Art funds follow hopes of market recovery

Ask any investor, and he'll tell you the best place to enter the market is at the bottom. Buy low and sell high, right? The institutional crowd knows this lesson best, and after a rocky year in traditional financial markets, many are now drawn to what seems to be the market bottom for a more unusual asset class: art. The market for art appears to have a lot of promise, particularly given that the art market has suffered even more than the traditional domain of financiers.

With auction markets showing signs of recovery -- or at least wanting to recover -- capital is surging into funds focusing on these asset classes. In addition to the high net worth investors who have tended to invest in these assets and the specialty funds that operate in these spaces, institutional investors are showing more interest in the world's oldest media sector.