How Artlex works
How to read a score, what the six signals mean, the rating scale, and answers to the questions collectors ask most.
Getting started
Artlex is a collector-intelligence terminal. It scores contemporary and emerging artists on a 0–100 composite, attaches a plain-English rating, and cites the evidence behind every call.
Reading a profile:the big number is the composite, a 0–100 blend of the weighted signals; higher means stronger, convergent evidence across dimensions, not a price target. Beside it sits the rating (Strong buy / Buy / Watch / Hold / Sell / Pass), Artlex’s call derived from the composite and any risk flags. The six signals below the score show exactly what drove it, each traceable to its source.
Finding artists:browse the terminal, search with Cmd-K, or (on Collector) describe who you’re looking for in plain English with the screener. Star artists to your watchlist and Artlex tells you the moment one moves.
How scoring works
A score moves only when independent signals agree, and every rating carries a cited rationale grounded in the numbers. Six signals feed the composite:
- Market
Commercial demand: gallery representation tier plus auction activity reported in the press.
- Cultural velocity
Momentum in the cultural conversation: multilingual readership growth across many languages, weighted for global rather than English-only breadth.
- Press
Tier-weighted coverage from a curated set of art publications. A top-tier mention (Artforum, Frieze, The Art Newspaper, the NYT) counts substantially more than a regional one.
- Institutional
Durable validation: museum holdings, biennial and major-show inclusion, gallery representation, and competitive residencies.
- Risk
Authenticity and provenance signals: identity verification, knowledge-graph presence, and catalogue raisonné status.
- Emerging boost
A calibrated weight for recent graduates of leading art schools (RCA, Yale, Goldsmiths, Slade and peers) within a few years of graduation.
When we have no data for a signal on a given artist, its contribution is redistributed across the rest, so nobody is penalised for a gap we haven’t filled. Market reads commercial signal from gallery and press sources today; licensed price data will deepen it later.
- Strong buy: Rare. Convergent breakout across multiple independent signals.
- Buy: Real momentum in two or more dimensions, no major risk flags.
- Watch: Early or single-dimension signal, not yet validated by convergence.
- Hold: Established and important, but not currently moving.
- Sell: Declining attention and activity; the cycle has cooled.
- Pass: Risk flags, or too little signal to make a call.
Indicative signal, not investment advice. The value of art can fall as well as rise. Risk warning.
Frequently asked
How is Artlex different from an auction database?
Most platforms surface auction history, what already happened. Artlex surfaces convergent signal: cultural readership across many languages, tier-weighted press coverage, gallery activity by tier, social momentum. It then reasons about that signal in plain English, and every score cites its evidence. You see why an artist is a Buy before you ask.
Is the data hand-curated or automated?
Both, deliberately. The artist roster is hand-curated, name by name. The signal layer is then drawn automatically from public press, social, encyclopedic and editorial sources, refreshed on rolling cadences. Hand-curation guarantees relevance; automation guarantees recency.
What does an Artlex rationale mean?
For every scored artist, Artlex reads the structured signal data (press counts, cultural velocity, gallery exhibitions, social presence, identity verification) and writes a 2–4 sentence explanation grounded in those numbers: cited, evidenced, never hand-wavy.
What does "coverage building" mean on an artist?
It means the artist is in the roster but we don’t yet have enough signal to publish a confident score, so we don’t fake one. As press, cultural-velocity and institutional data come in on our refresh cadence, the score appears. We’d rather show "coverage building" than a hollow verdict.
How is "emerging" defined?
A graduate from a tracked MFA programme within the last few years: RCA, Yale, Goldsmiths, Slade, Columbia, Parsons, RISD, LASALLE Singapore, and the KNUST/blaxTARLINES Ghana network among others. Every emerging artist carries a structured education trail.
Do you sell my watchlist or activity?
No. Data export is one click, and account deletion is permanent and cascades to all dependent rows. Our infrastructure providers are GDPR-compliant and EU-hosted where applicable; DPAs are available for Institutional customers.
Is this investment advice?
No. Art is not a regulated investment under the FCA, and the value of art can fall as well as rise. Artlex scores are indicative signal to inform your own conviction, never a recommendation to buy or sell.
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