NUNZIA & VITTORIO GADDI Tuscan notary Vittorio Gaddi has been collecting contemporary art since the beginning of the 1990s. His first work was the sculpture The Daughter of the Sun, by the Italian artist Giò Pomodoro. After this, his attention shifted to more international and emerging art. Today, Gaddi owns around 350 works by artists such as Olafur Eliasson, Carsten Höller, or Wade Guyton. His interest is triggered less by a specific style or medium than by an artist’s contemporaneity. From the very outset Gaddi wanted to have his collection accessible. Today it is devided among a 1920s Art Nouveau mansion, in the city of Lucca, and in two old farmhouses nestled in the countryside. One of these adjacent houses was intended as a country chalet but was gradually overrun by art. The other was renovated for the collection in summer 2012. Source: The second BMW Art Guide by Independent Collectors (2013) http://www.collezionegaddi.com/about/
Promotore culturale attento a sottolineare il proprio gusto e la propria metodologia d’acquisizione (collezione è termine che indica l’effetto del raccogliere – il colligere, appunto – e, nello stesso tempo, l’atto di cogliere e dunque quello riflessivo dello scegliere), istitutore di uno spazio per l’arte che muta il piacere privato in godimento pubblico o il possesso in accesso (Rifkin), patrocinatore atto a mostrare, produrre e promuovere, spesso, giovani artisti, critici e curatori, Vittorio Gaddi, tra i più importanti collezionisti italiani di origini versiliesi, annuncia i nuovi spazi di una passione privata (di una collezione aperta al pubblico su appuntamento) che non solo guarda ai giovani e al presente dell’arte ma, con disinvoltura, scommette sulle nuove leve. Sui nuovi brani linguistici ed estetici di un territorio magico in continua metamorfosi. Fotografia, video, scultura, installazione, pittura. Ma anche progetti site specific nati per ricalibrare un luogo a partire da manovre artistiche squillanti e suadenti. Una selezione ad ampio raggio, insomma, che punta l’indice sull’attualità e propone un’emozione progettuale multidisciplinare, aperta a sconfinamenti e a pulsioni plurali. La Collezione Nunzia e Vittorio Gaddi, nata dalla passione di Vittorio, si nutre di presente e di presenze internazionali (Pawel Althamer, Thomas Demand, Olafur Eliasson, Isa Genzken, Wade Guyton, Carsten Höller, Roman Ondák, Anri Sala, Monika Sosnowska, Giuseppe Stampone e Simon Starling ne sono alcuni) che testimoniano un amore per l’arte e un gusto in cui il piacere dei sensi e quello della riflessione (è Kant a evidenziare con acume questa doppia valenza del gusto) si intrecciano per costruire un percorso accattivante e coinvolgente. Padrona assoluta e incontrastata dello spazio – di uno spazio acquistato, inizialmente, con lo scopo di realizzare una residenza estiva di campagna e modificata, sin da subito, in esclusiva sede della collezione -, l’arte, in tutte le sue varie declinazioni attuali, è per Gaddi, figura costante, scommessa culturale, curiosità, felice intuizione collezionistica. Composta da circa trecento lavori – tra questi sfilano East LA Figure (Crouching) (2009) di Thomas Houseago, Prince Harry, September 1998 (1998) di Elizabeth Peyton, Substrat 26 III (2005) di Thomas Ruff, Cut Me / Fix Me (2008) di Tom Burr, Circle Smile (2007) di Andro Wekua, Pepsi (2010) di Danh Vo, Hard Facts Lab (2009) di Gabriel Kuri, il video News from the near future (2003) di Fiona Tan, Moebius Night Sky Model Mark I (2003) di Angela Bulloch e The three of them (2007) di Nedko Solakov – la collezione messa in piedi da Nunzia e Vittorio Gaddi propone, attualmente, un ventaglio di opere che assorbe i vari strati dell’arte per tracciare segni e segnali di scenari multidisciplinari e polifonici. Una collezione che il prossimo 14 luglio, apre una nuova ala espositiva per esprimere appieno gli acquisti e le scelte. Una nuova ala completamente diversa dalla parte della villa già destinata a collezione, una nuova ala restaurata con l’obbiettivo di essere museo, spazio espositivo. Dunque, soprattutto, per dare alle opere una giusta ubicazione spaziale, una giusta impaginazione, un più preciso ed esatto ambito di collocamento per opere uniche e preziose. http://www.artribune.com/attualita/2012/06/collezione-gaddi-raccontata-da-vittorio/
Vittorio Gaddi’s first work was the sculpture The Daughter of the Sun, by the Italian artist Giò Pomodoro. After this, his attention shifted to more international and emerging art. Today, Gaddi owns around 350 works by artists such as Olafur Eliasson, Carsten Höller, or Wade Guyton. From the very outset Gaddi wanted to have his collection accessible. Today it is devided among a 1920s Art Nouveau mansion, in the city of Lucca, and in two old farmhouses nestled in the countryside. One of these adjacent houses was intended as a country chalet but was gradually overrun by art. The other was renovated for the collection in summer 2012.” http://www.larryslist.com/artmarket/magazine/an-innovative-inspiring-art-collection/
DANIELLE & DAVID GANEK Location: New York Employment: Hedge fund Art Collection: Contemporary art and photography http://www.artfortune.com/collectors-9/
Before yesterday's FBI raid on its offices, most people probably hadn't heard of Level Global Holdings - a Connecticut hedge fund run by SAC Capital alum, David Ganek. But Wall Street had. David Ganek isn't your stay-out-of-the-spotlight kind of fund manager. He and his wife Danielle are well-known socialities, who have a stellar art collection, an upper east side duplex and a sprawling Southhampton holiday home. They're probably most well-known for their modern art penchant, with works by Richard Prince, Diane Arbus, Jeff Koons, Cindy Sherman, John Currin and Mike Kelley in their collection. He's a Guggenheim trustee who has donated vigorously to various art causes and institutions in the Northeast. Perhaps he learned more from Steve Cohen than simply how to play the markets; Cohen is an art junkie too. Here are some fun facts about David Ganek: His wife Danielle is a former editor at Mademoiselle and Woman's Day. She is now a novelist, and apparently looks ten years younger than she actually is. He bought his first piece of art at 17. He commissioned reknowned pop artist Ed Ruscha to create a painting that incorporated the word "Level" in it, to grace the walls of his Greenwich headquarters when he established the firm in 2003. He paid $19 million for his apartment in 740 Park Avenue, of which previous tenants include former ITT chairman Rand Arasko; John V. Bouvier III, his wife Janet and their daughter Jacqueline (Kennedy Onassis). Also, John Thain and Steve Schwarzman also live in the building. He has a sprawling holiday home in Meadow Lane in Southampton. And here are Ganek's vitals: Son of money manager Howard Ganek, a former partner at 740 park avenue740 Park Avenue.Condo Domain asset management firm Neuberger & Berman and a well-known New York scene social butterfly with his wife Judie. Grew up in New York and attended Franklin and Marshall College. Met his wife, Danielle, at college. They were married in the 90s. Had a stint in risk arbitrage at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette in the early '90s. Joined SAC Capital and worked there for ten years. Departed Steve Cohen's side to launch Level Global with fellow SAC alum Anthony Chiasson in 2003. His major stakes are in Virgin Media, Apple and Monsanto. (His former big bets include Adobe, Bank of New York, Cadbury Schweppes, CVS, eBay, Google, Halliburton and Yahoo). He has three children; two boys and one girl. http://www.businessinsider.fr/us/david-ganek-2010-11/
Right about now, David Ganek, the financier and former SAC Capital partner, must be hoping that his luck in the real estate market proves better than his old colleague Steven Cohen’s. With red-faced indignation befitting a disgraced hedge fund manager, Mr. Cohen has been trying unsuccessfully to sell his place in the Bloomberg Tower for a year now, and sources tell The Observer that Mr. Ganek and his wife, the novelist Danielle Ganek, will be putting their duplex at 740 Park Avenue on the market with Serena Boardman and Jeremy Stein of Sotheby’s International Realty as early as Monday, asking in the neighborhood of $44 million. Then again, Mr. Ganek’s fortunes have generally been better than his co-workers’—while Mr. Cohen and Anthony Chiasson, the co-founder with Mr. Ganek of Level Global Investors, have faced rather unpleasant legal pressure, Mr. Ganek has been relatively unmolested. (He also managed to sell Christopher Wool’s Apocalypse Now—just a fragment of a considerable modern art collection—at a Christie’s auction last November for $26.5 million, $7.4 million more than he paid for his place on Park back in 2005.) http://observer.com/2014/07/giants-stir-sources-say-hedge-funder-david-ganek-is-prepared-to-sell-740-park-duplex/
CHRISTY & BILL GAUTREAUX Location: Kansas City, Missouri Source of wealth: Energy (Crestwood Midstream Partners) It’s perhaps a little surprising that Bill Gautreaux, the president of a liquids and crude business unit in Kansas City, and a founder of leading energy firm Inergy, studied history and philosophy at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma, which he attended on a tennis scholarship. After graduation, Gautreaux bartended and taught tennis on the side, finally getting a part-time telemarketing job at the propane supplier company Ferrellgas, where he met his current Inergy partner. Gautreaux sits on the board of trustees at two museums in Kansas City: the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. He and his wife, Christy, started collecting 20 years ago; their first purchase was a painting by Belizean artist Walter Castillo, snapped up before the paint had even dried. The couple recently began construction on a new home with a built-in gallery and spaces big enough to house large-scale installations. The Gautreauxes organized an exhibition of selections from their collection titled “Piece by Piece” at the Kemper Museum this year, and also have works on loan to the Nelson-Atkins Museum and lent to a few exhibitions at the Venice Biennale. Fun fact: In a 2014 article in the Kansas City Business Journal, Bill Gautreaux said his love of art stems from his unstructured childhood. “I was the last of seven kids [and] pretty independent…I didn’t have a lot of preconceived notions about a lot of things and was very open to new ideas and new ways of looking at things. That has something to do with my love of art. Art lets you see so many things expressed in different ways. Learning to appreciate different perspectives can definitely help you in business.” http://www.artnews.com/top200/christy-and-bill-gautreaux/
For the past two decades, Kansas City collectors Christy and Bill Gautreaux have acquired artwork. But, over the last five years – they’ve picked up the pace. They started meeting other collectors, and attending art fairs, like Art Basel in Miami Beach, Fla. In 2014, the Gautreauxes made ARTnews magazine’s list of top 200 collectors. "They were on the cutting edge of collecting in the contemporary art world, but especially here in Kansas City," says Erin Dziedzic, curator and head of adult programs at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. An exhibition at the Kemper Museum curated by Dziedzic is called "Piece by Piece." The title is a nod to the collecting style of the Gautreauxes, often adding one or two pieces at a time. Dziedzic spent the last year or so sifting through objects in the collection to narrow it down to the nearly 30 artworks on display. "I think what’s so interesting about collectors is how they live with their work," she says. But some of the work hasn’t been lived with ... yet. There are multimedia pieces in the exhibition that are quite large – think 8 x 12 feet. And others, newly acquired, hadn’t even made it to Kansas City. So, inside the Kemper Museum’s gallery, with its vaulted ceilings, it’s the first time many of these works have hung together. http://kcur.org/post/building-art-collection-kansas-city-piece-piece#stream/0
DAVID GEFFEN Location : Hollywood mogul Employment: proved astute buyer/seller of art Art Collection: $1 billion art collection http://www.artfortune.com/collectors-9/
David Geffen owns $1.1 billion worth of art. Geffen is the founder of DreamWorks Animation. He's a collector of American artists and reportedly sold four pieces of his contemporary art collection for an estimated $421 million in 2006. http://www.artforbes.com/artcollector.html
Collection value: $2.3 billion Personal wealth: $7 billion David Geffen is quoted as saying, “my mother taught me how not to get hustled.” She evidently taught him well. Geffen is a college dropout with dyslexia, who used a fake UCLA degree to land his first mailroom job. From these mildly dishonest beginnings he went on to found Asylum Records, Geffen Records, and DreamWorks Animation. He also keeps the small matter of around $1 billion worth of Apple stock kicking about. Geffen is into midcentury art, with a heavy lean towards American artists. Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Rothko – you know the sort of thing. He is widely considered to have one of the most impressive collections of this school in the world. So impressive, in fact, that he felt comfortable selling both Jackson Pollock’s No. 5, 1948 and Willem de Kooning’s Woman III – each a masterpiece in its own right – without it impacting the strength of his overall hoard. He is known for being the smartest buyer and seller in the art market, and with the largest art collection owned by one person out there, who would disagree? Geffen’s philanthropic work is shaping the US cultural landscape. It remains to be seen what will happen to his private art collection. http://www.highsnobiety.com/2015/06/16/most-valuable-art-collections/
Museum of Modern Art Receives $100 Million From David Geffen David Geffen has again reached into his ample coffers to bestow $100 million on a cultural institution — this time the Museum of Modern Art for its $440 million expansion and renovation project — in a gift announced on Thursday. “These are the kind of gifts you only dream about,” said Glenn D. Lowry, MoMA’s director. Mr. Geffen’s name will adorn another major New York arts building in perpetuity, as it does the former Avery Fisher Hall, which received his last $100 million gift a year ago. MoMA will now have a David Geffen Wing: three floors of new galleries in a residential tower designed by Jean Nouvel to the west of the museum on West 53rd Street, currently under construction. And as of this spring, the museum’s existing fourth-floor exhibition space will be called the David Geffen Galleries. (...) The gift was discussed over the past six months, Mr. Lowry said, and was helped along by Mr. Geffen’s friendship with MoMA’s president, Marie-Josée Kravis. Mr. Geffen, who established the Geffen Contemporary at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, dismissed the idea that he is choosing one coast over another. “I spend time in both California and New York,” he said, “and I have a great affection for both places.” (…) Mr. Geffen has donated to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Spelman and Morehouse College arts education programs; the University of California at Los Angeles School of Theater, Film and Television; the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts; and the Geffen Playhouse. His total philanthropic support to U.C.L.A. exceeds $400 million. Robin Pogrebin - https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/22/arts/design/museum-of-modern-art-receives-100-million-from-davidgeffen.html?_r=0
JOSEE & MARC GENSOLLEN The collection that we have assembled since the late 1970’s is deeply anchored in Conceptual Art. It includes all kinds of media. Above all, it is important to us that the artwork conveys a critical idea about art itself, society, history, politics, philosophy, identity and human condition. What draws us to video art is the statement and the message from the artist and the memory of the events to which he or she is confronted or provoked. The camera, or caméscope, is the extension of the eye and the film is the accurate trace of the artist’s point of view. In a way some video pieces may be seen as moving ready-mades. https://independent-collectors.com/interviews/gensollen-loop-barcelona
Le Cas de la collection Gensollen Dans le monde de l’art contemporain, Marc et Josée Gensollen sont des collectionneurs qui, dans le creuset de leur couple, conçoivent et élaborent depuis plus de 30 ans une collection selon une démarche radicale, rejetant égo et spéculation. Une démarche où la vie des œuvres est au cœur d’un dispositif pensé. Premières lectures Autour des années 68, encore étudiants, Marc et Josée Gensollen s’attachent à l’Art par la lecture et l’étude minutieuse de revues prépondérantes à cette époque : dans le sillon de leur formation de psychiatre psychanalyste, c’est Le Minotaure qui cristallise une première attirance pour le Surréalisme, encore très vivace dans les années 60 et 70. Puis Art Press, une revue ouverte à la psychanalyse dès sa parution en 1972, les amène à voyager dans l’univers inconnu de l’Art Conceptuel et de l’Art Minimal. Premières œuvres Le tout premier achat est un dessin d’André Masson de la série des Massacres. Pour le faire authentifier, ils se rendent chez l’artiste près d’Aix en Provence. Ils prennent alors conscience de l’abîme générationnel qui les sépare de Masson si âgé qu’il ne reconnaît pas le dessin. Ils repartiront avec une photo signée de sa main où il écrivit au dos : « Cette œuvre n’est pas de moi ». Cette expérience sera fondatrice d’une démarche particulière élaborée selon des règles qu’ils décident de se dicter : s’intéresser aux artistes de leur époque, acheter des œuvres uniquement par l’intermédiaire de galeries de premier marché avant d’en connaître les auteurs, ne jamais acheter dans des maisons de vente publique, ne jamais vendre. C’est à ce moment là qu’ils font l’acquisition de leurs premières œuvres contemporaines d’Arman et de Viallat, toujours en leur possession. Premier déclic Le Centre Pompidou, inauguré en 1977 dans un contexte de polémique, apparaît comme le premier centre culturel polyvalent mettant en jeu l’Art Vivant, la transdisciplinarité de la création. Cette « raffinerie » est pour eux un souffle de liberté, et surtout un lieu d’exploration. La visite de la première rétrospective de Marcel Duchamp fait déclic et précise leur intérêt pour la dématérialisation des œuvres ; leurs premières pièces d’art conceptuel, socle de leur collection, seront acquises à partir de ce moment là : Joseph Kosuth, Lawrence Weiner, Dan Graham... L’œuvre, « embrayeur » de réflexion En tant que psychanalystes et collectionneurs, l’œuvre est au cœur de leur réflexion. Elle est explorée de la même façon que l’âme humaine dans la confidentialité de leur cabinet. Elle est douée d’une ligne de vie dont les étapes - en particulier les prêts dans des expositions - sont systématiquement consignées pour en garder les traces par Josée Gensollen. Collectionner découle de leur intérêt pour ce qui est caché au plus profond des êtres, de l’humain, et que l’on ne peut percevoir qu’avec un esprit incisif, voire transgressif. L’acte d’achat est entendu, non pas comme un désir de possession et d’accumulation, mais comme une libération. Une manière de faire circuler l’argent gagné dans le cadre leur métier, donner vie à l’immatériel. Leur collection s’est construite progressivement au fil de l’avant-garde, de ce qui n’est pas perceptible au premier abord. D’une manière pointue, presque chirurgicale, elle rassemble des œuvres qui dévoilent le sens d’une époque sans en être le reflet. C’est ainsi que l’une de ses orientations actuelles se porte vers des artistes qui interrogent la perception en produisant des œuvres totalement dématérialisées qui, pour se révéler, doivent être activées par leurs propriétaires : « Teaching to walk » (2004) de Roman Ondak consiste à photographier un enfant faisant ses tous premiers pas dans un espace d’exposition, « Selling out » (2002) de Tino Sehgal se manifeste par la présence d’un homme habillé en gardien de musée qui se met inopinément à faire un strip-tease devant les visiteurs d’une exposition... Nina Rodrigues-Ely - http://www.observatoire-art-contemporain.com/revue_decryptage/analyse_a_decoder.php?id=20070059
YASSMIN AND SASAN GHANDEHARI Location: London Source of wealth: Investments (real estate and industrials) Collecting area: Impressionism; Postwar and contemporary art Sasan Ghandehari runs the venture-capital side of his mother, Hourieh Peramam’s, real-estate empire. His wife, interior designer Yassmin Ghandehari, looks after her mother-in-law’s real-estate portfolio. Yassmin sits on the council of the University of the Arts London, and is also a member of Sotheby’s advisory board and a founding member of the British Fashion Council’s Fashion Trust. In 2010, the Ghandeharis celebrated Peramam’s purchase of one of London’s most expensive properties (a 30,000-square-foot building newly renamed Royal Mansion) with a party attended by Mikhail Gorbachev. Fun fact: Sasan’s mother, Hourieh, was born in Kazakhstan but left at the age of 17, walking to an Iranian refugee camp on foot. After marrying Sasan’s father, a wealthy Iranian doctor, she kicked off her real-estate business with the purchase of a house next door. http://www.artnews.com/top200/yassmin-and-sasan-ghandehari/
ALAN & JENNY GIBBS Alan Gibbs (born 1939) is a New Zealand-born businessman, entrepreneur and art collector. After a successful business career in New Zealand, which made him one of that country's wealthiest individuals, he relocated to London in 1999. He retains strong links to New Zealand through his development of Gibbs Farm, one of the world's leading sculpture parks. He is founder of Gibbs Amphibians, based in Detroit, Michigan, Nuneaton, UK, and Auckland, New Zealand, which pioneers high-speed amphibious vehicle technologies. (...) Gibbs is one of New Zealand's leading art collectors, and since 1991 has been establishing a sprawling 1,000 acres (4.0 km2) sculpture park at Gibbs Farm, which is located on Kaipara Harbour on New Zealand's North Island, 50 kilometres (31 mi) north of Auckland in the Rodney district. Among the art works installed on The Farm are monumental pieces by contemporary artists including Daniel Buren, Neil Dawson, Andy Goldsworthy, Anish Kapoor, George Rickey, Richard Serra and Bernar Venet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Gibbs
2007 Recipient - Dame Jenny Gibbs As a philanthropist and art collector Dame Jenny Gibbs' influence on raising the profile of New Zealand art internationally, and within New Zealand, particularly Auckland, has been immense. Jenny has demonstrated her commitment to the arts through leadership of numerous arts projects with her most ambitious personal undertakings being the establishment of the New Gallery for Auckland Art Gallery and supporting New Zealand's presence at the Venice Biennale. Jenny has had many important roles including Founder and Chair of the Patrons of the Auckland Art Gallery and the Auckland Contemporary Arts Trust, Founding Trustee of the Arts Foundation of New Zealand, Foundation Donor and Board Member of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, and as a long time member of the prestigious International Council ofthe Museum of Modern Art in New York. Her enthusiasm and passion for the arts also sees Jenny as a Founding Patron and significant donor tomany arts organisations and a supporter of private individuals. She provides significant support to the arts through permitting the use ofher home in Auckland for advocacy and social functions. In 2004 her contributions to the Auckland region were acknowledged when she received the second Auckland City Distinguished Citizen Award. She is widely recognised as one of this country's most comprehensive private collectors. In addition to supporting the arts, Jenny is Pro-Chancellor of the University of Auckland and has been on the Auckland University Council almost continuously since 1976. She is a founding Trustee of both the Auckland Medical School Foundation and Auckland University Foundation. She supports many other charitable organisations and is an active member of various civic organisations such as the New Zealand Institute and the Committee for Auckland. Jill Ralston interviewed Dame Jenny Gibbs in an article titled Art for Art's Sake for the New Zealand Listener at the time of the Award for Patronage announcements. "This donation is an extraordinary gift from an extraordinary woman. If any person can be singled out as the most constant champion of contemporary art in New Zealand over the past 45 years it would have to be Jenny Gibbs. Not only am I the fortunate receiver of her largesse tonight, but for over 30 years Jenny has collected my paintings, regularly adding to her collection. This kind of art patronage is rare to find in any country. This kind of art patronage requires a commitment and belief in the value of art and an understanding of the need to nurture and support artists in our culture. She is one of our Living Treasures and I feel deeply moved in accepting such a generous gift." http://www.thearts.co.nz/awards/2007-recipient-dame-jenny-gibbs
INGVILD GOETZ Location : Munich Employment : Inheritance Art Collection : Contemporary art http://www.artfortune.com/collectors-9/
Ingvild Goetz was born in West Prussia (now part of Poland), and established an art publishing house for graphics in 1966, opening her own art gallery in Zurich in 1969. The gallery, Art in Progress, eventually moved to Munich, where it showed work by Arte Povera artists, Andy Warhol, Arakawa, Bruce Nauman, Jürgen Klauke, Jochen Gerz, Isa Genzken, Andreas Gursky, Richard Prince, Cindy Sherman, Mike Kelley, and Cy Twombly. Goetz retired from the business of art in the 1980s, deciding to focus on her own art collection, and in 1993 she created a free, public-exhibition space, the Sammlung-Goetz, in which to show works from her holdings. In 2013, she donated her Munich museum and an additional 375 works to Bavaria, a gift estimated to be worth $40 million. According to her website, Goetz is “interested in outsiders and fringe groups. These groups include: asylum seekers, people suffering from eating disorders, for example, or young monks in Nepal completely cut off from the outside world.” Fun fact: In a 2008 interview with T Magazine, Goetz mentioned, “I just did a visit to Ryan Trecartin’s studio. It was the first time my husband and I looked at each other and said, ‘No we really no longer get it.’ ” http://www.artnews.com/top200/ingvild-goetz/
Ingvild Goetz began to collect media art in the 1990s when she was still an art dealer. Today, she owns one of the largest private collections of video art and media works in the world, nearly half of which is composed of women artists. And she shows it, along with her extensive collection of contemporary art, in her private Herzog & de Meuron-designed museum in Munich. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/meet-20-of-the-worlds-most-innovative-art-collectors-117315
Former gallerist Ingvild Goetz started collecting painting, sculpture, and works on paper in 1984. Today, her extraordinarily large collection contains nearly 5,000 works including over 500 video and media works, housed in a private museum designed by Herzog & de Meuron in Munich. Much of the collection is composed of works by emerging contemporary artists, and nearly half of the artworks in her collection are created by women. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/top-10-german-art-collectors-472364
"In addition to a formally cohesive concept, what has always been important to me is art’s social commitment and engagement. Art that uses all the means at its disposal to get involved fascinates me." Ingvild Goetz The Sammlung Goetz, one of the world’s foremost collections of contemporary art with its own exhibition building where the artworks are presented in changing temporary exhibitions, has developed an organisational structure of institutional standard encompassing everything from visitor facilities, in-house publications, and a library, to art storage, lending logistics, and restoration. The driving force behind this wide range of activities is the collector Ingvild Goetz, whose energy and passion launched the collection. Ingvild Goetz‘ commitment to art was first reflected in concrete form when she founded a publishing studio in Konstanz called edition art in progress, which ran from 1969 to 1972. Then, in 1972, this graphic arts enterprise spawned the gallery known as art in progress. The happening organized by Wolf Vostell for the gallery’s opening on January 14, 1972 led to closure of the business in Switzerland. In 1973 it moved to Munich. In 1975, a branch of art in progress opened in Dusseldorf. However, in 1984, Ingvild Goetz decided to close down the gallery and concentrate instead on collecting. Works that she had acquired during her time as a gallery owner formed the cornerstone of her collection in those early years, while she continued to seek out and research the artists of the Arte Povera movement. At the same time, Ingvild Goetz developed a strategy that she has continued to pursue to this day, based on two conceptual pillars: concentrating on emerging art and the new generation of artists on the one hand, and continuing to pursue and complement the works already in the collection on the other hand. http://www.sammlung-goetz.de/en/Collection.htm#panel_collector
LAKSHMI GOPALKRISHNAN Gopalkrishnan has always been passionate about art. She once collected ukiyo-e, Japanese wood-block prints, particularly first editions by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, “best known,” she says, “for his violent interpretations of traditional horror stories.” However she lost the collection four years ago and “was left looking at bare walls and a tight budget. Right around that time,” she says, “I began transitioning from a successful corporate career to a more experimental, asymmetric philosophy that I call ‘simply transformative’: the process of aligning outside with inside, image with inspiration, who you happen to have become with who you were meant to be.” This approach guides her nascent lifestyle consultancy venture. “At its core, this philosophy explores contrast and exploration. It rests not in erasure or absolute reconciliation but in that space between sound and silence, journey and destination,” she continues. “This is my commitment, in life and work as in art. I am drawn to pieces that are composed, clean to the touch of the eye, but then invite deconstruction and realignment that is authentic to my experience and aspiration.” Recent acquisitions include work by Canadian artist Tom Burrows, Bratsa Bonifacho, and Izima Kaoru’s “Nagasaku Hiromi wears Louis Vuitton,” 2001. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/artinfo/modern-painterss-50-most-_b_1694931.html
House of the Spirit A Kirkland homeowner discovers the joys of living artfully. By Jessica Voelker 5/12/2010 at 5:00am Published in the June 2010 issue of Seattle Met Lakshmi Gopalkrishnan lives in a Tudor-style house in Kirkland, right across the street from the lake. In her downstairs hallway, facing a wide carpeted staircase, hangs a photograph by Canadian artist Dianne Bos. The image depicts a long corridor at Chateau Chenonceau, a castle in northwest France. The floor in the photo is a checkerboard of tiles, not unlike the black-and-white marble floor in the hall where it hangs. Far down the castle corridor, near the right edge of the frame, is a ghostly figure, a sort of scarlet-hued blob. The photograph is black and white, the color added later. But if you look closely, Lakshmi Gopalkrishnan says, you can see the blob is actually a girl, and the red has been used to color her dress. So you look closely and, yes, there she is. Lakshmi Gopalkrishnan’s divorce was finalized in 2008. Before that, in the headiest days of her now defunct marriage, she would sit here, on these plush steps, and contemplate the photograph. Disappearing into her mind she would move alongside the girl in the red dress, deeper and deeper into the blur. A veteran of slate.com and Microsoft, Gopalkrishnan freelances now, and she’s building her own lifestyle consulting business. But she’s also reinventing her home, turning the showplace she once shared into a place that is uniquely hers. “My art, fashion, cooking—you name it—are inspired by passionate discovery,” says Gopalkrishnan. “It’s that spirit I want to have flow through my home. Pretty things are great, but I want to put it together in a way that speaks to me.” The house is a very large house, and Lakshmi Gopalkrishnan is a very small person. When she and her former husband bought it in 2000, their parents would visit from India every few years, staying for months at a time. Now it’s all her. The main floor, with its Viking stove and its dining room where the table is often set—a grass-green napkin rolled up in front of each chair—is the Lakshmi that the world sees. Hints of her taste for the macabre appear here and there, in a bowl full of African ram’s horns (“Feel them” she says. “They have such an interesting texture.”), and in the front entrance and library, where three small paintings present a girl either dancing with a rope or preparing to hang herself with it. She has transformed the upstairs rooms, however, into a sanctuary that is entirely Lakshmi. On a wall near the top of a stairwell is the door to nowhere, an exquisite slab of wood plucked from a Japanese treasure house. She bought it from one of her favorite local dealers, Galen Lowe (galen lowe.com), who also sold her the two jet-black bear-fur sword covers on a nearby chest of drawers. The upstairs sitting room has white sofas and brown-and-fuchsia cushion covers boldly patterned like a Pucci dress. On the wall above is a quadrant of portraits by local artist Bev Sparks (dogphotography.com), starring Gopalkrishnan’s two wire-haired miniature dachshunds. When she writes or knits in her studio, Gopalkrishnan faces a black oil on canvas by Bratsa Bonifacho. It is row after row of squares, each housing an individual glyph, like the symbol box that pops up in Microsoft Word. The glyphs in the painting are the same ones Bonifacho’s computer spat out when it was infected with a virus. Gopalkrishnan sees symbolism in the symbols. “I lived this ordered—I don’t want to say repressed—life. I built my box. It was a beautiful box, but it was a box. I lived a structured life, but I had this confusion inside.” Like the virus language that found its way onto Bonifacho’s canvas, she says, “stuff was trying to come out.” (...) Jessica Voelker - https://www.seattlemet.com/articles/2010/5/12/design-decorating-lakshmi-gopalkrishnan-kirkland-0610
NOAM GOTTESMAN Location: New York Employment: Hedge fund Art Collection: Postwar and contemporary art http://www.artfortune.com/collectors-9/
Noam Gottesman (born May 1961) is a New York City-based, Israeli-American businessman and former hedge fund manager and co-founder of GLG Partners. Gottesman has dual citizenship in the US and UK, and was listed on the April 2014 Forbes 400 list of richest people in America with a net worth of $2 billion. Gottesman married Geraldine Gottesman and had four children. They later divorced. Gottesman comes from a family of art collectors and is among the 200 most notable collectors according to ARTnews. He owns pieces by Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud and Andy Warhol. In 2008, Gottesman sold his 14,700-square-foot mansion in London's Kensington neighborhood to billionaire steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal. In 2014 he was dating the actress Lucy Liu In 2015, Gottesman married Bianca Dueñas, director of sales for fashion designer Reed Krakoff. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Gottesman
The son of Israel Museum president Dov Gottesman, Noam Gottesman is a self-made billionaire hedge-fund manager worth approximately $2.1 billion, according to Forbes. His art collection reportedly includes works by Andy Warhol, Francis Bacon, and Lucian Freud. He worked at Goldman Sachs, leaving the firm to co-found GLG Partners with Pierre Lagrange (also on the ARTnews Top 200) and Jonathan Green. In 2012, Gottesman became CEO of the investment company TOMS Capital. He owns the restaurant Eleven Madison Park in New York, and is a trustee at Columbia University, his alma mater. Gottesman is also a board member at the Tate Gallery Foundation. In early 2015, he married Reed Krakoff’s director of sales, Bianca Dueñas. Fun fact: Gottesman frequently hosts high-profile friends (including Beyoncé and Jay Z) at his estate in Hampshire, England; they often arrive by helicopter. The noise from the low-flying helicopters reportedly caused irate nearby residents to begin a council investigation in 2014 to determine whether or not this air traffic was legal. http://www.artnews.com/top200/noam-gottesman/
LAURENCE GRAFF Location: Gstaad, Switzerland Employment: Jewelry Art Collection: Modern and contemporary art http://www.artfortune.com/collectors-9/
In 1960 Laurence Graff founded the multinational jeweler Graff Diamonds, which has since earned him the nickname “King of Diamonds.” Graff Diamonds notably observes the Kimberly process, which means that the company never knowingly buys or trades diamonds from areas that would engender conflict or human suffering. Graff left school at the age of 15 to become an apprentice at a local East London jeweler and, by the early 1960s, was running his own two jeweler shops in Hatton Garden, the center of London’s jewelry trade since the Middle Ages. Graff began going to art exhibitions at a young age; in a 2008 interview with Peter Brant in Interview, he said the first artist that made an impression on him was a magician he saw on television, named Chan Canasta, who also painted under his birth name Chananel Mifelew. In the same interview, Graff said he “bypassed the ’80s artists,” collecting mostly Impressionist works at the time. Today his collection includes valuable works by artists like Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat. In 2013, Graff was awarded an Order of the British Empire. In the same Interview article, Graff recalled a time he bought a small Renoir painting in the late ’70s: “People said, ‘Why did you buy a Renoir that size?’ I said, ‘I can put it in the safe with my diamonds.’ I looked at it like a diamond. It’s beautiful. I didn’t want to put it on the wall. I put it in the safe.” http://www.artnews.com/top200/laurence-graff/
PB: When did you first become interested in art? LG: I used to go to art exhibitions. I remember one of the first artists I saw was a magician who appeared on television. His name was Chan Canasta and he used to tear up telephone directories. But before he did that, he would flick through the pages saying, "Tell me when to stop." And you'd say, "Stop"-he would tell you what it said without looking. It was amazing. He was also an artist. He painted under his birth name-Chananel Mifelew. I was very naïve and I was not a connoisseur of art. But I went to one of his exhibitions. It must have been in the '60s. I ended up buying around five paintings. So that might have been one of the occasions that I started buying art—all good for the dustbin years later. But I started that way. I was always a little bit of a collector and a hoarder. And whenever I got involved in anything, whatever it was—even when I was a kid and I collected cigarette cards-I really got into it and had the most. So when it came to paintings, once I got the bug, I always wanted to buy something. But I really knew nothing about art. In the early days in New York when Andy [Warhol] was still alive, I saw him delivering Interview magazine up and down Madison Avenue. I didn't even know who he was—I just knew he was a bit of a character. But my friends in the business would speak about some of these artists, and later on about Keith Haring. I could have bought those paintings for very little money, but I had no interest. I didn't know what they were. I didn't follow the '80s artists. So I bypassed them. At the time I really was a collector of art, but it wasn't contemporary art, it was impressionism. PB: It's similar to my story. I was a collector of coins first. But you really started with impressionism? LG: Yeah, yeah. PB: But you came seriously to art in taking an established position with impressionism. LG: I went to an auction in the late '70s and bought a small Renoir. People said, "Why did you buy a Renoir that size?" I said, "I can put it in the safe with my diamonds." And that was a true story. I bought it to put it in the safe. http://www.interviewmagazine.com/art/laurence-graff/#_
MAXWELL GRAHAM The owner of Essex Street, a Lower East Side gallery that he recently relocated from its eponymous block to Eldridge Street, Graham, formerly director of Renwick Gallery in SoHo, is an art dealer and curator. His move to the LES reflects his interests, which tend toward artists — including Mandla Reuter, Joëlle Tuerlinckx, and Helena Almeida — whom he feels get more attention in Europe than they do in New York. As a gallerist Graham seeks to correct this wrong: Just last winter, for example, he mounted the critically acclaimed New York return of text-based artist Peter Fend. To inaugurate his new space in April, Graham turned to Owen Land, a well-regarded American filmmaker who nonetheless had yet to have a solo gallery exhibition in his home country. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/artinfo/modern-painterss-50-most-_b_1694931.html
Another collector-turned-dealer, Graham runs the acclaimed Lower East Side space Essex Street Gallery, and is also an artist himself. The 31-year-old Renaissance man is known for championing emerging or “forgotten” artists. “I don’t want my artists to rely on art to make a living,” he told W magazine in a 2014 interview. “I almost wish my younger artists would take after the older ones and disappear for 30 years. And, hopefully, I’ll be here for them to come back to.” https://news.artnet.com/market/14-power-players-new-art-world-aristocracy-325494
Maxwell Graham is an art dealer, curator and gallery owner, as well as a collector who enthused in (re-)discovering underrated and emerging artists such as Mandla Reuter, Helena Almeida and Joëlle Tuerlinckx. http://www.larryslist.com/artmarket/features/top-10-young-art-collectors/
Essex Street gallery, Maxwell Graham’s two-year-old storefront in a former Chinese restaurant next to what was once a brothel, is actually located at 114 Eldridge Street. (A rent hike forced him to move, and he never bothered with a name change.) And while the 30-year-old dealer, who struck out on his own after stints at Renwick and Greene Naftali, represents a crew of rising stars—like Valerie Snobeck, 33, whose transporting installations are featured in the current Whitney Biennial—he is just as interested in reintroducing artists like the union activist Fred Lonidier, 72, who had been absent from the New York art world for several decades before reappearing recently (thanks to Graham) and staking his own place in the Biennial. “It’s good to not do things properly sometimes,” Graham says. In fact, he adds, “I don’t always like the shows that happen here—but sometimes it’s not about me. It’s okay if something fails, as long as it’s taking a risk. I don’t want my artists to rely on art to make a living. I almost wish my younger artists would take after the older ones and disappear for 30 years. And, hopefully, I’ll be here for them to come back to.” http://www.wmagazine.com/story/essex-street-art-gallery
TAYMOUR GRAHNE Originally from Beirut, Grahne now lives in New York, where he is pursuing an M.A. in art business. His collection focuses on contemporary Middle Eastern works. “There is a significant level of artistic talent and creativity coming out of the region,” he says. “New Yorkers are enamored when they visit my apartment and see all the Middle Eastern art on the walls.” (Grahne also keeps a blog tracking his own interests and discoveries at artofthemideast.com.) Recent acquisitions include work by Reza Derakshani (Iran), Mohannad Orabi (Syria), and Mouna Bassili Sehnaoui (Lebanon). The latter artist created one of Grahne’s prized pieces, a suite of paintings called “3 Divas.” The series “came from the artist’s desire to pay tribute to some of the greatest singers and musicians in the Middle East and France: Oum Kalthoum, Edith Piaf, and Asmahan.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/artinfo/modern-painterss-50-most-_b_1694931.html
The gallerist and collector landed a spot on Larry List’s Top 10 Young Art Collectors thanks to his extensive trove of contemporary Middle Eastern art, which he also shows in his eponymous Tribeca space. At just 26 years old, Grahne has carved out an impressive niche for himself as both a buyer and a seller with a great deal of business savvy. “I look up to several people in the art world, both younger and older. In today’s world, age is no longer so important,” he told Canvas magazine. https://news.artnet.com/market/14-power-players-new-art-world-aristocracy-325494
Taymour Grahne’s collection has a special focus on contemporary works from the Middle East, where he also originates. While he is collecting himself, he also runs his own gallery in New York, promoting top Middle Eastern artists. http://www.larryslist.com/artmarket/features/top-10-young-art-collectors/
Taymour Grahne Gallery is a contemporary art gallery founded in 2013 with a focus on international emerging and mid-career artists. Taymour Grahne has placed gallery artists into major global institutional collections including: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The British Museum, London; Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi; Guggenheim, New York; Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC; Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles; The Nasher Museum of Art, Duke University, NC and The Newark Museum, New Jersey, among others. http://www.taymourgrahne.com/gallery
KEN GRIFFIN Location: Chicago Employment: Hedge fund Art Collection: Impressionism; Post-Impressionism http://www.artfortune.com/collectors-10/
Kenneth C. Griffin is the founder and CEO of the global investment firm Citadel and is one of the most active art buyers globally. In 1999, he reportedly paid a record price of $60 million for Paul Cézanne’s painting Curtain, Jug and Fruit Bowl (ca. 1893). In 2006, he bought Jasper Johns’s famous 1959 painting False Start (1959) from David Geffen for a reported $80 million. (The painting had already become famous in art-market history, when S.I. Newhouse, with dealer Larry Gagosian bidding on his behalf, purchased it at Sotheby’s in 1988 for a then-record price of $17 million.) That same year, Griffin underwrote a $19 million expansion of the Art Institute of Chicago. Designed by Renzo Piano, the new structure features Cézannes on loan from Griffin’s private collection. In 2015, he donated $10 million to the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. http://www.artnews.com/top200/kenneth-c-griffin/
Citadel CEO Ken Griffin has set a new record for contemporary-art collectors. The billionaire has bought two paintings for a combined $500 million, CNBC reports. Griffin reportedly bought a Willem de Kooning and a Jackson Pollock. The de Kooning is now believed to be the most expensive work of contemporary art ever sold, according to CNBC. It's also believed to be the second-most expensive piece of art sold on record. Griffin has loaned both works to the Art Institute of Chicago. An art collector for 20 years, Griffin in November voiced concerns about the art market. He said it's dominated by investors, rather than collectors, which is problematic because it's such an opaque market. Griffin's hedge fund, Citadel, this week cut more than a dozen employees, including portfolio managers, in its Surveyor Capital arm, The Wall Street Journal reported. The cuts followed losses for the firm in 2016. http://www.businessinsider.fr/us/ken-griffin-bought-2-contemporary-paintings-2016-2/
Hedge fund investor Kenneth Griffin paid $500 million for two paintings by Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock from David Geffen, matching a record for high-priced art. Griffin, CEO and founder of Citadel in Chicago, paid $300 million for "Interchange," a 1955 painting by de Kooning, and $200 million for "Number 17A," a 1948 painting by Pollock, according a person close to the matter. The paintings were sold by the David Geffen Foundation, founded by the record executive and movie mogul. Geffen founded Geffen Records and co-founded Asylum Records. He also co-founded DreamWorks with Steven Spielberg. "Interchange" matches the prior record from last year, which was $300 million paid for an 1892 portrait by Paul Gauguin of two Tahitian girls called "When will you marry?" according to The New York Times. Related: Ken Griffin's billionaire divorce And it eclipses two other massive art sales that happened last year: $170 million for "Reclining Nude," painted by Amedeo Modigliani in 1917 and 1918, and "La Gommeuse," a 1901 nude by Pablo Picasso that sold for $179 million. Ken Griffin of Citadel just bought two paintings - by de Kooning and Pollock - for $500 million. Griffin, who runs his $25 billion hedge fund empire out of Chicago, is on the board of trustees of the Art Institute of Chicago. "Interchange" and "Number 17A" are on display at the Art Institute. Geffen is a philanthropist who donated $100 million last year to Lincoln Center, home of the New York Philharmonic, prompting a renaming of Avery Fisher Hall to David Geffen Hall. http://money.cnn.com/2016/02/19/luxury/ken-griffin-david-geffen-de-kooning-jackson-pollock/
FLORENCE & DANIEL GUERLAIN Bien élevés et fureteurs, à la fois paisibles et grands voyageurs, bons vivants et engagés, Daniel et Florence Guerlain sont des collectionneurs à la française qui n'oublient ni la gastronomie, ni l'agrément d'une bonne compagnie. En 2012, ce couple d'inséparables a donné 1200 dessins contemporains au Centre Pompidou qui en expose près de 500 jusqu'au 31 mars. Portraits croisés de deux caractères très complémentaires qui portent haut les valeurs de la France. LE FIGARO. - Votre définition du collectionneur? Florence GUERLAIN. - Un collectionneur, c'est quelqu'un qui devient hystérique devant les œuvres qu'il amasse, en connaissance de cause. C'est quelqu'un qui ne résiste pas à sa passion. Daniel GUERLAIN. - C'est ce qu'on appelle la collectionnite, une maladie honteuse. À un moment, on est pris dans son engouement comme dans un engrenage. Après les timbres et les Dinky Toys de l'enfance, j'ai fait des collections de couteaux, des couteaux, des couteaux. Et puis des flacons, des flacons, des flacons pour répondre à mon histoire familiale [NDLR: la dynastie Guerlain]. Des fleurs, des fleurs, fleurs pour l'architecte paysagiste que je suis. Des montres, des montres, des montres, j'adore cet objet fabuleux. Pas de collection de femmes! (Rires.) Une collection, c'est un univers en soi qui vous ressemble. Aviez-vous conscience d'en construire un? D. G. - Être collectionneur n'est pas un métier. On le devient lorsque sa collection a une certaine cohérence et peut raconter une histoire. Quand elle forme un tout. Elle vous envahit dans tous les sens du terme, espace compris. Certains vendent alors pour pouvoir recommencer, changer de domaine ou s'ouvrir au contemporain. Florence Guerlain devant le Salon des Visiteurs au Centre Pompidou. Photo Lucien Lung pour Le Figaro. F. G. - Au début, on est juste amateur d'art. C'est la réunion des œuvres qui fait le collectionneur. Nous avons toujours acheté du dessin en même temps que des peintures. Nous nous sommes concentrés sur le dessin depuis la création de notre Prix Guerlain du Dessin en 2004. Avant, nous allions dans les galeries, nous avions des coups de foudre, nous écoutions les uns et les autres nous vanter leurs choix. Il faut regarder, regarder, regarder pour comprendre et acheter. À partir de ce Prix du Dessin, nous avons été plus systématiquement dans les ateliers d'artistes, nous avons fait un vrai travail de recherche avec le Comité de sélection pour choisir au mieux ceux à mettre en compétition. http://www.lefigaro.fr/culture/2013/10/31/03004-20131031ARTFIG00534-daniel-et-florence-guerlain-le-yin-et-le-yang-du-dessin.php
Since Florence and Daniel Guerlain started collecting art in the mid-1980s, drawing has been their primary focus. In 2007, the couple founded the Daniel and Florence Guerlain Contemporary Drawing Prize, which annually honors three artists. Since 2010, the presentation has been held at the Parisian Salon Du Dessin art fair. In an email interview, the couple expressed their desire to stay the course, but not without a certain level of self-regulation. Their plan, they said, was to continue buying “essential” works, “but not so compulsively!” http://www.artnews.com/top200/florence-and-daniel-guerlain/
FEROZE GUJRAL “I’m working on an unofficial India-Pakistan pavilion for the next Venice Biennale,” declares Feroze Gujral, suddenly remembering the fact in the middle of our conversation in March. “India and Pakistan? Together?” I double-check. “Yes, we keep talking about culture being the soft power, but we don’t see many examples of it in the world. This should be one of those things that is larger than the art itself,” says Gujral. And to think most interviewers still ask the 48-year-old art patron, businesswoman and philanthropist about her glorious modeling career, one she left over 20 years ago. (...) Marrying into this cultural and political dynasty had a profound impact. “I’m a great traditionalist. I think living with your in-laws teaches you a lot. There’s so much I subliminally absorbed from living in Satish’s house. I was like a sponge.” Collectors from Japan and Europe would visit their home and discuss her father-in-law’s art in detail, while debates on film and literature would regularly take place over dinner with guests such as writer and diplomat Octavio Paz and members of the Kennedy family. Several renowned international musicians, poets and artists, including Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, were counted among the family’s close friends. “When I got married, all the artists came to our wedding. So I recived a Rameshwar Broota, Anjolie Ela Menon, Manjit Bawa and MF Husain as wedding presents!” (...) http://www.larryslist.com/artmarket/magazine/artasiapacific-x-larrys-list-fostering-a-legacy/
Gujral is something of an Indian icon. She is the founder of Outset India and the Gujral Foundation, two philanthropic organizations that supported the Kochi Biennale, the 2014 exhibition of work by V. S. Gaitonde at New York’s Guggenheim Museum, and the acclaimed India-Pakistan pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale, among numerous other projects. “I have a deep admiration and respect for Feroze,” says artist Shilpa Gupta, who created the India half of the presentation at Venice. “She has the capacity to believe, to dream, and to make what several thought impossible actually happen—and happen in such a grand and beautiful way.” Gujral’s foundations also invite, bi-annually, a prominent artist to transform and exhibit at the decrepit 24 Jor Bagh, a house on one of Delhi’s well-known streets. Her support has marked a formal shift in the engagement of art with the city, the distinction between public and private space, and the development of non-traditional exhibition spaces. https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-these-8-women-are-leading-the-indian-art-world
Hailing from the Gujral family, Feroze has had a long-standing relationship with the arts. A media personality and an entrepreneur in her own right, she founded the Gujral Foundation, which funds higher education in the arts – fashion, art, design and architecture and has also been a visiting professor at NIFT. Currently, she is the Director of Outset India, a non- profit art foundation supporting new art in public space. She is also WWF Ambassador for India and Patron and Curator for TEDx Delhi. The sole Indian supporter at the 55th Venice Biennale, she also graciously lent Aspinwall, the prime location for the Kochi Muziris Biennale and is on the advisory board of the biennale. (www.ferozegujral.com). Outset India was launched in 2011 by Feroze Gujral - Founder and Director, Outset India. It aims to create a unique platform of philanthropic private funding for new art in public space. With Outset’s global connect with art enthusiasts, collectors, museums, curators and artists, the fund aims at building India pride. About Gujral Foundation The Foundation participates in the development of society and are involved in conducting various programs to promote their role as cultural agents, specifically pertaining to art, design and culture. We have supported the 55th Venice Biennale, and are supporting and funding an unofficial India –Pakistan Pavillion at the 56th Venice Biennale. http://www.womenofindiasummit.com/feroze-gujral
AGNES GUND Agnes Gund Location: New York; Peninsula, Ohio; Kent, Connecticut Employment: Inheritance Art Collection: Modern and contemporary art http://www.artfortune.com/collectors-10/
Agnes Gund (born 1938), is an American philanthropist, art patron and collector, and advocate for arts education. She is founding trustee of the Agnes Gund Foundation and President Emerita of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and Chairman of its International Council. She is also Chairman of MoMA PS1. In 2011, Gund was nominated by President Barack Obama as a member of the Board of Trustees of the National Council on the Arts. (...) Gund has an encyclopedic collection of modern and contemporary art from the 1940s through the present, ranging from modern masters, including Lee Bontecou, Arshile Gorky, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Richard Serra, Ellsworth Kelly, Roy Lichtenstein, Frank Stella, John Baldessari, Lynda Benglis, Eva Hesse, Vija Celmins, James Lee Byars, and Richard Artschwager; through cutting-edge contemporary artists, such as Teresita Fernandez, Kara Walker, Lorna Simpson, Cai Guo-Qiang, Barry Ball, Glenn Ligon and David Remfry. Her personal collection of 2,000 artworks is distributed between her New York apartment and her Connecticut country house. Her collection consists of paintings, sculptures, photographs, prints and furniture, with an exceptionally rich compilation of drawings. Her collection also includes West African and Chinese terra cottas and classical Chinese furniture. She has donated some 250 works to MoMA, numerous works to the Cleveland Museum of Art, and has given or loaned various pieces to museums around the country. Essentially all of her most valuable works that have not already been gifted are promised gifts to institutions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnes_Gund
Agnes Gund has said she believes that art “is a right, not a privilege,” and this belief has been the driving force behind her philanthropic endeavors in the art world for over four decades. Serving on the board of numerous museums and foundations, Gund typically donates between $6 million and $7 million a year through her A G Foundation, which has also donated hundreds of works to the Museum of Modern Art in New York and other museums. On top of these generous contributions, she has made it possible for 30,000 students, 90 percent of whom are under-privileged, to receive over 45,000 hours of art education a year through Studio in a School, a nonprofit organization which she founded in 1977. Her personal collection of over 2,000 works spans from 1940 to the present and includes pieces by Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Richard Serra, Ellsworth Kelly, Roy Lichtenstein, Frank Stella, John Baldessari, and many more. (A visit to her New York City apartment is tantamount to a visit to a modern art museum.) Gund’s interest in contemporary art is compounded by her interest in contemporary artists themselves, many of whom she knows personally. Ellsworth Kelly once said of Gund, “Everyone falls in love with her. You can tell her I’m in love with her.” Fun fact: Gund avoids selling work by living artists. When asked why by W, she replied “I just don’t feel right about it.” http://www.artnews.com/top200/agnes-gund-2/
Agnes Gund or “Aggie” as she is affectionately known in the art world is the current President Emerita of the Museum of Modern art and has been on its board since 1976. The name Agnes Gund is prominently affixed to the MoMA lobby as one of its most treasured and generous patrons. While Mrs. Gund’s great wealth has assisted her in building a personal collection that would rival any museum, it is her passion for art and artists that places her at the forefront of influence. To say that Agnes Gund is an icon in the art world would be an understatement. Her passion for collecting and supporting the work of women artists is not only something she writes and talks about - it’s also where she puts her money. Agnes Gund is also a tremendous champion for arts education and social justice. Mrs. Gund currently sits on the New York State Council of the Arts, chairs the MoMA PS1 board and heads the Mayor’s Cultural Affairs Advisory Commission that is responsible for molding and shaping New York City’s expanding arts policy. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/malcolm-harris/women-in-art-7-top-female_b_5850190.html
STEVEN & KATHY GUTTMAN Inside Steven Guttman's World-Class Art Collection Steven Guttman fell in love with art at the heels of a hound. "I grew up in Pittsburgh, in a modest family, and we had no art in our house," says the 68-year-old collector at his Greenwich Village town house. The founder of Storage Deluxe Management Corp. and former CEO of the Federal Realty Investment Trust, Guttman is surrounded by hundreds of paintings, sculptures and furniture created by some of the world's most desired artists. Along with his wife, Kathy, he has amassed one of the nation's foremost collections of American folk and contemporary art, but he still remembers when he was a blank canvas. (...) The first piece he bought--aside from random wooden English artifacts for a thousand dollars or less in the early 1970s--was a painting by Willem de Looper. Gene Davis was another artist he collected as his passion grew. Washington galleries owned by Harry Lunn and Max Protetch furthered his fervor. Nowadays a geometric psychedelic painting by Matthias Bitzer, "The Soft Needs," and a Droog cabinet designed by Tejo Remy called "You Can't Lay Down Your Memories" are more to his taste. An enormous ivory lamp that resembles the branches of a dead willow ("On a Limb," by Charles Trevelyan, 2009) is another favorite. The key to his collecting, then as now, Guttman says, is to discover and support young artists who are underappreciated: to identify the quiet detail that separates kitsch from classic. "To me, it's all the same: furniture, clothing, sculpture, video--it's all art. You can't distinguish one from another," he says about his omnivorous taste. "I mean, who is to say the person who made that lamp right there isn't as creative or talented as the person who made this piece over here? If there's no precedent for something, if you're creating something for the first time, to me that's creating art." His passion for collecting has also dovetailed naturally with his career: After graduating with honors from George Washington Law School in 1972, Guttman joined the Federal Realty Investment Trust as a junior acquisitions officer. Within seven years, he had risen to a managing trustee and, in 1980, was elected president and chief executive officer. By 2001, he had become CEO and chairman of the board, a position he held at the time of his retirement in 2003. Along the way, however, as Guttman's collection grew, he found himself unable to house all of his art, so in 2006 he built a fine art storage space in the South Bronx. Naturally, he was not alone in his need for such a facility, and soon other collectors sought out his space. To meet the growing demand among collectors Guttman has begun building UOVO (Italian for "egg"), a pair of next-generation high-tech facilities for fine art storage. The first, a 280,000-square-foot space, sits across the 59th Street Bridge in Queens' Long Island City, complete with 24-hour security, humidity control, fully enclosed loading docks and daily shuttles to Chelsea. A second facility, 100,000 square feet, is planned for upstate New York. Over the years, Guttman has earned staunch support in the art world as a collector who thinks for himself and is an astute spotter of talent. He now chairs the American Friends of the Centre Pompidou Foundation, having donated multiple works to the museum, and is a former member of the Miami Art Museum's board of trustees. He regularly attends Frieze London, Frieze New York, Art Basel and multiple regional art fairs in order to discover new artists--and especially undervalued older ones. A new game he'll play at Frieze London and the Frieze Masters shows this fall will be to seek out "a 60-year-old artist with a lot of potential." (Indeed, UOVO will be a primary sponsor of Frieze New York next spring.) "The art world is an entirely different place than it was 20 years ago," Guttman notes. "Now there are more than 1,500 galleries in New York City alone, compared with a couple hundred two decades ago. The entire art world has become extremely professionalized, but while galleries and artists have changed to keep up with the times, art storage has largely remained an outmoded sector. No one was approaching art storage from the perspective of a collector." And even Guttman concedes that not everything he collects is appreciating--or even appreciated. "The Americana pieces and the English furniture are not that in demand," he says. "People have less space. They want simpler lives. But Americana will become popular again. I have a lot in storage." Hannah Elliott - https://www.forbes.com/sites/hannahelliott/2014/09/11/steven-guttman-art-collection-storage-uovo/#491f45a72a8d