Art: rewarding but risky

RECENTLY, Tracey Emin's My Bed - an installation work of an unmade bed artfully littered with condoms, cigarette packs and underwear - sold at a Christie's auction for £2.2 million (S$4.5 million). Good buy? Or "goodbye" to all that money?

Roland Fuss, a finance expert and art lover from the University of Saint Gallen in Switzerland, is hard-pressed to say which it is. Past research has shown that art is a highly volatile asset class, promising low returns while carrying a high risk.

Speaking to The Business Times after the St Gallen Public Lecture held at the Steinway No 1 Historical Exhibition at the National Museum of Singapore, he says statistics shows that it is mostly top-end art that sees significant rises in value. By top-end, he means works by bluechip names such as Warhol, Bacon, Koons, Picasso, Richter, Rothko and Pollock.