Collector Conversations
Writer Alicia Eler spent some time getting to know collectors Curt and Jennifer Conklin, their 3-year-old daughter Claudi, and of course their expansive art collection. The young couple discussed who caught the art bug first, and what they’re most interested in collecting now. Now, I feel like I’m going back to what interested me about art from the start - the quality of the line. But if you look at our collection, in general you will find all of the pieces are beautiful objects with either a conceptual or humorous foundation. Scott Stack, Di
At Curt and Jennifer Conklin’s Wicker Park home, art reigns. As I walk in, I am greeted by Scott Stack’s Di, 2005, a large-scale green-tinted highway scene on two panels. It hangs across from three photographs by Tamar Halpern, entitled Loneliness, Florida, and Venus (all 2008), photos that look like layers of colors and shapes splintered with shards of light. In the kitchen and the living room we find the collection of works on paper, the couples’ newest endeavor. With more than 100 pieces in a collection that spans all media—drawing, painting, photography and video—Curt and Jennifer boast an impressive array of art, including works by Laura Letinsky, David Shrigley, Kehinde Wiley, Peregrine Honig, Saul Chernick, Marcel Dzama, Howard Fonda, Catherine Opie and Cat Chow, just to name a few.
What first interested you in collecting? Curt: My mother was a crafter and we did regional craft fairs from when I was a baby to the time I left home, so I was always exposed to the idea of purchasing objects made by other people. I started buying bigger, more expensive pieces when I had a home and actually had walls to fill and a desire to communicate an aesthetic. That was 10 years ago, right around when Jennifer and I met, in 1999. So do you two collect together? Jennifer: Collecting was more of a passion of his, and more of a learning experience for me the first few years. Curt: I didn’t have much knowledge— she just thought I did. [Laughs] Jennifer: You faked it well. [Laughs] Curt: I think that I know a fairly small amount, and I use that as my starting point. I don’t have a background in art history, though I took a lot of fine art in college. I learned a lot of formal things, my drawing skills were honed, but that doesn’t really come into play. I consider myself learning every single time I encounter a work of art. Jennifer: Every piece in the house is part of Curt and me—it’s like the clothes we wear. They change and shift as we do; it’s very personal. The pieces we connect with are the ones that we tend to collect. For me, it begins as a visceral and visual experience, and then it becomes personal; something develops a story.
Robyn O’Neill, And They Were Upon Him, 2004
a Hieronymus Bosch perspective. You see these little guys and you’re not sure what they’re doing; then you see one guy running off the page because the others are throwing stones at him. And then you see this phallic tree in front of them and wonder, what’s this doing here? It’s standing up, but at a distance—we are just voyeurs watching this story unfold, while hidden from view.
Rivane Neuenschwander, As Yet Untitled, 2007
Do you have a favorite piece? Curt: I mentioned before that some pieces in the collection have a humorous foundation; to me one of the funniest Curt and Jennifer pieces we have is by Rivane NeuenschConklin wander, a German-born Brazilian sculptor and conceptualist, called As Yet Untitled, What is the focus of your collection? 2007. It’s a fully functioning clock with all Curt: The focus of the collection changes the numbers rendered to zero. Each time as I learn. When I first was trying to creit clicks, it tells you nothing. It totally does ate a warm place to live, I was interested everything the inventor and the manufacin works that had a decorative feel—they How do you decide what to buy? turer meant it to, but it tells you nothing. tended to be geometric abstractions, and Jennifer: We find pieces we both like, and then we discuss them. A lot is based Jennifer: Scott Stack’s Di—the large to me they matched my personality, and that’s what drew me to them. Over time it on an aesthetic. Once we find something, scale is part of it. Every time I see it, it we get to know the artist and the gallerist, shocks me. It’s a painting of where has changed—we went through a period Princess Diana died, as seen in night where we were really interested in figura- then we see if it fits into the collection. vision; it is a haunting depiction to me. tive photography, and you’ll see a lot of You see cars on one side of the highway, Tell me about the works on paper. that through the house. In the past few and a complete absence of life on the This one looks like a Marcel Dzama. years it has been works on paper. I was other; the viewer has to wonder what Curt: This is by Robyn O’Neill, entitled an illustrator when I was younger, and I happened. It’s images of both sides of the was trained through college. At the end And They Were Upon Him, 2004. We tunnel, taken straight from a TV news of school I thought I might end up doing have Marcel Dzama as well, but I don’t broadcast. By using night vision, Stack something along those lines, and I contin- think it’s an intellectual connection ued to work towards that until I was 30. between the two—just a stylistic one. The retells the story of Princess Di’s death through an eerier lens than if he had When I decided to try something else, scale is the same as Dzama’s, however I coincidentally started collecting art. O’Neil is basing this piece in art history— painted this same image in full color. 19