Hanging your art collection on the walls of your home is not the only storage solution for art collectors. Many art investors opt to keep their collections in purpose-built art vaults. These art vaults offer investors piece-of-mind as they are climate-controlled, ensuring that the art is kept in mint condition.
While art vaults may not be suitable for all investors, it is maybe appropriate for you if you are not confident that you can keep your collection safe. Alternatively, an artwork in your collection may appreciate considerably over time, from which point it can make better financial sense to keep it better protected in a vault.
The advantages:
- Controlled environment for optimal temperature, humidity, and dust.
- Reduced maintenance costs for your collection.
- Vault providers can provide additional services, including insurance, valuations, and conservation.
- Further, vaults often offers transportation and installation services. If you are offering something in your collection to be displayed in an exhibition, or if you are placing an artwork up for auction, the art vault facilities can take care of transportation and installation of your artwork/s for a fee.
- 24/7 security of the facility provides piece-of-mind.
- Private viewing rooms.
The disadvantages:
- Art vaults have a monthly/ yearly service charge and additional charges for further services.
- You don’t get to live with the art you own and fail to appreciate it in the flesh every day.
- Vaults can be hard to come by in your city. You may not have one where you locally live, so you have to take into consideration the transport process of getting your collection to the facility. A lot of art vaults have a transport service in place to safely bring your collection to their facilities including to overseas storage units, but it can be expensive.
Final thoughts
Art vaults can make financial sense if your collection or individual artworks are of considerable value (we’re talking at least 6 figures worth), or are from notable blue chip artists like Yayoi Kusama who has proven to increase in value overtime. Art vaults are expensive in most countries; therefore, you have to consider whether the work is worth protecting to this degree.
Art vaults are perhaps not ideal for collectors/investors that are starting out. The cost of the vault can easily outweigh the value and gains of your collection. Even if your living/storage space is not ideal, it will probably be more cost efficient to invest in solutions that try to replicate the climate-controlled environment of an art vault, at home.