You might not have heard of Terence Koh, a 38-year-old artist who sometimes uses his own excretions and body fluids in sculptures and installations.

But in the art world, Koh is a hot commodity. With big museum shows to his credit and collectors clamoring for his creations, prices for Koh's work are rising so rapidly that a recent article in New York magazine carried the cheeky headline, "Is Terence Koh's Sperm Worth $100,000?"

It might be -- for now, anyway.

As the art market continues its four-year bull run, prices for many artists appear to defy gravity. Nowhere has this trend been as evident as at last year's Art Basel Miami Beach, an art show where crowds from around the world defied gloomy reports about the economy and bought art priced in the millions. Check out Art Basel Miami Beach

But future prices are uncertain. And some consider younger artists like Koh to be a riskier bet, because they tend to be the darlings of investors and speculators -- who, unlike seasoned collectors, tend to buy and sell art on perceived returns and market buzz, with less consideration given to artistic merit.

"Younger artists, whose prices have risen like a meteor, are more vulnerable because their work is unproven," says Mary Hoeveler, managing director of the Citigroup Art Advisory Service, which advises wealthy clients on art investments. Without an ongoing track record of strong sales, today's hot artists could easily become yesterday's news.

What's hot now? These days, it's China. Art for 50 cents?

As its economy booms, contemporary Chinese artists are high on the collector's lists of must-have work, and prices for many of them are soaring. At the October auctions in London, for example, a painting by Chinese artist Yue Minjun sold at Sotheby's for $5.9 million -- the highest price ever paid for a contemporary Chinese work.

Despite the records, advisors like Hoeveler remain wary. "People are looking to new markets and places to invest, so China is subject to the same speculation as the market for younger artists," Hoeveler says.

Another private art adviser, Thea Westreich of New York's Thea Westreich Art Advisory Services, agrees. While she won't comment on prospects for individual artists, she says "it's fair to assert that the value of so many artists, whether from China, Berlin, New York or India, will not be sustained long term."

Expert collectors say that for more secure returns, investors should steer clear of artists whose prices

have been bid up by current hype, looking instead to undervalued works with solid aesthetic merit. Slide show: Art for $100 (and up)

For example, if you admire the deeply beautiful colors of abstract expressionist Mark Rothko, whose prices are already stratospheric -- a painting by the late artist recently sold for $80 million -- you might want to look at another American abstract expressionist, Joan Mitchell.

In the past, Mitchell's work was "overlooked," says Abigail Asher, a partner at New York art consultants Guggenheim Asher Associates. Today, Mitchell is more widely recognized and appreciated, but prices for her work average "a 10th of a Rothko," Asher says.

The contemporary market is particularly difficult to assess because it's crowded with newer collectors keen to buy the work of their own generation. Everyone is looking to crown the next master. See an art auction

The reputations of contemporary artists can swing wildly, depending on factors such as recent auction results, major exhibitions, media visibility (or lack thereof) and the state of the global economy, says Anders Petterson of ArtTactic, a London art-market research company that surveys art-world insiders. Chart: Hot or not?

Take Damien Hirst, the British artist famous for his pickled shark and, more recently, a diamond-studded skull. (The skull attracted a lot of media attention and reportedly sold for $100 million -- but to a group of collectors that included the artist himself.) Hirst continues to be a collector's favorite -- so expect prices for his work to stay high. The artist "will remain fresh in buyer's minds," ArtTactic reported in May, "in a market where the attention span is getting increasingly shorter." Photo: The $100 million skull

Ditto for Jeff Koons, a controversial American artist who uses kitsch images like puppy dogs and model trains -- as well as images of himself having sex -- to satirize contemporary culture. That approach apparently has staying power with collectors. His sculpture "New Hoover Convertibles" (comprising, yes, Hoover vacuum cleaners encased in a plastic box) sold for $4.7 million last year, a price level that the artist's work is expected to maintain, ArtTactic forecasts.

Other artists with high market-confidence levels, according to the recent ArtTactic survey, include Richard Prince, the subject of a big retrospective this fall at New York's Guggenheim Museum, and critically acclaimed photographers Cindy Sherman and Andreas Gursky.

But artists can just as easily fall from grace. German painter Neo Rauch, a member of the much-talked-about Leipzig school of artists from the former East

Germany, has slipped from all-positive sentiment in an ArtTactic survey last year to a more cautious stance today. The reason? Although a Rauch show at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art was positively reviewed earlier this year, recent sales results have been lackluster and "no exciting prices were achieved," ArtTactic concluded.

ArtTactic also says market confidence is slipping for Marlene Dumas, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Maurizio Catalan and Jeff Wall -- despite an exhibition of the Wall's work this year at MoMA.

Miami-based collector Craig Robins says he tries to avoid the market hype and follow his own intuition; his favorites include Richard Tuttle and John Baldessari, both of whose work, he says, offers good value. See Robins' collection

"I buy what is intelligent to buy to add to the collection," says Robins, a real-estate developer who owns more than 1,000 works.

"I won't buy art that costs millions," he adds. "There are works of art that are fantastic for less."

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Published Jan. 11, 2008