Leave it to Bloomberg View’s Matt Levine to have the perfect take on Bloomberg’s attendance at the Deloitte Conference on Art as an Asset that was held in March at the Armory Fair but only saw the light of day on Bloomberg today.
Levine reminds us that the point of having enough money to own art is not to treat it as an alternative asset but to buy it and enjoy it:
Elsewhere in family offices, family offices are buying art, which seems much worse than families buying art:
Many family offices are finding a large portion of their balance sheet taken up by a collection that may have once been the founder’s hobby. They have to “stop looking at the pretty pictures and start looking at the numbers,” says Von Sanborn, a partner at Day Pitney LLP, a law firm that works with family offices.
But … what … why? If you are rich enough to have a family office, you can afford to buy art because you like to look at it. You don’t have to look at the numbers at all! That is the whole point of art, and of being rich! I don’t understand people.
Fund Conflicts and Tax Napkins (Bloomberg View)
