There’s a good chance you haven’t heard of Approximately Blue (AB). And that’s exactly how they prefer it.

The contemporary art world is increasingly underpinned by the attention economy, with pressure for artists, galleries, and dealers to build large social media followings and easily identifiable brands, platform “instagrammable” art, and push big-ticket PR and advertising campaigns reaching fever pitch. AB eschews all that, bucking the traditional aim of being the name on everyone’s lips or having the hottest new thing in favor of carefully cultivated anonymity—and its unconventional approach is working.

Emily Johnson. Courtesy of Approximately Blue.

Helmed by François-Luc Giraldeau and Emily Johnson, AB is both a brokerage and consultancy specializing in primary market fine art prints, and the pair have kept AB operations lean—we mean a couple of laptops, a bare-bones website, and no physical address lean. The effort instead goes into extensive, near-obsessive research, which collectors directly benefit from. One question is responded to with a slew of facts, provenance information, and historical context. The lack of public presence is made up for by substance.

The laser-focused attention to prints and multiples also heralds another departure from mainstream considerations of artistic hierarchy. While often thought of as an entry point before collecting more “serious” art, AB maintains that the category is significant in its own right, exemplary of artistic rigor and expression as much as any other medium. Further, the medium contains its own unique and conceptually fertile value to both artists and collectors.

Left: Sam Gilliam, Dogon V (ID #SG-D-V-25.05) (2005). Right: Ed Ruscha, Twentysix Gasoline Stations (1969). Courtesy of Approximately Blue.

In contrast to the industry’s prioritization of visibility, AB’s comparative opacity and disregard for traditional signs of success have resulted in truly prioritizing relationships, something that many firms boast but fall short on. AB’s proof of concept came within its first year, wherein they secured representation of works by Ed Ruscha and Sam Gilliam by fostering partnerships with leading printmakers—the type of relationship that is a core facet of AB’s ethos—and have placed works in both private and public collections.

While at first glance the closed-door approach of AB might seem like an extension of the art world’s famed gatekeeping, it instead has the opposite effect. It champions human-to-human relationships and, perhaps most importantly, is paving the way for new approaches to art collecting, one where discovery of something hidden is a hallmark of status rather than acquiring something everyone else wants.

Learn more about Approximately Blue here.