In conversation with Olivier Vanuxem

in conversation with

In conversation with Christophe Evers

JOAQUIN PECCI in conversation with

Olivier Vanuxem

JP : Olivier, first thing – your first contact with tribal art. What tribal art object attracted you

first?

OV : I think it was through my father, who collected a bit African art, and then with Jean Pierre Laprugne, whose gallery my brother and I visited as small kids. It’s true that I always had a contact with primitive art objects, but it’s only later, when I arrived in Paris as a history of art student, that I started to look at it through Rubin’s “Primitivisme in art”, a book that marked me deeply. The interest for Matt and his look on New Ireland as well as the relation between certain paintings and the spirit of Surrealism are obvious today, but back in 1983, for me it was a real cultural shock. In those years (1983-1986) I started to visit Laprugne gallery and I met Duperrier and then Emile Bouchard. One of the first dealers I got in contact with was Stéphane Mangin, like me young and interested in New Guinea. The first objects I bought came from him because they were less costly. A small Maprik mask cost me two-three hundred francs. I remember that at the Loudmer sale in 1987 – where it was sold the famous Maori stirrup – I bought a Sepik hook for two thousand francs. With my student savings I bough a few wooden board, among which one from Lake Sentani that I kept because it made me think of an Atlan’s painting and it still does. I was motivated both by the ethnographic interest and by the relation with painting.

JP : After all is your job…

OV : Indeed. Let’s say that one structures the other. As a matter of fact, all the artists from

the ‘50s I like had an interest more or less strong for primitive art. Atlan used to have a Marquees Tiki head in his studio. In the years ’50s there has been an encounter, but even more a real osmosis. The dealers who became institutions, like Loeb or Matisse, had at the same time an interest for Picasso and for the Eastern Island, New Guinea or New Caledonia. Being ahead of their times, they prepared the field. And this is something that always fascinated me.

JP: Did you understand immediately that you were more attracted by Oceania?

OV: Yes, in part because I’m more into two-dimensional things than three-dimensional. I’m

more interested in the graphics rather than sculpture, even though in my collection there are also pure sculptures. I’m also attracted by colours and in Oceanic art there are more colours, more materials, more connections with Surrealistic intuition than in Africa. Having said that, I have a flair for Dogon art too. I love the thick patinas and the archaic aspect, the Giacometti character of certain Indonesian sculptures, as well as the objects that were touched by time and got naturally deteriorated. Poetic objects marked at the same time by man and time.

JP: After your parents it was thus your Parisian experience that pushed you towards tribal

art.

OV: Yes. I started to go to the Musée de l’Homme and the Dapper Museum, subsequently

I started to look around in markets and to buy in specialised sales. It was Laprugne who convinced me to buy my first club. I found these objects fascinating as they held a universe of forms. Besides, they were not expensive. I could not buy important objects, but it’s also true that in my present collection there are pieces that today I could no longer afford.

I remember that in 1991 I went to London with my brother. Back then you could buy clubs for one hundred and fifty pounds. At custom we declared that we were going to do some kayaking and that they were our competition oars.

JP: To share a passion with your family makes it stronger, especially with your brother.

OV: We even shared a gallery in Rue Mazzarine until 1994, and before an apartment above

our father’s gallery. Renaud studied ethnography and started off as a professional dealer.

At the same time I started to build my collection in a more serious way.

JP: .: I would still like to go back to the importance of the fact that your parents were also

collectors.

OV:I think in my family there is a sort of virus that pushes us to cumulate and collect. Now I’m trying to have fewer objects and paintings, but it’s not easy. When you are curious you are curious of everything and of any form. In the last fifteen years there has been an explosion and good objects became rarer and more expensive. I find the mediatisation of the market very interesting. Nowadays the big tribal art sales at Sotheby’s and Christies work exactly like for contemporary art. Their effort to present big collections is certainly an advantage for the market and for recognition of primitive art, but on the other hand prices are skyrocketing. There is also a shift in interest from contemporary and modern to primitive art. It’s a fact that primitive art works historically and plastically, and it always did. When you look at black and white pictures of big dealers galleries as Paul Guillaume, the mix is blatant. Today in big international collectors it’s normal to find some classic New Guinea piece beside a Picasso.

JP: When I started, this phenomenon was rarer, but today more and more dealers are in-

terested in tribal art. As an art lover is difficult to look down at tribal art.

OV: Many customers who used to buy important paintings moved to primitive art. It’s also thanks to the specific configuration of Saint Germain des Près, where primitive art galleries play a relevant role in the neighbourhood ‘geography’. It would be impossible not to notice them. It’s one of the most interesting aspects of the neighbourhood and I think that there are more dealer of contemporary, modern or abstract art that shift towards primitive than the other way around. I reckon it’s definitely a matter of budget. In this field there are still a lot of beautiful and authentic pieces for sale at reasonable prices. I find it perfectly fine that a very beautiful object costs as much as a very beautiful painting, what however I’m not sure about is that the guarantee is the same. In the tribal art field there are two parameters that I find fundamental. To learn take much more time. Even in one single domain, it takes 15-20-30 years to learn, provided that one goes to museums and exhibitions. Second, it is possible to buy a very nice object published in a book for two-three thousands Euros and at the same time one can have big doubts about a very beautiful object sold for a hundred or two hundred thousand Euros, published on the Gazette and certified by certain experts.

The lack of a recognised authenticity guarantee for me is a deontological problem. Primitive art is one of the few domains where the notion of authenticity is not clear.

JP:Why do you say it’s not clear, when a recognised dealer in a certain field gives you a

certificate?

OV: We all know the story. Jealousies and rivalries are often more important, and it’s easier to make a collector of a certain level doubt. In contemporary art, besides rivalries, it would be more difficult for a dealer to question the authenticity of a piece.

JP:But in that case it’s also a quality/price question.

OV:The difference between the prices of a big dealer and a “medium” dealer like myself

on the same artist wouldn’t be more than thirty-fifty percent, whereas in primitive art the choice or the label of a big dealer may multiply the price ten, twenty or even thirty times.

We’ve seen in the past objects bought on a flee market and then sold from one dealer to another, ending up, labelled as ‘masterpiece’, in a big New York sale. It could also make a good story, but the opposite may prove true too. The consideration of an object can go down very fast, as well as its estimate.

JP: Do you think this is the reason why at the moment auction houses are doing so well?

Do you think a collector feels more reassured when he buys at auctions than from a dealer?

OV: It’s exactly the same phenomenon as with abstract paintings. On one side the big sales make prices go higher, but on the other it creates problems for dealers. To find good piece becomes more and more difficult as collectors prefer to put them on auctions. People who buy for a lot of money, usually buy paintings for millions of Euros and wish to have a couple of tribal objects to put on their pianos. Also, advertising is starting to be more relevant in the tribal art market and a dealer has obviously smaller means to invest into it than an important auction house. To own a piece represented on the cover of a catalogue plays on people’s vanity and pushes buyers to desert dealers. Funning enough, it’s with dealers that it is more often possible to have better prices together with the same trust, guarantee and follow-up as well as the possibility of exchanging and paying in several times. Which are important elements, too.

JP: In fact dealers have started as well to work in this direction: more and more of them

publish catalogues and books.

OV:The amount of documentation and its diffusion on the Internet made the market much more international. But primitive art has the advantage of being international by nature.

Contemporary and abstract art remain in spite of everything a nationalistic issue. On the opposite, a Dan mask may be purchased by an Austrian collector as well as by an Australian. There are no borders and no nationalisms. Perhaps one day Chinese people will buy primitive art at very high prices.

JP:You started off with little means. Which advise would you give to a young collector? How

to find a way in a field that is more difficult and more expensive? Are there still areas that are under quoted?

OV: I can still hear Emile Bouchard telling me that he started with Oceanic art because Africa was already too expensive. There are still areas which are not really under quoted but on which the media limelight is less focused, for instance Himalaya. However, in the last years we witnessed a discovery of this art with a consequent prices increase. Twenty years ago very few people were interested in Oceania. There are also trends, as Marquees and Maori objects at the moment. On the other hand Dogon have always been a hip, in the ‘70s as well as now, after the Quai Branly retrospective.

JP: Do you think the role of a dealer should be to show clients new objects to buy? In fact it’s thanks to dealers’ researches that we discovered certain areas.

OV: The pedagogic role of a dealer is paramount. Having a gallery where a number of ob-

jects are exposed and where people meet creates a synergy, a sort of artistic community and cultural exchanges. A dealer is a crossroad, a passionate person who wants to share his passion.

JP: Olivier, you know our project, called TAS. Our goal is to present guaranteed objects

of a certain quality at affordable prices. Do you think it could be of any use to the tribal art market?

OV : Of course. It could make personal websites of members become more dynamic. Also, focusing on quality through an association is a remarkable idea. Global diffusion, possible thanks to the Internet, also plays a formative role. As opposed to contemporary art, in the tribal art business there has still not been a big speculation process, therefore you still have the possibility of reaching certain collectors for more specific objects.

JP: Do you think that this market is going to be more and more structured thanks to all the new documentation coming out and its wider diffusion?

OV: Obviously, in the sense that finding in a grandmother’s attic a beautiful sculpture from

Eastern Island or a Maori 18th century object will be as unlikely as finding a Gauguin at a flee market. It’s normal: the world became a small village. People know even too much and, after reading the results of auction houses, tend to over rate what they have. We could say that we are going in the opposite direction. Curiosity is retroactive.

JP: Don’t you think that auction houses are a threat for dealers, who will find more and more

difficult to make a living?

OV:Yes and no. In the world there is about one hundred recognised dealers. In contemporary art there are thousands. I think in tribal art there are potentials for more people to find their place. At the moment there will be more galleries going to open than galleries going to close.

JP:How to explain this new phenomenon of the several small auction houses flourishing especially in the South of France, where pieces obviously fake are realising big prices?

OV: It’s the same game that we see in contemporary art, where the notion of fake lays especially in the quality/price relation.

JP: What do you think of this sentence: “you have the collection that you deserve”?

OV: Yes and no. We have the collection that our education and our eye deserve, but we

don’t deserve to be ripped off and that should be secured by the guarantee of dealers and experts. In the contemporary art market certain things would not be possible.

JP: Perhaps also the presumption of certain buyers plays a role. There are people who

believe to be cleverer than dealers and look for bargains in small sales OV:I think it’s a matter of vanity. It’s true that when I buy tribal art everything is dicier, but if bad collectors look for bargains anywhere, it’s their problem and they are going to regret it.

JP: What is the role of dealers in your collection?

OV:They are very important. Ninety per cent of my collection comes from dealers. It seems

to impossible to build a collection without the eye or the advise of a dealer. But it’s important to be careful. A dealer can be useful to open up new horizons, but he could also become a guru. I don’t trust people who always buy from the same dealer. A good collector looks everywhere and is interested in all level of objects that you can find with different dealers.

To buy only from one dealer means that you don’t have enough self-confidence. Also, to exchange and to build a privileged relationship with a big dealer is a pleasure. Among people that share the same passion it may happen to get to see very beautiful collections, which on the opposite is very difficult with paintings. The world of tribal art remains a village, and it’s good this way, because this allows to progress.

JP: How do you choose an object? Do you look for something specific or you follow your

emotions?

OV:Today I buy an object when I feel that I could not live without it. When I feel that I would miss it in my imaginary museum. For paintings it would be impossible because it would cost me a fortune. In primitive art you can still have an emotional shock for an object that costs three hundred Euros. On the opposite it can happen that a masterpiece or a prestigious object, after a certain time, leave us totally unaffected. What pushes me to increase my collection is a need, not vital but essential, in the sense that it’s something that goes down to the core of myself. It’s something which remains after all.

JP: It seems that having an eye for contemporary art is useful and the combination is a winning one.

OV: Sure, as long as it doesn’t become decoration, this can become boring and super-

ficial. In any case, the most important factor in any collection is regret. People collect thinking of what they will never have or of what they’ve missed. Like with love. Sometime I bought things because I knew I could not have anything better. For certain ethnic groups one cannot be too picky. It’s not even a matter of price, but of simple impossibility.

JP: What is your dream object, the piece that should not be missing in you imaginary museum?

OV:My dream is to always be able to dream in front of objects that I will never have.

JP:To name three present in a collection or in a museum?

OV:The Paiwan object that Jacques Kerchache consigned to the Pavillion des Sessions is

an object at the same time unique and of incredible quality. There are some Kanakas objects, some Polynesian objects in museums or collections that make me dream. But just like for paintings, certain objects should remain in museums. It would be a shame to have them just for oneself in the house. Certain objects are more beautiful well presented in a museum than in a collector’s showcase. The ethnical patrimony has already been destroyed, stolen, sold – which has also a preservation value, of course – but the place of certain objects is in a museum.

JP:If there was a fire in your house, which object would you save?

OV:Difficult to answer. Perhaps a small Eastern Island figure and a very old Maori board.

There are always objects that we like most. Then there are objects which stay and others that go. Some which are replaceable and others very difficult to replace. I have three or four of them. They are part of me and of my personal imaginary.

JOAQUIN PECCI Tribal Art