Some collectors have responded to the resulting existential malaise by deliberately collecting art that is difficult to live with, refusing the notion of art-as-investment and embracing work that is not easy on any level, art that until recently would only have found a home in a well-financed institution that had the resources to maintain it. These are works that are difficult not merely in a conceptual sense but in reality as well, works that require as much time and energy as they do money, works that are ephemeral and unwieldy and often extremely messy. This is the sort of art that can die, rot, dry up or just disappear.