’t cohere.

And yet she does.

Her gaze follows you — not theatrically, not dramatically — just enough to make you aware of yourself standing there. The sum of her parts shouldn’t produce someone so captivating. But they do. And I love her for it.

That’s the moment I’m talking about. When your brain says, “This isn’t technically what I like,” and your body says, “Oooh, but it is.”

This isn’t about buying something flashy so guests gasp. It isn’t about shock value. It isn’t about performing edginess at dinner. It’s about the moment your taste slips past your self-concept.

Most people collect to reinforce what they already know about themselves. Like buying a beach scene because you like the beach. Or a skyline because you love your city. It’s tidy. It confirms the story. If you want to see your city’s skyline, drive downtown. That little hit of “joy” you feel is really just the comfort of recognition.

Learning how to collect art well means resisting the urge to only confirm what you already believe about yourself.

When something unsettles you and attracts you at the same time, that’s different. You think you prefer restraint until you’re mesmerized by something wild. You think you’re strictly abstract until a face won’t let you go. You think you’ve categorized yourself, and then art bugs the operating system.

Those are the works that matter. Not because they’re loud. Not because they’re rebellious. But because they reveal that you — like Shrek and Donkey, and anyone with depth — are more layered than your stated preferences.

I love when couples look at each other and say, “I’m surprised you like that.” Good. Let the surprise stand.

If your collection only reflects your most polished, socially legible self, it will be cohesive. It will also be stagnant. The interesting collections contain contradictions. They contain revisions. They contain moments where you were willing to be wrong.

Serious collections contain evidence of change.

When your taste misbehaves, don’t correct it.

Pay attention.

Build something worth living with.