MARIA BAIBAKOVA Since she opened a temporary non-profit art space called Baibakova Art Projects in an old Moscow chocolate factory in 2008, Maria Baibakova has been attracting attention. Recently, she added to her bio as supporter of the arts senior advisor to Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and trustee of Barnard College. On November 4, she will be named one of Performa’s “Renaissance Women.” Her Miami apartment displays artworks by contemporary artists such as Richard Prince, Allora & Calzadilla, Tracey Emin, and Andrea Gursky. Despite her recent gaffe in Russian Tatler (see: Maria Baibakova is So Sorry People Are Making Fun of Her), Baibakova continues be someone to watch. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/meet-20-of-the-worlds-most-innovative-art-collectors-117315
For nearly a decade, the Russian collector, curator, and art patron Maria Baibakova has been a critical driver in both building the infrastructure for a vibrant and sustainable contemporary art scene in her country and opening up the lines of artistic exchange between Russia and the wider world. Her Moscow-based non-profit Baibakov Art Projects has been a powerful fulcrum for these efforts, allowing her to stage museum-quality exhibitions that draw international attention—leading the New Yorker to declare that "if anyone is to become Russia's Peggy Guggenheim, it is Baibakova." Now, joining Artspace as strategic director in charge of expanding the site's presence in the global marketplace, Baibakova has a new avenue for bringing about her cultural vision. (...) In addition to helping provide exposure for artists through your institution, another way that you support the art community is through your collecting. How did you began collecting art, and what frames your approach as a collector? I think that collecting is a very personal experience, and that true collectors who have the collecting bug can't tell you when they started because they probably started as soon as they were born, collecting objects they could organize and hoard. What is collecting really? It's an externalized process of narrating your internal state. Through my selections—the very act of choosing an object—I am suggesting that it represents a part of me, and that's very interesting. That narration could be a gratifying experience in collecting various things but for me art is the most rewarding vehicle, and because I collect contemporary art my acquisitions are a result of a deep engagement with the artist or his or her intellectual practice. It's a continuous practice. I now have a few years of experience with collecting. I guess I started collecting seriously in college. https://www.google.fr/search?espv=2&q=maria+baibakova+art+collection&oq=MARIA+BAIBAKOVA+art&gs_l=serp.1.1.0i19k1l2j0i22i30i 19k1l5.3723.4393.0.7042.4.4.0.0.0.0.114.414.2j2.4.0....0...1c.1.64.serp..0.4.411.siZCPbOjP-s
A Russian oligarch princess, not even 30 years old, with a very impressive collection. The princess owns pieces by Cindy Sherman, Christopher Wool and Franz West. She also found her own project space in Moscow and can be spotted at celebrity parties, museum openings and runway shows. Check her Instagram for photos of her collection, her famous artist friends and her amazing fashion style. https://publichouseofart.com/articles/top-7-young-art-collectors-you-need-to-be-friends-with
Baibakova started Baibakov Art Projects in 2008, at 23, armed with art history degrees from Barnard and the Courtauld Institute of Art. Prior, she'd apprenticed at various art world institutions in New York and London, an acquired curatorial experience closer to home as well: She advises her father on his considerable collection of Warhols, Hirsts and Gurskys. In interviews, she bristles at comparisons to other young, culture-savvy Russian socialites, particularly Dasha Zhukova. Zhukova, the girlfriend of Roman Abramovich, Pop magazine editor and sometime fashion designer, who also in 2008 founded a contemporary art space in Moscow, The Garage. Baibakova has worked to program BAP with exhibitions that provoke and draw attention on their own: solo shows by Luc Tuymans and Paul Pfeiffer, and a group show of top American artists including Wade Guyton and Walead Beshty. http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/news-features/news/maria-baibakova/
CANDACE CARMEL BARASCH Candace Carmel Barasch began collecting in 2000, buying black-and-white photographs. That led to an interest in contemporary photography, which, in turn, led to purchases of contemporary paintings, sculptures, works on paper, and video. Barasch’s collection is currently focused on the work of contemporary artists like Josh Kline, Avery Singer, Garth Weiser, Katja Notvitskova, Ella Krugyanskaya, Simon Denny, Steven Shearer, Cory Arcangel, and Günther Förg. When asked about her favorite piece of art, Barasch found it impossible to answer because there are simply too many–but she did admit to feeling very sentimental about “any and all work by Wade Guyton.” Recently, Barasch acquired an Alex Israel lens that she had been waiting two years for. http://www.artnews.com/top200/candace-carmel-barasch/
PEDRO BARBOSA Brazilian bond trader and art collector Perdro Barbosa has become known as a globe-trotting collector with a sharp eye for spotting talent, be it trolling the aisles of the Frieze art fair in London, scouting Brazilian art schools, sending his personal curator Jacopo Crivelli Visconti (also curator of the Brazilian pavilion at the 2007 Venice Biennial) abroad and inviting guest curators into his home to create shows. His collection ranges from young Brazilian artists including Jonathas de Andrade and Andre Komatsu to relatively new discoveries like Lebanese artist Rayyaane Tabet and more established names such as Tomas Saraceno, Olafur Eliasson, and Wolfgang Tillmans. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/meet-20-of-the-worlds-most-innovative-art-collectors-117315
Nearly six decades later, Pedro Barbosa won’t let convention bury his vision for his collection. Barbosa is a trained engineer and retired bond trader who, by his own estimation, has a “very mathematical mindset.” Nevertheless, he doesn’t see artwork as an investment—or, to use the terms of concrete poetry, as “indifferent vehicles” of monetary worth. When I ask why he chose to start buying art, instead of, say, real estate or stock, Barbosa’s response is firm: “Value isn’t an issue for me,” he says. “What’s an issue for me is meaning.” As proof, he cites several works in his collection that “don’t actually exist”: a Mario García Torres piece that consists only of a title, an Yves Klein record that contains no sound. “You don’t need to have a piece of work, as long as you have a thought process,” he says, adding, “I don’t trade art.” The only thing Barbosa has traded in recently is the business of trading; reading, research, and intensive communication with the curator of his collection, Jacopo Crivelli Visconti, are a full-time job and his life’s work. He knows the collection inside out; twice our call is interrupted—one time due to a lapse in internet connection, another so that Barbosa can let out his dog—and both times he jumps seamlessly back into analysis of American and British conceptual art from the ’80s. “I am not an accumulator of artwork,” he says. He only purchases pieces that make sense in the context of the larger body of work. “You definitely have to think big-time in order to develop a collection,” he says. With Barbosa, it’s always the thought that counts. When I ask how and why he got started, he describes the conceptual trajectory of his equally conceptual collection. (Barbosa sees conceptual art as a kind of challenging comfort zone; his Skype profile photo is of a neon sign by François Curlet that reads, “Arte Concettuale Spaghetti.”) In 1999, he made his first purchase: a kinetic Jesús Rafael Soto sculpture. “We in Brazil have a big influence from concrete poetry and visual, geometric poems and art,” he says. “So it was very easy for me to digest any kind of geometric work.” From there, he became interested in the materiality of 1970s abstract sculpture. He skipped the 1980s, because of a theory he has that art and the creation of wealth go hand in hand; that decade was one of economic weakness in Brazil, and Barbosa believes that artistic production suffered as a result. He began buying work from the mid-’90s instead. (...) His current collecting strategy is two-pronged. One of his focuses is hyper-contemporary tech, multimedia, and performance works, mostly produced by young New York artists and sold at Lower East Side galleries like Essex Street and Reena Spaulings Fine Art; the other is audio and textual documentation of conceptual art from the 1970s and ’80s, like Robert Smithson’s records of his own work in Artforum. When I ask what kind of art is popular on the Brazilian market these days, Barbosa bristles a bit. “I don’t deal with popular artists,” he says, reiterating, “I look for production that has a lot of thought process behind it, so it is not popular at all.” That being said, the collection is rich with works by conceptual art’s heavy hitters. Five artists in Barbosa’s holdings (Daniel Steegmann Mangrané, Eva Kotatkova, Asli Çavuşoğlu, Lisa Tan, and Antoine Catala) are featured in this year’s New Museum Triennial. In an art-filled alcove beneath a staircase in his São Paulo home there is a Lawrence Weiner floor work featuring the words “The die is cast” in both English and Portuguese. In a nearby apartment where he hosts an invite-only artist residency, a set of record covers designed by Weiner—fusing Barbosa’s interest in audio and language—are also on display. (Seth Siegelaub, Robert Barry, Stanley Brouwn, and Douglas Huebler are also included in the conceptualism-themed exhibition.) Back in Barbosa’s house, two stacked identical photographs of pianos (one untuned and one tuned) by the Mexican artist Fernando Ortega hang on a narrow wall, another chapter in his book of sound-related artworks. The collector tells me that recently, at his son’s 11th birthday party, a young guest tried to turn on a Nam June Paik television, knocking off a channel button. https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-former-bond-trader-pedro-barbosa-on-breaking-with
CAMILLA BARELLA In the five years that Brazilian collector Camilla Barella and her husband Eduardo have been buying art, they’ve cultivated a unique aesthetic while admitting that at times they’ve had to fight for access to works at galleries reluctant to sell to “unknowns.” Camilla has said that she’s drawn to art that “does not cause a good and comfortable feeling, but on the contrary intrigues and disturbs me.” Their collection includes work by Ana Maria Tavares and recent favorite highlights from SP Arte like Shilpa Gupta and Ion Grigorescu. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/meet-20-of-the-worlds-most-innovative-art-collectors-117315
The art market evolution Since 2000 the Brazilian art market dynamics increased, as more than two-thirds of art galleries founded after this date. And further, a quarter of art galleries was established recently, after 2010, according to the Latitude Project study. This fact has enabled the growing number of real art collectors, which shows in gallery sales growth of 22,5% in 2012. About 71% of artwork sold in Brazil in 2012 was purchased by private Brazilian art collectors, while only 11,5% went to foreign collectors. Corporate collections in Brazil acquired 6% and Brazilian institutions only 4,25% of the works. Along with the enthusiasm of the buyers, growing are the market prices as well, indicated in a 15% increase in 2012. This is the new trend, since in the 70s and 80s Brazil was largely culturally secluded from the rest of the art world and artists could not live on their work, not even the ones who are today perceived as major representatives of Brazilian modern and contemporary art. The evident change commenced in the middle of the 90s, as the economy of the country started gaining strength. But the gallery world was greatly underdeveloped in terms of quantity, so it was difficult to place works on the market. The situation changed today for the gallerists and collectors alike, to their mutual pleasure. As the population of Brazil is still young culturally, collectors who come from families with collecting traditions are scarce. There are prominent figures in collecting who had to develop their affinities towards art in the adult age. Although the Brazilian art market is developing rapidly and fiercely, high import and export taxes still put a tangible obstacle to expanding collections with foreign artwork, while Brazilian official art institutions and museums acquire new pieces rather anemically, not giving enough opportunities to contemporary artists to promote their work. Some of the most important Brazilian collectors today are Regina Pinho de Almeida, José Marton, and Camilla and Eduardo Barella. http://www.widewalls.ch/contemporary-art-market-brasil-almeida-marton-barella/
Acredito demais na diferença que o nosso entorno pode nos proporcionar. Eu, que sou absolutamente visual, me sinto muito mais motivada num ambiente esteticamente estimulante. Me faz uma diferença enorme olhar à minha volta e saber que nada foi deliberadamente colocado ali. Perceber que houve um estudo, um cuidado, me passa uma ideia de carinho e segurança. Talvez não de um jeito tão profundo, mas de alguma forma, todo mundo se sinta melhor num espaço mais bonito, mais limpo, mais confortável e, o mais importante, mais coerente. Esse cantinho aí de baixo é especial por todos esses motivos e mais um tanto. Os donos, um casal de amigos queridos que prezam pela pesquisa e qualidade em tudo o que se propõem a fazer, expiram aquilo que tento passar quando falo sobre coerência: olho pro apartamento deles e enxergo os dois em todos os menores detalhes – sem clichê e sem excesso. O projeto realizado a seis mãos, foi assinado pelo amigo e arquiteto Felipe Hess. A Camilla, é daquelas amigas que ocupam um espacinho particular no hall das amigas, rs. Não pela quantidade de tempo que passamos juntas ou por um episódio específico que se tenha dado. Acho que o caso é mesmo de admiração. Me sinto muito orgulhosa (#girlpower) e inspirada quando vejo mulheres assim. Nós duas somos capazes de passar o mesmo número de horas falando sobre revistas, gastronomia ou sobre a eterna busca pelo autoconhecimento. E, na minha humilde opinião, assim vai se formando o equilíbrio da vida. Dando a devida importância às coisas, de fato, importantes, e sem esquecer da importância das coisas não tão importantes assim. Como ela mesma diz, “ser autêntico não tem relação somente com a roupa, mas com a casa, com a atitude, com o comportamento e, acima de tudo, com a forma de viver”. http://www.bedsidenotebook.com.br/housewife/o-apartamento-da-camilla-barella/
CLAUDIA BECK & ANDREW GRUFT Claudia Beck is an art collector and writer who lives and works in Vancouver. From 1976 to 1982, Beck and Andrew Gruft started the NOVA Gallery to show photographs by such artists as Henry Fox Talbot, Julia Margaret Cameron, Walker Evans, Ian Wallace and N.E. Thing Co. They were the first gallery to show the work of Jeff Wall, and are considered to be pioneers among commercial photography galleries. Beck and Gruft donated a large portion of their photography collection to the Vancouver Art Gallery, a donation which was featured in the exhibition Real Pictures in 2005. The two still support the VAG and continue to collect art. Beck also served on the Board of the Contemporary Art Gallery in Vancouver during their building project, and is currently a trustee of the Vancouver Art Gallery and has served for four years as Head of the Acquisitions Committee of The Getty Museum Photo Council in LA. http://www.youraga.ca/the-collectors-lecture-series/?GTTabs=1
A conversation with Claudia Beck and Andrew Gruft, who will discuss works in the exhibition, Eye to Eye, drawn from their private collection, and their motivations and processes for collecting photography. Embracing a broad interpretation of portraiture, Eye to Eye brings together a range of prints, videos and books from the nineteenth century to the present day drawn from the collection of Claudia Beck and Andrew Gruft. The exhibition animates the dynamics of looking between photographer and subject, of observing and being observed, through works that foreground the complexities of “capturing” people through a camera. The challenge was aptly framed by Diane Arbus: “What I’m trying to describe is that it is impossible to get out of your skin and into somebody else’s.” The exhibition features classic prints by renowned photographers including Eugène Atget, Bruce Davidson, Robert Frank, Helen Levitt, Daido Moriyama, August Sander, and Edward Weston – as well as contemporary works by Kristen Abdai, Raymond Boisjoly, Anne Collier, Katy Grannan, and Evan Lee among others. Claudia Beck and Andrew Gruft, who live in Vancouver, have collected photography and media art for four decades. From 1976 to 1982, they operated NOVA Gallery, Vancouver’s first commercial gallery devoted to photography. Their ever-growing collection, which spans from photography’s beginnings in the mid-nineteenth century to the present day, was the focus of a significant exhibition, Real Pictures: Photographs from the Collection of Claudia Beck and Andrew Gruft, at the Vancouver Art Gallery, and accompanying publication. Eye to Eye is a selection of photographs from the Collection of Claudia Beck and Andrew Gruft and is generously supported by PARC Retirement Living through its membership in the Gallery’s Exhibition Circle. http://presentationhousegallery.org/exhibition/eye-to-eye/
The Vancouver Art Gallery has acquired a major art collection valued at $2 million(CDN) consisting of over 460 exceptional photographic images by some of the world’s most acclaimed photographers. The acquisition, from the collection of Claudia Beck and Andrew Gruft, comprises rare and vintage prints by some of the most recognized figures in the history of photography including Ansel Adams, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Margaret Bourke-White, Julia Margaret Cameron, Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans, Robert Frank, Andrea Kertesz, Dorothea Lange, Nadar, August Sander, Aaron Siskind, Alfred Stieglitz and Garry Winogrand. In all, the acquisition, which is part gift and part purchase, comprises 463 prints by 155 artists, 128 of whom have been added to the collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery for the first time. The collection spans key moments in the history of photography and captures a fascinating record of life from the invention of photography in the mid-19th century to the present. The works will be exhibited at the Gallery from January 29 to May 29, 2005 in Real Pictures: Photographs from the Collection of Claudia Beck and Andrew Gruft. “The Beck/Gruft collection is one of the most significant privately held photography collections in Canada and is exceptional in its scope and quality, “said Kathleen Bartels, Director, Vancouver Art Gallery. “This acquisition provides an important historical grounding to the Gallery’s already significant photography collection and radically broadens the scope of the Gallery’s existing collection. As a gift to the Gallery, it is an expression of remarkable generosity by Claudia Beck and Andrew Gruft who have played an important role within the Vancouver art community over the past three decades.” https://www.vanartgallery.bc.ca/media_room/pdf/Beck_Gruft.pdf
VICTORIA & DAVID BECKHAM A former pop star-turned-entrepreneur and a celebrated soccer player, the UK–based duo collect art by the YBAs around the theme of “love.” Having been married for 15 years, and with four children, this power couple knows what love means in the 21st century. Their collection includes works by Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst, Banksy, and Jake and Dinos Chapman. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/meet-20-of-the-worlds-most-innovative-art-collectors-117315
Footballer David Beckham and his wife Victoria have an art collection worth almost $44 million and are now planning to put it on public display. The entire collection, bought over eight years, is “love themed”. It includes paintings, portraits and sculptures by Damien Hirst, Sam Taylor Wood, Tracey Emin, Banksy, and Jake and Dinos Chapman, mirror.co.uk reported. Some of the art is openly sentimental but other pieces like Hirst’s bull’s heart stabbed with scalpels, speak to the trials and tribulations of modern romance. The works are currently gracing the Beckhams’ homes in London, Milan and Los Angeles and could now go on public display. Victoria is rumored to be in talk with a museum to showcase some of their pieces, all of which are love tokens given as gifts for special occasions. Most of the works from the Beckham’s collection have been purchased from The White Cube gallery in London. http://www.luxuo.com/celebrities/beckham-art-collection.html
If you thought the Beckhams’ love of art ended with David’s growing collection of tattoos, think again. The footballer and his wife Victoria, 36, have secretly amassed a modern art haul worth a whopping £30million. The entire collection, bought over eight years, is “love themed”. It includes paintings, portraits and sculptures by Damien Hirst, Sam Taylor Wood, Tracey Emin, Banksy, and Jake and Dinos Chapman. The works are currently gracing the Beckhams’ homes in London, Milan and LA, but could go on public display. A source tells us: “Victoria is a mover and shaker in more upmarket circles nowadays and likes being a ‘collector’. http://pursuitist.com/victoria-beckham-and-david-beckham-40-million-art-collection/ When the Beckham household name is reportedly worth upwards of $1 billion, one wonders the kind of art that the family collects. In fact, David and Victoria Beckham have been known to be movers and shakers in the London art world. In 2010, an insider told the Mirror that “David in particular is a huge patron of provocative British art. As well as purchasing works by the biggest and most famous names in the art world, he is also a keen champion of lesser known, up and coming painters.” The collection, which is reportedly “love-themed,” include works by artists like Sam Taylor Wood, Banksy, and, a big favorite of theirs, Tracey Emin. To celebrate their daughter Harper Beckham’s birthday in 2014, David Beckham forked over a whopping £600,000 ($780,000) on a commissioned painting titled Daddy’s Girl. The Daily Mail spotted the heart-shaped canvas, which is embellished by Hirst’s signature butterflies, at their West London mansion. In an Instagram video post this summer, Victoria Beckham is seen marveling at Yayoi Kusama’s endless sea of yellow polka-dotted pumpkins at Victoria Miro gallery in London. Beckham even made a special mention of gallery director Glenn Scott Wright and associate Jane Suitor, thanking them for the visit. Earlier this year, Victoria Beckhan snapped an Instagram photo of her son Brooklyn leaning against Gagosian Gallery’s wall in London, where an exhibition of works by Richard Avedon and Andy Warhol were on view. Only Larry knows if the pair decided to pick something up. Come anniversary or birthday, it seems the Beckhams like to splurge on love notes by none other than Tracey Emin. According to the Mirror, the couple has been exchanging Emin’s artwork for years. Maybe the artist’s heartfelt open letter back in 2004 had something to do with their devoted patronage. Last year, Victoria Beckham commissioned then up-and-coming, now Jeffrey Deitch-represented young British artist Eddie Peake to create an installation for her Dover Street store. Though the artist is primarily known for his ephemeral ventures in performance art, we wouldn’t be surprised if Victoria Beckham picked up something more tactile. When Jeff Koons leveled his retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2014, Victoria was quick to Instagram her visit to New York. Earlier this year, David Beckham commissioned Koons to create a new work featuring David Beckham for his foundation, the David Beckham Unicef Fund. As GQ Magazine aptly put it, the occasion “mark[ed] the next phase in Beckham’s evolution: becoming immortalized in art.” https://news.artnet.com/art-world/beckham-family-art-collection-666365
JEN BEKMAN Jen Bekman Gallery is a former art gallery located at 6 Spring Street in New York City. It was established by Jen Bekman in March 2003 on Spring Street west of Bowery, and closed in August 2013. Bekman's goals were to help emerging artists become more appreciated, and to encourage a broader swath of people to feel comfortable buying art. Jen Bekman Gallery exhibited the work of artists in the mediums of photography, works on paper, paintings and mixed media. Jen Bekman Projects have included 20×200 (editioned prints at affordable prices) (2007–2013), Hey, Hot Shot![4] (an international competition for emerging photographers) (2004–2012), jen@joe (a revolving exhibition of photographs at Joe, affordably priced and available for purchase online only) (2003–2006), and Personism (a personal blog about design, photography, and current events) (2009–2010). In 2006, Bekman was named an Innovator of the Year by American Photo. They wrote, "She's developing a new generation of photo artists and consumers."[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jen_Bekman_Gallery
A founder of 20x200, a Web site offering affordable, high-quality editions and prints, Bekman also runs a New York gallery, Jen Bekman Projects. She now divides her time between the East Coast and the West, where she lives with her boyfriend. “It’s nice to have a clean slate, as the walls of my New York apartment filled up long ago, but it’s a bit of a challenge since he needs to like it too,” she says. “Of everything we’ve got teed up for framing, I’m most excited about the biggest piece — an 80-by-60-inch artist’s proof of one of Christian Chaize’s 20x200 editions, which will add some much-needed color and sunshine to our currently bare living room walls. I’m equally excited about the smallest, a drawing that Jason Polan made of the gorgeous potted succulent plants we’ve got sitting on our terrace. Jason did the drawing during an artists’ gathering we hosted, tore it out from his sketch pad, and handed it to me on the spot — the best housewarming gift ever!” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/artinfo/modern-painterss-50-most-_b_1694931.html
Jen Bekman: The Gallery Renegade Bringing Fine Art to the Masses In a new series called #TechTalk10, we'll be asking powerful women in the tech industry 10 questions each. We're tempted to ask them way more questions, of course, but these women are busy and important and have really, really interesting work to get back to—like art visionary Jen Bekman who is changing the collector's landscape one print at a time. When you hear the phrase "art buyer," do you immediately think of shiny galleries in Chelsea and elite auctions at Christie's patronized by jet-setters and the beautiful people? Jen Bekman wants you to think again. Bekman believes that everyone can and should be able to collect art and that artists should be able to earn a living making art. Over the last decade she has successfully created an entirely new market in the art world that proves both things are not only possible, but also profitable. From 2003 to 2013, Bekman ran the Jen Bekman Gallery in New York's Nolita neighborhood, where she featured emerging artists (she was meditating on emergencies long before Don Draper). In 2007 she launched 20x200, a website where people can purchase limited-edition, museum-quality prints by emerging, established and even legendary artists for prices that dip as low as $24. Today she is answering our #TechTalk10. Twitter handle: @jenbee Olivia Pope or Selina Meyer? Ms. Pope, for sure. (I'm not one to sit around waiting for some guy to call.) What is your preferred Instagram Filter? No filter! (Same can be said for how my opinions are delivered.) To selfie or not to selfie? Not. Much more interested in sharing what I see, rather than being seen. (...) http://www.elle.com/culture/art-design/news/a24931/20-200-founder-jen-bekman-interview/
PETER BENEDEK Peter Benedek, co-founder of United Talent Agency and one of Hollywood’s most powerful agents, began collecting art some 20 years ago, and has since filled nearly all the walls of his Brentwood home and his Beverly Hills office with works by some of the biggest names in modern and contemporary art—from David Hockney and Gerhard Richter to Alex Katz, Milton Avery, and even Francis Picabia and Giorgio Morandi. He is reported to have purchased a John Currin nude long before the painter was a hot name, and an Alice Neel portrait of dealer Robert Graham—which he purchased at auction—still hangs in his office: “It’s great to have an agent looking at me every day,” he told the Hollywood Reporter. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/top-200-art-collectors-2015-part-one-286048
UTA co-founder Peter Benedek says his collection took off after early advice from David Geffen Peter Benebek is playing imaginary art Tetris in his living room. "We're going to move the Ruscha over there where the Neo Rauch is, and the Neo Rauch is going to go to the UTA offices," he explains. The collector and co-founder of United Talent Agency is making room for his newest acquisition, a large canvas by the late minimalist painter Agnes Martin. The walls of Benedek's Brentwood house — and of his UTA office — are almost entirely covered in art, and the collection is notably diverse: a pair of matching David Hockneys in his bedroom; a few Gerhard Richters; a towering Alex Katz portrait of Tilda Swinton; a piece by French cubist Francis Picabia; a small still life by futurist Giorgio Morandi on the stairway; a work by American modern painter Milton Avery; and a clocklike work by young artist Ricky Swallow. "I've tried to figure it out," he says of his own collecting style. "It seems to me that I'm partial to 20th century art. I really love portraiture, I really love still life, and I really like minimalism. The artists tend to either be dead or have done the major part of their work in the 20th century. Which, by the way, is not so long ago." The UTA board member — his clients include David Chase, Tom Fontana and Lena Dunham (Benedek has done two cameos on Girls) — is an art benefactor as well, having served on the board of overseers of the Hammer Museum for the past decade. "Peter is a deeply passionate, informed and refined collector," says the museum's director, Ann Philbin. "What I love about the way he collects is that he follows no one and no trend — he knows his own mind and is unafraid to take risks and pursue the new as well as the historically uncool or overlooked. One of the highlights of his collection is the small but mighty Morandi painting — he waited years to find the perfect one." Benedek, 65, began his collection by purchasing a Hockney from the now-defunct Corcoran Gallery in Santa Monica on his 40th birthday for $21,000, no small sum to him at the time. With the first piece in place, Benedek suddenly had all of the passion with none of the experience. "I realized that I had no idea what I was doing," Benedek says with a laugh. "I called David Geffen, because he's probably got the best art collection in town, and I said, 'David, I'm starting to buy art, and I have no idea whether I'm paying the right or wrong amount of money. How do you figure it out?' And what he said to me is, 'You're a good agent, you have good taste, and you know how much talent's worth. Your stomach will tell you whether you're overpaying or underpaying.' And that was the best advice I ever got from anybody." http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/powerhouse-agents-impressive-art-collection-753195
LAWRENCE BENENSON The scion of a great New York real estate fortune, Benenson is an executive vice president at Benenson Capital Partners. His father was the storied art collector Charles Benenson; over a lifetime, he amassed an eccentric trove of artworks by figures such as Joan Miró and David Wojnarowicz. The tastes of Benenson fils also run to the eclectic: Lawrence collects historical documents (he owns a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation signed by Abraham Lincoln) as well as paintings and drawings by Henri Matisse, Kehinde Wiley, Gustave Doré, and Mark Lombardi. Additionally, Benenson serves on the board of New York’s Museum of Modern Art and the Ad Reinhardt Foundation. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/artnet-news-index-top-100-collectors-part-one-513776
The Met is making big moves into 20th-century art, propelled by Leonard Lauder’s recent $1 billion gift of 81 Cubist masterpieces—though MoMA’s president emerita, Agnes Gund, tells Colacello: “I think it’s great that Leonard’s collection is going to the Met, not that we wouldn’t have wanted it at the Modern.” Colacello also details the massive expansions both museums are planning, which for MoMA includes a highly controversial Diller Scofidio + Renfro design that proposed opening the entire first floor free of charge, including the garden. MoMA director Glenn Lowry responds to criticisms of the plan, telling Colacello, “We heard a lot of feedback at the time we announced the potential opening of the garden to the public, from people who were genuinely concerned that that would alter its unique quality,” he said. “So we’re thinking it through.” But Ronald Lauder, MoMA’s influential honorary chairman (and Leonard’s brother), gives Colacello a more absolute answer: “The garden should not be open to the public. The board feels that way.” For his part, Lowry’s rival, Met director Thomas Campbell, tells Colacello of the Met’s planned expansion, for which no architect or budget has been announced, “It’s going to be the most high-profile cultural building project in New York in the next 10 years.” Colacello addresses the rumors that Lowry may depart for Sotheby’s, now that chairman William Ruprecht has resigned. One of MoMA’s highest-ranking board members dismisses the notion, telling Colacello, “We just made up a new contract. We want Glenn here until he’s 65 [the semi-mandatory retirement age].” Colacello reports that the 60-year-old Lowry earned $1.8 million in salary and benefits in 2011, and he and his wife, Susan, a landscape architect, live rent-free in a Museum Tower apartment bought in 2004 by the museum reportedly for $6 million. Another factor altering the balance of power between the museums is the battle for young trustee blood. Colacello reports that MoMA has been on a “youth kick” that has included bringing in Highbridge Capital co-founder Glenn Dubin, real-estate heir Lawrence Benenson, and Agnelli scion John Elkann, who is chairman of Fiat. http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2015/01/met-moma-art-museum-war
Like many residents of New York City, Lawrence Benenson discovered several years ago that his collection of personal effects had outgrown his living space, and it was time to find storage. Unlike most people, however, Mr Benenson’s personal effects happened to be more than 200 works of art. Through his art adviser he found a warehouse, Crozier Fine Arts. The nondescript storehouse in the Chelsea neighbourhood of New York boasts security rivalling that of a bank’s, with a 24-hour, manned fire and security command centre. “My art adviser recommended them, and for some reason, they had an opening,” said Mr Benenson, a real estate company executive, who leases almost 1,000 sq ft for his paintings, sculptures and photographs. “I was extraordinarily fortunate to get in there.” A burgeoning fine art market saw sales surpass $40bn in 2007, which was a catalyst for the growth of a fine-art storage and logistics industry. Even though sales might slow with the financial crisis, and indeed, art collectors will be watching forthcoming auctions with trepidation, the fine art being bought and sold – and which does not make it into museums, galleries, corporate offices or homes – must be stored somewhere. This is a task that involves a high degree of specialisation. Besides cataloguing, packaging, shipping and installing the art works, fine art storage facilities house them for long periods in crates inside vaults controlled for such factors as temperature, humidity and light. The warehouses also have viewing rooms where pieces can be bought and sold, photographed, assessed or repaired. Consequently, behind the armoured walls of drab warehouses often found in rather gritty neighbourhoods may reside hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Picassos, Monets and Renoirs – in other words, a collection that might surpass a museum’s. https://www.ft.com/content/96e1ea0a-a9fa-11dd-958b-000077b07658
LUCIANO BENETTON After retiring as the president of the Benetton Group S.p.A., Luciano Benetton focused on bringing some of that United Colors feel to the area of collecting. First opened as a satellite exhibition at the 55th Venice Biennale, his Imago Mundi contemporary art project is being developed as a world map of sorts that intends to capture all cultures—from Aboriginal Australians to Inuit artists—and will include, by the end of 2015, over 10,000 artworks from over 80 countries. Benetton desires to have his collection represent an artistic geography of the world, to be shared and consumed by the public. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/meet-20-of-the-worlds-most-innovative-art-collectors-117315
The founder of the fashion empire has so far commissioned about 10,000 miniature works of art for his ever-growing collection. Photography by James Mollison Where did the idea for Imago Mundi come from? What inspired you to begin commissioning a series of 10cm by 12cm artworks? It emerged from a lifetime of travels and meetings. And the fact that I have a huge network of friends and collaborators all over the world helped me to translate such an ambitious project into reality. The inspiration came to me in Chile, almost by chance, when I asked an artist for his business card and he gave me a small oil painting instead. What’s your aim in collecting all these artistic ‘business cards’? The idea is to create a sort of world map of contemporary art at this precise moment in history. http://www.christies.com/features/Venice-Collectors-Luciano-Benetton-Treviso-6155-1.aspx
Imago Mundi is the collection of works commissioned and collected by Luciano Benetton on his travels around the world, involving, on a voluntary and non-profit basis, established and emerging artists from many different countries. Each of them has created a work whose only restriction is its 10x12 cm format, contributing to the creation of a remarkable artistic geography. The collection, under the auspices of the Fondazione Benetton Studi Ricerche (established upon the wishes of the Benetton family to support and raise awareness of the wealth of landscape, cultural and artistic heritage), has no commercial ambitions, but aims to unite the diversities of our world in the name of common artistic experience. The goal is to catalogue works, inspirations and ideas, in order to pass down to future generations the widest possible mapping of the situation of human cultures at the start of the third millennium. http://www.imagomundiart.com/about
More than 30 years ago, the United Colors of Benetton released a series of provocative advertisements about race and multiculturalism. But in recent years, Luciano Benetton, 81, the co-founder of that Italian apparel company, has sought a different medium through which to promote his feel-good, internationalist ideals: art. Mr. Benetton has amassed in the past eight years more than 20,000 paintings by artists from 120 countries. The project, “Imago Mundi” (“Images of the World”), features works by well-known figures like Laurie Anderson, David Byrne and Zaha Hadid, as well as by lesser-known artists from countries like North Korea, Albania and Burundi. They have one thing in common: All the paintings are the same dimensions — about the size of a postcard. “Every artist is given the same space in which to express their thoughts,” said Mr. Benetton, speaking through a translator in a recent interview in Beijing. “I see it as a way of establishing democracy in art.” Mr. Benetton had just arrived in Beijing from Lincang, which hosted the opening this month of an exhibition of small paintings, “Under One Sky.” The display, which will travel to 13 cities in China over two years, contains 3,900 paintings from 21 countries, all drawn from the “Imago Mundi” collection. (Above is Snehal Ghangrekar’s “Untitled.”) “Under One Sky” will run concurrently with another “Imago Mundi” project, “Contemporary China 1949-2019,” in which artists representing 55 officially recognized ethnic minority groups in China will be commissioned to create mini-paintings. By 2019, the project will have collected 5,300 of these works. Together, they will be showcased to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/arts/luciano-benetton-presents-art-collection-in-china.html?_r=0
FABIOLA BERACASA BECKMAN Fabiola Beracasa Beckman is a film and television producer and philanthropist. She was born in Caracas, Venezuela. Beracasa Beckman is co-owner of The Hole Gallery, an art gallery in New York City. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabiola_Beracasa_Beckman
The Hole is a contemporary art gallery run by Kathy Grayson. Opened July of 2010 in our 4000 sq. ft. storefront on the Bowery, The Hole presents monthly solo and group exhibitions including artists from emerging to established in our thematic shows. In between exhibitions, we host performances, events and special projects across various creative industries to support collaboration across the arts and the downtown artist community. http://theholenyc.com/about/
Fabiola Beracasa Beckman, whose mother is Hearst publishing heiress Victoria Hearst, is a film producer, philanthropist, and creative director/co-owner of the Hole gallery, Kathy Grayson’s hip Bowery outfit. She also sits on the board of the Art Production Fund. Needless to say, Beracasa also has an impressive art collection, which boasts names like Matthew Stone, Genesis P-Orridge, Rob Pruitt, and Aurel Schmidt. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/young-collectors-to-watch-2016-415178
JOE BERARDO History The museum was initiated as the Foundation of Modern and Contemporary Art on August 9, 2006 (Decree-Law 164/2006). It was inaugurated on June 25, 2007 and is named after José Berardo and his Berardo Collection. The museum is located at the Exhibition Center of the Centro Cultural de Belém, with a collection comprising over 1000 works of art on permanent display and temporary exhibitions. From its opening until April 2011, the museum's art director was Jean-François Chougnet, who was then replaced by Pedro Lapa. Collection The programming of the museum is guided by the rotation of various artistic movements that integrate the collection of works from the collection valued by the auction house Christie's at €316 million. The museum's collection is representative of the fine arts of the 20th century and early 21st century, especially European and American art. The collection covers major movements from surrealism to pop art, hyper-realism, minimalist art to conceptual art, presented in various media. It covers Portuguese modern and contemporary art in particular. The museum has an extensive permanent collection and also hosts various temporary exhibitions that change on a regular basis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berardo_Collection_Museum
He had been an inveterate collector since his childhood and it was in the early 1980s that he began his first art collection, although his first purchase was in 1969, when he bought a print of the Mona Lisa in a furniture shop in Johannesburg, thinking that it was an original. He was self-taught and his interest in the arts was born in South Africa, when he began to visit museums, galleries and homes of friends with interests in culture. Dazzled by works of art that were a novelty to him, he organized his first collection himself. He concentrated on preand post-apartheid South-African works and the idea was to gather testimony to the art produced during the dictatorship and the new freedom and put together a collection reflecting the political and social views of the time. This cultural involvement awakened another passion, which was nature. The 1990s were marked essentially by the growth of his collection of modern and contemporary art. With the help of Francisco Capelo, who was in charge of acquisitions and initial organization, the collection began to take shape. The original idea was to set up an international contemporary art collection along traditional historiographic and chronological lines as a methodical illustration of the successive currents, trends and lines of research and work in Europe and the United States from the end of the Second World War to the present day. Organizing the collection in chronological blocks by tendency would be the normal structure of an art history book in the second half of the 20th century. The collection would therefore first focus on works from the post-war period beginning in 1945, given the substantial changes in main centers of artistic production and the appearance of new movements coming mostly from the United States and influencing European art. The choice was an extensive, comprehensive chronological collection rather than one based on personal taste, a more specific, theoretic point of view or greater specialization in a particular area, trend or current. Berardo’s idea was not to close doors in the collection, but to leave it open to different choices, interpretations and outlooks. This choice was mainly due to the collection’s necessarily museological nature and the didactic importance that it would take on in Portugal. The works were purchased at auctions or from galleries. In some cases, when certain galleries were experiencing financial difficulties, it was even possible to buy works from the gallery owners’ personal collections, which explains the quality of the Arte Povera section. In other cases, gallery owners managed to get access to works from artists’ own private collections. The collection today has special relationships with galleries all over the world. The collection was seen for the first time in Portugal at Galeria Valentim de Carvalho in Lisbon in 1993. Boasting emblematic works by names such as Arman, Balthus, Lúcio Fontana, Nicolas de Staël and Vieira da Silva, it was still a pale reflection of what the collection would become. This first showing was basically an attempt to sound out the public’s reaction. http://www.artfortune.com/collectors-3/
NICOLAS BERGGRUEN Nicolas Berggruen est un investisseur, philanthrope et collectionneur d'art américano-allemand né le 10 août 1961 à Paris. Il est président et fondateur de Berggruen Holdings, un holding privé ainsi que du Berggruen Institute on Governance, un think et action tank engagé dans la conception et la mise en œuvre de nouveaux modèles de gouvernement équipés pour gérer les défis du xxie siècle. Dans le cadre de l’Institut Berggruen sur la Gouvernance, il est également co-fondateur, avec le Huffington Post, de The WorldPost, une publication de médias dédiée aux problèmes mondiaux. (...) Berggruen est à la tête du conseil d'administration du Musée Berggruen de Berlin, du Musée d'art du comté de Los Angeles (LACMA), du Conseil International de Tate Gallery à Londres et du Museum of Modern Art à New York. Il est également membre de la Fondation Beyeler, le Conseil international de Serpentine Gallery, et du International Advisory Board de Sotheby's. En étroite collaboration avec LACMA, il a fait des acquisitions destinées au musée, y compris des œuvres de Ed Ruscha, John Baldessari, Paul McCarthy, Mike Kelley, Charles Ray, Chris Burden, Bruce Nauman, Joseph Beuys, Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke, Martin Kippenberger, et Thomas Schütte5. Berggruen s'intéresse à l'architecture et collabore avec Richard Meier, Shigeru Ban et David Adjaye sur des projets de développement. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Berggruen
Nicolas Berggruen Arts patronizes the visual arts through support of the Museum Berggruen in Berlin and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art while also managing the Nicolas Berggruen Charitable Trust Collection. The collection consists of works by some of the most influential artists of the twentieth century including Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee, Andy Warhol, Joseph Beuys, as well as contemporary works by artists John Baldessari, Chris Burden, Jeff Koons, Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter, Ed Ruscha, Thomas Schütte and others. Arts also sponsors 'The International Council Museum Berggruen Berlin' whose participants include arts patrons as well as members and friends of the Berggruen family. The Council is dedicated to supporting the continued development and success of Museum Berggruen as an internationally celebrated arts institution. http://nicolasberggruenarts.com/nicolas-berggruen-collection
Twelve years ago, Nicolas Berggruen sold his apartment, which was filled with French antiques, on the 31st floor of the Pierre Hotel in Manhattan. He said he no longer wanted to be weighed down by physical possessions. He did the same with his Art Deco house on a private island near Miami. From that point on he would be homeless. Now he keeps what little he owns in storage and travels light, carrying just his iPhone, a few pairs of jeans, a fancy suit or two, and some white monogrammed shirts he wears until they are threadbare. At 51, the diminutive Berggruen is weathered, but still youthful, with unkempt brown hair and stubble. There’s something else he hung on to: his Gulfstream IV. It takes him to cities where he stays in five-star hotels. In London, he checks into Claridge’s. In New York, he’s at the Carlyle Hotel. In Los Angeles, he takes a suite at the Peninsula Beverly Hills. His social calendar tends to be full no matter where he is. A dual citizen of Germany and the U.S. who speaks three languages, Berggruen makes a point of having lunch and dinner each day with someone intriguing. It could be an author, a famous artist, or a world leader. He prefers to meet them at restaurants near his hotel. He makes reservations for three even when he only plans to dine with one. That way he doesn’t get stuck at a small table. He leaves room for dessert. He adores chocolate. In the evening, Berggruen is frequently photographed at parties with attractive women such as British actress Gabriella Wright. “You could easily look at his life and say, ‘Oh, my gosh, he’s always got a pretty girl on his arm. He’s at every party around the world. Is he just a giant playboy?’ ” says his friend Vicky Ward, a contributing editor to Vanity Fair. Maybe. Every year, Berggruen throws a party at the Chateau Marmont in Hollywood during Oscar week and invites all his friends. They rub shoulders with Hollywood types such as Paris Hilton, Woody Harrelson, and Leonardo DiCaprio. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-09-27/deep-thoughts-with-the-homeless-billionaire
JILL & JAY BERNSTEIN Jill Bernstein, a philanthropist and collector of contemporary art, also serves on the boards of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, the Aspen Art Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, and Artis. She is a cotrustee of the Jill and Jay Bernstein Family Foundation. https://www.artforum.com/news/id=50841
ERNESTO BERTARELLI Ernesto Bertarelli est un homme d'affaires suisse d'origine italienne né le 22 septembre 1965 à Rome. Il était le directeur général et le président du Comité exécutif de Serono, troisième entreprise de biotechnologie au monde avant de la vendre début 2007. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernesto_Bertarelli
#129 Billionaires (2016), #1 in Switzerland, #149 in 2015 Ernesto Bertarelli inherited biotech giant Serono, maker of the billion-dollar multiple sclerosis drug Rebig, following his father's death in 1998. Along with his sister Dona, he expanded the company to $2.4 billion in revenues before selling it to Merck for $9 billion in 2007. Ernesto and Dona co-chair the Bertarelli Foundation, which focuses on marine conservation and life sciences research. A yacht enthusiast, his Team Alinghi races in the Extreme Sailing Series and is a rival of fellow billionaire Larry Ellison. He also owns the $100 million superyacht Vava II. The family's Waypoint Group has investments ranging from commercial real estate in London to drug companies. http://www.forbes.com/profile/ernesto-bertarelli/
Ernesto Bertarelli's employment with his father’s pharmaceutical company started at the age of six, when he was recruited to hand out the employee-of-the-year awards. By the age of 31, Bertarelli had taken over his father’s position as head of the company. Bertarelli believes that “it’s important to have other things, not just work…You can’t always be behind your desk.” Bertarelli’s “other things” include family, sailing, and, of course, a vast collection of modern and contemporary art. http://www.artforbes.com/artcollector.html
Ernesto Bertarelli works hard. His employment with his father’s pharmaceutical company started at the age of six, when he was recruited to hand out the employee-of-the-year awards. By the age of 31, Bertarelli had taken over his father’s position as head of the company. Still, as he told the Financial Times in 2010, Bertarelli believes that “it’s important to have other things, not just work.…You can’t always be behind your desk.” Bertarelli’s “other things” include family, sailing, and, of course, a vast collection of modern and contemporary art. http://www.artnews.com/top200/ernesto-bertarelli/
JEAN-PHILIPPE & FRANÇOISE BILLARANT
Galerie d'art contemporain, le Silo, du grain à moudre pour les amateurs Un silo à grains transformé en temple d'art contemporain pour partager une passion, c'est l'idée de Jean-Philippe Billarant, PDG du groupe Applix (géant mondial des bandes scratch) et son épouse Françoise, véritables amateurs d'art. Ouvert à tous les publics, on y découvre leur collection "privée", principalement centrée sur l'art conceptuel et minimal. Situé à Marines, au coeur du Vexin, cet ancien silo à grains de 50m de haut a entièrement été réaménagé en 2011 par le jeune architecte Xavier Prédine-Hug pour qui "le bâtiment devient un support d’expression portant les géométries ou les expressions conceptuelles". Dorénavant 2.400m² abritent une centaine d'oeuvres contemporaines assemblées au gré de leurs rencontres et voyages ; d'autres ont même été conçues spécialement pour ce nouvel espace. Depuis près de 40 ans, Jean-Philippe et Françoise Billarant ont tissé des liens étroits avec des artistes comme Daniel Buren, François Morellet, Felice Varini, Véronique Joumard, Niele Toroni, Michel Verjux, Cécile Bart, Robert Barry... qu'ils exposent dans leur temple et qu'ils ont plaisir à faire découvrir au public. Ce couple de collectionneurs tient à faire lui-même la visite de son musée privée (sur rendez-vous), pour mieux expliquer et rendre compte minutieusement de l'univers et de la pensée de chaque artiste. Le but premier du couple Billarant a toujours été le partage, le dialogue et l'échange sur l'art. Jamais il n'a eu l'envie ni même l'idée de faire une acquisition pour la garder sous son propre toit. Connu des spécialistes du monde entier, amateurs d’art contemporain, commissaires d’exposition des grands musées et public profane se pressent au Silo. Aujourd'hui c'est un groupe d'aficionados américains originaire de San Diego en Californie qui a le privilège de découvrir une partie de la collection du couple. Une collection que Jean-Philippe et Françoise Billarant continueront d'enrichir, en arpentant la planête, au grès de leurs envies, au grès de leurs découvertes. http://culturebox.francetvinfo.fr/arts/expos/galerie-d-art-contemporain-le-silo-du-grain-a-moudre-pour-les-amateurs-229715
For more than 35 years Parisian based collectors Françoise & Jean-Philippe Billarant have been intensely engaged with Minimalism and Conceptual art. This engagement ultimately resulted in the formation of friendships with pioneering artists of those genres such as Carl Andre, Robert Barry, François Morellet or Michel Verjux. And because it feels good to have your friends around you, the couple has transformed a 1962 grain silo northwest of Paris into an exhibition space for their continually growing collection. As a special appreciation for their longtime support and patronage, a number of artists have created eight site-specific pieces that, amongst other works, to fill their 26,000-square-foot private gallery, merging the lines between art and architecture. « We're interested in art that resists an immediate understanding in order to reveal itself over time » https://independent-collectors.com/exhibitions/francoise-and-jean-philippe-billarant-le-silo
(...) Diplômé de SciencesPo et de l’ENA, Jean-Philippe Billarant reprend les rênes de l’entreprise familiale dans les années 1970, Aplix, aujourd’hui numéro 2 mondial de l’autoagrippant (ce qui permet de fixer les garnissages des sièges dans l’aviation, le médical…). L’entreprise marche : elle représente environ 200 millions d’euros de chiffre d’affaire. Le premier indice du tropisme des Billarant pour l’art est que l’usine d’Aplix, près de Nantes, a été dessinée par Dominique Perrault, l’architecte de la Bibliothèque Nationale de France, qui signe, une fois encore, un bâtiment remarquable. Mais surtout, la première passion des Billarant est l’art contemporain, avec une prédilection pour l’art minimal. Ils collectionnent les œuvres de Buren, François Morellet, Bertrand Lavier… Une collection qu’ils exposent depuis 2012 dans un ancien silo réhabilité, dans le Val d’Oise, à Marines exactement. Mais en voyant, ces dernières années, une dérive de plus en plus spéculative de l’art contemporain, les Billarant ont décidé de se tourner vers la musique contemporaine : ils sont parmi les premiers mécènes privés à s’y intéresser, car, contrairement à l’art contemporain, il n’y a ici rien de matériel. En effet, il est impossible d’exposer sa collection d’œuvres de musique ! Ce qui est important à souligner est que les Billarant ne vont pas aider un festival ou un ensemble, mais vont toujours directement soutenir les compositeurs en finançant la commande d’une œuvre. Ils ont ainsi financé un grand nombre de créations, de Philippe Manoury (la première pièce qu’ils ont soutenue est « To Echo » ) à Raphael Cendo. https://www.francemusique.fr/emissions/culture-eco/jean-philippe-et-francoise-billarant-les-mecenes-de-la-musique-contemporaine5534
HAMAD BIN JASSIM BIN JABER AL THANI heikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani is the former prime minister of Qatar and a member of the powerful—and wealthy—Al Thani family. The Al Thanis have been amassing a huge collection of artwork— ranging from traditional Islamic artifacts to masterpieces of modern and contemporary art—for the last 20 years. Little is known about Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber’s personal collection, but the family as a whole owns a wide collection of Islamic, Roman, and Egyptian art and antiques and has reportedly spent over $1 billion acquiring works of Western painting and sculpture over the last two decades. In May of 2015, it was widely reported that Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani was the anonymous buyer who paid a staggering $179.4 million for Picasso’s Les Femmes d’Alger at Christie’s New York, the most ever paid for an artwork at auction, even when adjusting for inflation. Christie’s has flatly denied this. http://www.artnews.com/top200/sheikh-hamad-bin-jassim-bin-jaber-al-thani/
YANG BIN China $40m art collection & $110m net worth http://www.artmarketmonitor.com/2015/03/11/these-are-the-top-10-art-collectors-in-china/
"Sit down and get ready," Mr. Yang recently told a few friends visiting from Taiwan. Grabbing a remote control, he turned to a set of wall panels that, with a click, began to slide apart. Each panel revealed a few of his recent acquisitions, from Chairman Mao-era portraits of revolutionaries to brightly colored abstracts by China's rising stars. As his friends applauded the slide-show, Mr. Yang grinned and lit a cigar. The art market is being transformed by Chinese collectors willing to pay top dollar for everything from Ming vases to contemporary Chinese abstracts. In some cases, these works are outstripping prices paid for blue-chip Western artists like René Magritte and Clyfford Still. Three of the 10 most expensive art works sold at auction last year were by Chinese artists, according to art-market analyst Artprice. Last year's priciest painting: "Eagle Standing on Pine Tree" (1946) by self-taught painter Qi Baishi. This delicate scroll rocketed ahead of colorful canvases by Pablo Picasso, Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol when it sold for $65 million at auction house China Guardian in May. Overall, purchases by Chinese collectors accounted for roughly a fifth of Christie's global sales during the first half of last year; Sotheby's says mainland buyers also lifted its sales in Asia to nearly $960 million last year, up 47% from 2010. http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204124204577153370615259922
Yang Bin is one important collector who also uses art as a tool to understand the world. The first thing that greets visitors in Yang’s airy Beijing penthouse apartment is a life-sized sculpture of a grotesquely fat naked man lying on his belly, his legs stretched out and his hands clasped together as if in prayer. He is receiving cupping, a form of Chinese therapy that creates suction on the skin. But instead of the usual cups used in spas around the country, attached to the man’s back are champagne glasses. The piece, I know, but…. by Mu Boyan, is a startling meeting of tradition and new wealth. Yang, now in his fifties, was first inspired to collect art in the late 1990s when he bought a villa in Shanghai and asked a friend to fill it with oil paintings. Curious about the works on his wall, he started to look further into the art market and discovered a passion for contemporary pieces. “Contemporary is more close to modern life,” explains Yang. “I can understand the meaning and why they created this art.” Over the past decade he has collected nearly 1,000 contemporary Chinese artworks. But Yang is not just a collector. He also owns his own gallery, AYE, in Beijing and champions local and upcoming artists such as Liu Wei. Art for Yang is not just to look at – it is a way of life. “Whatever you have, you are thinking about how to combine it with art. You see my decoration here in the house?” he asks, gesturing to the art on the walls. “It is not just a decoration. It is a style and a way of living.” http://www.sothebys.com/en/news-video/blogs/all-blogs/sothebys-at-auction/2013/11/beijing-chinas-art-capital.html
Yang Bin is one of China’s most successful car salesmen. Along with his gallerist wife, he is also one of China’s most well-known aesthetic tastemakers, setting a breakneck pace for buying and selling art on the local auction market. The Beijing-based collector’s life lends itself nicely to the Wall Street Journal’s lengthy article on what is almost certainly a huge speculative bubble in the Chinese art market. Yang claims to own more than 1,000 works of art, and has no qualms about bragging to the WSJ about it. On one occasion, he sold one of his Toyota franchises to fuel his art-buying compulsion, and spent all of the $3.6 million in profits on new artworks within weeks of the deal closing. And, according to the Journal, new collectors in China are looking to Yang to set the example, which perhaps explains the crazy-high 2011 sales numbers coming out of China. However, nothing the article says about Yang is quite as offensive as the one paragraph about fitness equipment manufacturer and collector Chang Chiu Dun, who “calls himself the ‘Cover Killer’ because he ‘likes to buy artworks that have been on the covers of auction catalogs.'” http://blogs.artinfo.com/artintheair/2012/01/13/is-yang-bin-the-newest-trendsetting-supercollector-in-beijing-or-just-living-the-bubble/
DEBRA & LEON BLACK Owner of Apollo Global Management, Phaidon Books, and Artspace Marketplace, so-called “buyouts man” Black is reported to have a fortune of $5.4 billion. In 2012, he made waves when he purchased one of four existing versions of Edvard Munch‘s The Scream for $119.9 million—at the time, the highest price ever paid for a work of art at an auction. artnet.com https://news.artnet.com/art-world/top-200-art-collectors-2015-part-one-286048
Billionaire New York financier, the Chairman and Chief Executive of Apollo Global Management, Leon Black has emerged as the mysterious $120 million buyer of the renowned Norwegian Expressionist artist Edward Munch’s ‘The Scream’, a highly coveted masterpiece. Black also reportedly paid $47.6 million in 2009 for Raphael’s chalk masterpiece. Leon Black’s $750 million art collection already boats drawings by Raphael and Vincent Van Gogh, and Cubists paintings by Pablo. http://www.artfortune.com/collectors-3/
LEN BLAVATNIK Leonard "Len" Blavatnik (Russian: Леонид Валентинович Блаватник, Leonid Valentinovich Blavatnik; born June 14, 1957) is a Ukraine-born American businessman, investor, and philanthropist. He made his fortune through business via diversified investments in myriad companies through his conglomerate company, Access Industries. In 2015, he was named Britain's richest man with an estimated net worth of £17.1 billion as of April 2015. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Blavatnik
#22 Forbes 400 (2016) #27 in 2015 #53 Billionaires (2016) #27 in United States #56 Powerful People (2014) Born in the Ukraine, raised in Moscow and schooled in America, Len Blavatnik emigrated to the U.S. in 1978, earning degrees from Columbia U. and Harvard Business School. He became a citizen in 1984 and now stands atop a global empire, which includes assets in commodities production (LyondellBasell), technology (Rocket Internet) and media (Warner Music). Blavatnik made a fortune selling his stake in Russian oil company TNK-BP for $7 billion in 2013. He has invested in a number of Broadway shows including most recently Arthur Miller's The Crucible, Shuffle Along and Blackbird. With Harvey Weinstein he hosts an annual lunch on his yacht during the Cannes Film Festival. Blavatnik donated $25 million to Carnegie Hall in June 2016. http://www.forbes.com/profile/len-blavatnik/
Len Blavatnik, the owner of Warner Music, is, as of Spring 2016, the third richest person in the U.K., according to the Sunday Times ‘Rich List’. The Ukraine-born billionaire made his money during the dissolution of the USSR, when aluminum and energy groups were being split. Blavatnik’s lavish purchases include a £41 million house in Kensington Gardens, a slew of investments, and a Damien Hirst woolly mammoth sculpture that he bought at a charity auction at the Cannes Film Festival in 2014. In 2016, he donated a tidy (confidential) sum to London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, which will name the entrance hall of its new extension for him. In Miami, Blavatnik is the financier—to the tune of $1.2 billion—behind Argentinian entrepreneur Alan Faena’s Faena district which will have a cultural center alongside a hotel, condos, and a retail complex; it’s set to open in Fall 2016. In a recent profile of Blavatnik that Connie Bruck penned for the New Yorker, British publisher Lord George Weidenfeld told Bruck that Blavatnik has been “systematically collecting very good art recently— contemporary art, and also a Modigliani, one of the best I’ve seen.” http://www.artnews.com/top200/len-blavatnik/
Who Bought the Brody Picasso for $106m? Ever since the Brody sale in 2010, when the famed collectors’ Picasso, Nude, Green Leaves and Bust set a then-record for the most expensive work at auction, there’s been speculation about the buyer. The painting was exhibited in London at the Tate Modern after the sale in 2011. Yesterday, an Instagram post suggested the owner is Len Blavatnik whose holdings include Warner Music. (The post seems to be a photograph of an issue of Architectural Digest which has a spread on the London home of “the owner of #warnerrecords.) Blavatnick is also an investor in the Faena development in Miami Beach where his Damien Hirst’s “Gone But Not Forgotten” is on display. http://www.artmarketmonitor.com/2016/01/28/who-bought-the-brody-picasso-for-106m/
NEIL BLUHM Location : Chicago Employment : Real estate, investments, owns the Chicago's Four Seasons Hotel and MGM Tower in Los Angeles, apart from a number of casinos. He also owns the real estate investment firm JMB Realty Art Collection : Contemporary art http://www.artfortune.com/collectors-8/
Neil G. Bluhm is an American real estate and casino magnate. (...) He hosted President Barack Obama's 49th birthday party, where admission was a $30,000 donation to the Democratic National Committee. He has made further donations to Democratic candidates, such as Hillary Clinton, Dick Durbin, Melissa Bean, Rahm Emanuel, Lisa Madigan, Rod Blagojevich, Lou Lang, and Michael Madigan. An art patron, he sits on the Board of Trustees of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Whitney Museum of American Art. He also has an art collection worth $100 million. He sits on the Board of Trustees of Northwestern University. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Bluhm
#204 Forbes 400 (2016) #171 in 2015 #477 Billionaires (2016) #173 in United States Real estate tycoon Neil Bluhm grew up in a cramped Chicago apartment, not far from where his grandparents arrived from Lithuania with nothing. They got a horse-drawn wagon and took other immigrants to warehouses full of clothes, where they could buy, say, a $3 coat on credit. Bluhm's grandparents collected the money for the warehouses, earning a small commission. Bluhm, who was raised by his mother on her bookkeeper's salary, made partner at a Chicago law firm by age 31. With three kids and a big mortgage on his house, he quit the legal world and partnered with his college roommate in hopes of striking it rich in real estate. "My credit card was my net worth," he tells Forbes. "But that's America. It's a great country." Now he owns several of Chicago's most prominent buildings -- along with real estate and casinos around the country. Bluhm is a minority owner of both the Chicago Bulls and the Chicago White Sox. http://www.forbes.com/profile/neil-bluhm/
Real-estate tycoon Neil G. Bluhm, who is managing principal in Chicago’s Walton Street Capital, has been collecting art for 25 years. His properties include some of Chicago’s most exclusive venues, including the Ritz-Carlton and the Four Seasons, as well as holdings in Houston, Los Angeles, and even a casino in a Chicago suburb. With a net-worth of $3 billion, according to Forbes, Bluhm has amassed a major art collection, including works by Andy Warhol and Jeff Koons. Bluhm is a life trustee of Northwestern University, a life trustee of the Art Institute of Chicago, and co-chairman of the board of the Whitney Museum (the fifth-floor galleries of the museum’s new building in New York’s Meatpacking district are named for him). http://www.artnews.com/top200/neil-g-bluhm/
CHRISTIAN & KAREN BOROS In 2003, ad agency founder and publisher Christian Boros purchased a former Nazi air raid shelter in central Berlin, and transformed it into the Bunker, an 80-room exhibition space for contemporary art. Featured artists from Boros’s personal collection of some 700 works include contemporary stars like Elmgreen & Dragset, Sarah Lucas, and Rirkrit Tiravanija, classics like Olafur Eliasson (a Boros favorite, with 30 works in his collection), Franz Ackermann, Wolfgang Tillmans, Ed Ruscha, Damien Hirst, and Terence Koh, and even members of a new generation of Berlin-based artists, including Thea Djordjadze, Alicja Kwade, Klara Lidén, Michael Sailstorfer, and Danh Vo. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/top-200-art-collectors-2015-part-one-286048
Christian Boros art collection has grown since he first started collecting, that now he displays his artwork in a WWII bunker. When asked about this decision in an interview with artvoices magazine he stated that “I didn’t choose the bunker. It’s rather that the bunker chose me when in 2002, my wife Karen and I were looking for a historical building in Berlin. We never thought about showing our contemporary art collection in a bunker before we saw it. In a bunker you won’t come across any natural daylight”, but the historical beauty of it drew them into renovating it to display his art collection. While he uses a bunker to display his artwork to the community, he keeps pieces in his home as well as in a storage facility. Christian and, his wife, Karen switch out pieces of art within their home. “Pieces come and go, they are like memories for us. Every work is connected to something, a feeling, a place, a certain time. And with our memories and experiences the collection grows. It’s a variety of our subjective personalities”. http://www.artfortune.com/collectors-4/
Entering the Boros residence surpasses any archetypal ‘home visit’ one might expect. As a former Nazi air raid shelter erected in 1942 in central Berlin, it is a home like no other. Its heavy open doors welcome visitors down a series of interconnected bare concrete corridors. Bullet holes from the Second World War bear witness to the historical significance of the building, contributing to its singularity. This structure exposes a not so distant history while simultaneously embracing the future. In the heart of this hermetic cube is an exhibition of contemporary artworks from the private collection of ad agency founder and publisher, Christian Boros, and his wife, Karen. In order to create a suitable space for the collection, architect Jens Casper drastically deconstructed the 3,000 square meter bunker, transforming it into a complex room arrangement. Once devoid of natural light, the penthouse is now a glass superstructure. Here, Christian and Karen live with their son amidst concrete walls with paintings by artists such as Elizabeth Peyton, and a series of installations by Olafur Eliasson. It is a finished project that once seemed to be impossible to realize. Their home is now an art manifesto for Berlin’s historical Mitte district: where modification and diversity are the norm. As patrons of the arts, Christian and Karen actively engage in the city’s artistic evolution. http://www.freundevonfreunden.com/interviews/karen-and-christian-boros/
Even though it’s only been open for five years, ‘the bunker’ is a fixed destination on Berlin’s art itinerary. Christian and Karen Boros recast the Third Reich colossus as a showcase for curated selections of their 700-odd works beginning in 2007. Appointment-only tours run through the space’s second exhibition (a new group of works was hung last September, with this exhibition being a bit more low-key than the first), which features plenty of hometown talent: Klara Lidén, Wolfgang Tillmans, Michael Sailstorfer and newcomers Awst & Walther all figure large this time around. Then again, so does Ai Weiwei. In a converted pumping station across town, Christian (who runs part of his ad agency from there) also spearheads Distanz Verlag, a publisher churning out high-quality art books at “two a week”. Meanwhile, Karen has been heading the VIP programmes for Art Basel’s various iterations since 2005. https://artreview.com/power_100/christian_karen_boros/
IRMA & NORMAN BRAMAN Since they began collecting in 1979—they fell in love with sculptures by Alexander Calder and Joan Miró at the Maeght Foundation in southern France, as the story goes—auto-industry magnate Braman and his wife Irma have built a veritable empire of modern and contemporary art. Dividing their residences among France, Colorado, and Florida, the couple helped establish Art Basel in Miami Beach in 2002, and they are now single-handedly funding the design and construction of South Florida’s newest major museum, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/top-200-art-collectors-2015-part-one-286048
Certainly the most discreet collectors in the often blingy Miami scene are Norman and Irma Braman. Norman, who is chairman of the Art Basel Miami Beach Host Committee, was number 326 on Forbes’s Richest Americans list last year, with $1.2bn. He derives his fortune from car dealerships and also cashed in on his 1985-94 ownership of the Philadelphia Eagles football team. He is a generous donor to health and Jewish causes but what sets him apart is his stellar collection of classic American art. His 1960s home overlooking Biscayne Bay is studded with extraordinary acquisitions: for a start, he has the best collection of Calders in private hands, including two very early mobiles as well as another 15 pieces. He has a Jasper Johns 1962 “Diver” and a 1951-52 Rothko as well as works by Warhol, David Smith, Miró and Ellsworth Kelly. http://www.artfortune.com/collectors-4/
(…) My hosts are Norman and Irma Braman, husband and wife, who have been attending Art Basel for half of its 42 years. Former Philadelphia Eagles owner Norman made his first fortune retailing vitamins and drugs; today he owns 17 auto dealerships (he sells BMWs, Porsches and Rolls-Royces, as well as Hondas and Mitsubishis) in Florida and Colorado. But an estimated $900 million of his $1.6 billion net worth is tied up in artwork. The fair has been very productive for them, says Norman, 79. Over the years they’ve acquired important works by Andy Warhol, Alexander Calder, Picasso and others. But the key is that they never come with expectations and so never leave disappointed. Art Basel lets them connect with fellow collectors, meet new artists and gallery owners and tune in to the zeitgeist. (...) Last year at Art Basel the Bramans bought a Picasso from Galerie Krugier, known for its 19th- and 20th-century works. They’d been scouring the fair with Franck Giraud, their art consigliere, when a couple of sculptures caught their eye. One, a larger-than-life plaster representation of a child, they bought immediately to add to their Picasso collection. The other was a neon work by New York City minimalist Dan Flavin, which they initially put on hold. “We walked away and thought, ‘This is silly, we want it; there’s no reason to put it on hold,’” Irma recalls. Ten minutes later it was theirs. The installation now lights up the entrance to their Miami home. But at the moment, staring at the Picasso painting whose acquaintance they first made from a transparency, they’re wondering how “Femme allongée” would look on one of their walls. “No,” Irma decides. “It’s very flat.” That’s that. (…)
While Irma moves on to another painting, Norman backs into a corner and pulls out his cellphone. “What do you think it’s worth?” he asks, apparently speaking with Giraud. “Have you seen anything else? The Picasso doesn’t look as good on the wall.” Giraud and the Bramans split up so they can case the galleries and phone one another if something intriguing comes up. Once the head of Christie’s international 19th- and 20th-century art department in New York, Giraud makes an excellent scout. He can often be found at the Swissôtel, just across the square from the fair. It’s the hub of the art network, he says, where everyone gathers after the VIP session to ask breathlessly, “What did you buy?!” The Bramans still haven’t written a check. “This one’s too small; it’ll look lost on the wall,” says Irma as she tilts her head, looking at another Picasso. Then: “This isn’t from [John] Chamberlain’s most desirable period,” she says, referring to his crushed-steel sculptures of the 1950s and 1960s. Norman says he’s on the lookout for a piece by Jackson Pollock; Irma wants one. The Bramans don’t own anything by Francis Bacon or Lucian Freud, even though Norman thinks their work is extraordinary. “They’re very difficult images to live with,” he explains. “And we live with our art.” It helps to have homes in southern France, Aspen and Miami (with a detached gallery). http://www.forbes.com/sites/kerenblankfeld/2011/09/21/connecting-with-art-an-inside-look-into-a-billionaire-artcollection/#28cbe61c4e6b
UDO BRANDHORST Location : Cologne, Germany Employment : Insurance, Brandhorst Museum Art Collection : Contemporary art http://www.artfortune.com/collectors-8/
Udo Brandhorst (* 1939 vermutlich in Köln) ist ein deutscher Kunstsammler und Mäzen. Bekannt ist er für die Dauerleihgabe seiner Sammlung nach München, wofür dort eigens das Museum Brandhorst errichtet wurde. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Udo_Brandhorst
From the 1970s onwards, Udo Brandhorst and his wife Anette (d. 1999) amassed more than 1000 works by seminal artists from the 20th and 21st centuries, primarily paintings, drawings and sculptures and, more recently, photographs, multimedia works and installations. To start with, the focus was placed on classical avant-garde artists (Kazimir Malevich, Kurt Schwitters, Pablo Picasso) and post-war European Modernists (Joseph Beuys, Palermo, Sigmar Polke, Jannis Kounellis, Mario Merz) but, in the course of time, their interest became increasingly drawn to American art – with John Chamberlain, Robert Gober, Dan Flavin, Bruce Nauman, Richard Tuttle, Walter de Maria and others being represented by major works. With many more than 100 exhibits by Andy Warhol (1928–1987), there is virtually no other European collection that has comparable holdings of works by the best-known of all Pop Art artists. The nucleus of more than 170 works by the American artist Cy Twombly (1928–2011) is unique anywhere in the world. The acquisition of works by Damien Hirst, Mike Kelley and Robert Gober testify to how contemporary art increasingly attracted the collectors’ attention, as do mutimedia artworks by Isaac Julien, Anri Sala, Stan Douglas and David Claerbout. While the Pinakothek der Moderne enables visitors to gain a general picture of developments in 20th and 21st-century art, the focus in the Museum Brandhorst is on an in-depth examination of the work of individual artists. The Udo and Anette Brandhorst Foundation was set up in 1993. With returns from the Stiftung's capital, the continuous expansion of the collection of modern and contemporary art is possible to an extent that would be unimaginable with public funds today. In conjunction with the Pinakothek der Moderne, a range of possibilities opens up for expanding the concept of a modern and contemporary art collection for Munich. In addition, the Stiftung's articles provide for artistic and research projects. http://www.museum-brandhorst.de/en/collection-brandhorst.html
Udo Brandhorst’s late wife, Anette Brandhorst, was an heir to the fortune of Henkel, a Germany company that produces various consumer goods, which allowed the couple to put together a formidable collection of modern and contemporary art comprising some 1,000 pieces, including more than 100 Warhols. They began collecting the historical avant-garde, from the first part of the 20th century, in the 1970s and have since ventured up to the present. Anette passed away in 1999, and Udo donated a number of works to the German state of Bavaria, which built an impressive Museum Brandhorst in Munich to house the collection and present temporary exhibitions. The Brandhorst Collection has more than 170 works by Cy Twombly, making it the single largest holding of the artist's work in the world. http://www.artnews.com/top200/udo-brandhorst/
PETER BRANDT Peter M. Brant (né en 1947 à New York1) est un homme d'affaires américain. Propriétaire de Papiers White Birch et de Brant Publications, Inc., collectionneur d'art et producteur de films, il a fait partie de la liste des milliardaires du magazine Forbes pendant plusieurs années. En 1995, il se marie en secondes noces avec la top model Stephanie Seymour. Le couple a trois enfants. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Brant
Brant bought his first pieces of art after turning an $8,000 investment into several hundred thousand dollars as a young man. His first purchases according to The New York Times, included "a couple of Warhols and, later, a major Franz Kline.” In 1976, Brant commissioned Andy Warhol to paint his cocker spaniel, Ginger. Warhol made two paintings of Ginger, as well as drawings. On May 9, 2009, The Brant Foundation Art Study Center opened in Greenwich, CT. On the site of a converted 110-year-old stone barn, architect Richard Gluckman redesigned the 9,800-square-foot (910 m2) space as a gallery and learning center, which will showcase long-term exhibitions and promote the appreciation of contemporary art and design. The non-profit center is open to the public by appointment.The Brant Foundation Art Study Center featured an exhibition by artist Urs Fischer in 2010 and painter Josh Smith in 2011. Brant's tax returns for 2010 showed that he contributed $3 million to the foundation, and it spent $1.8 million on acquisitions, exhibitions and building-related costs. After the artist Walter De Maria died in 2013, Brant bought his Manhattan studio, a former Con Edison substation at 421 East Sixth Street, as an exhibition space for $27 million. Brant is a member of the Advisory Council of the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles named Brant to its Board of Trustees in December 2009. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_M._Brant#Art_collector_and_The_Brant_Foundation_Art_Study_Center
The owner of Interview magazine (which he bought directly from its founder, Andy Warhol), as well as Art in America and Antiques, and the creator of the Brant Foundation in Greenwich, Connecticut (see Is the Brant Foundation a Tax Scam or an Art Investment Vehicle?), Brant is known for his blue-chip collection of primarily American art, though his recent acquisitions include Vancouver artist Steven Shearer. Brant made news recently when he purchased artist Walter de Maria’s 16,400-square-foot East Sixth Street studio and home for $27 million (see Peter Brant Paid $27 Million for Walter De Maria’s Old Studio); he has already hosted a show by Dan Colen in the space (see Peter Brant Hosts Dan Colen Show in Walter De Maria Studio), and many speculate that he will transform it into an exhibition venue. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/top-200-art-collectors-2015-part-one-286048
The contemporary art collector and publisher Peter M. Brant announced that he had assumed full control over Art in America magazine and ARTnews, as well as a stable of other publications that were part of a complex merger last year. In the deal, Mr. Brant agreed to sell Art in America, which has been published since 1913 but has struggled recently, to the company that owns ARTnews, published since 1902. Mr. Brant sold the magazine for about $17 million. Under the terms of the deal, Mr. Brant’s media company became the majority shareholder of ARTnews’s parent, ARTnews S.A., whose chief executive, Izabela Depczyk, eventually resigned and was replaced by Vincent Fremont, a friend of Mr. Brant’s and a founding director of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. The deal initially gave rise to speculation that Mr. Brant, who also owns Interview magazine, might have been moving to divest himself of his art-publishing empire. But he quickly consolidated all of the publications online and has now announced that with the completion of their merger last Thursday, Brant Publications has become their legal owner. Under plans announced last year, Art in America is to continue its regular publication schedule of 11 issues a year, and ARTnews will come out in print about four times a year, continuing popular themed editions such as the annual list of “The World’s Top 200 Collectors.” Online, Mr. Brant said, the consolidation would move “under one umbrella” some of “the most important cultural publications that together provide the complete content and history of decorative arts, classical arts and art-related news.” In an interview last year, he said that despite the challenges facing print publications he believed there was still a place for magazines, particularly those that covered art. “We are committed to staying in that world,” he said, adding: “Interest in art is growing. We’re living in a much more artistic world.” http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/31/arts/design/peter-brant-takes-over-art-magazines.html?_r=0
JAMES BRETT The man behind the project is James Brett, an exceptionally charismatic and enthusiastic Brit who knows his subject. Currently sporting a moustache that would not look wrong on the Côte D’Azur in the 1950s, he is anything but an arrogant high-art aesthete. A young 43, Brett is very private about his personal life. He lived in Primrose Hill for years. He hints at a musical background and experience as a film director prior to his focus on The Museum of Everything, but he keeps things intentionally quiet. The project grew out of Brett’s own passion as a collector. ‘I wasn’t interested in art. I came from a film background,’ he recalls over tea. ‘I think I saw some work online then I saw some in the flesh and it was cheap. It was 25 bucks for a funny painted snake. It was very straightforward and direct, a lot of it was American and I just thought “that’s cool”.’ When younger, he had collected underground soul music from the 1960s and 70s and later vintage film posters. Outsider art was an instinctive progression. ‘There is nothing wrong with liking something that is hugely popular but finding and liking things that have a certain secrecy to them, with the right personality, can really get your mojo going and that’s probably me.’ The interest in art turned into an addiction and deep enthusiasm. ‘What struck me always about this work was the authenticity of it. It’s not self-righteous. I like the aesthetic. It’s purer. It’s more liberated – that’s what got me really interested.’ http://www.aesop.com/ch/article/james-brett.html
Charlotte Jansen: How and why did you start collecting? James Brett: I don't consider myself a collector. Rather I am a part-time accumulator. It is similar to hoarding. It is certainly different to making a decision to form a collection. As to when the accumulating started, probably in childhood. The Museum of Everything isn't really a collection either. It is an exhibitor and an archive, and most importantly, an informal travelling institution for a specific genre, which floats by and its respective boats. As you might realise, I have a bit of an issue with the whole notion of collecting. In my own opinion, it is used all too often as some form of high-faluting accolade or achievement to flatter spendthrift gallery customers. The truth is that real collecting is a genetic addiction. If so, then yes, I stand accused. https://www.artslant.com/9/articles/show/34446
The Museum Of Everything is one of the most unmissable art exhibitions in recent memory: a massive collection of artworks created by those mysterious visionaries who live on the outskirts of sanity. Hand-picked by the likes of Nick Cave, Grayson Perry and Jarvis Cocker, this strange bestiary of the troubled creative mind was conceived by curator James Brett. On a frosty November morning, I shared a pot of tea with James and Jarvis (who was preparing to host a rare screening of his three-part series on outsider art, Journeys Into the Outside), to talk voyeurism, frailty and cracked genius... Does outsider art have so much power because it’s so unselfconscious? Do you think it taps into something voyeuristic in the viewer? Jarvis Cocker: That was part of what appealed to me about it when I was at art college – that it was about people creating things because they were compelled to do it. It’s fascinating that people are tapping into something within themselves that isn’t taught, something that is instinctive. But the voyeuristic thing? I suppose that’s a question you have to ask yourself when you are looking at it – am I only interested in it because this person had one leg and killed chickens? http://www.anothermag.com/art-photography/7/jarvis-cocker-and-james-brett
JIM BREYER James W. Breyer (born 1961) is an American venture capitalist, founder and CEO of Breyer Capital, an investment and venture philanthropy firm, and a partner at Accel Partners, a venture capital firm. Breyer has invested in over 30 companies that have gone public or completed a merger, with some of these investments, including Facebook, earning over 100 times cost and many others over 25 times cost. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Breyer
#246 Forbes 400 (2016) #279 in 2015 #85 Richest In Tech (2016) #11 Midas (2016) #722 Billionaires (2016) #260 in United States Early Facebook investor Jim Breyer is now investing through Breyer Capital after 28-year run at venture firm Accel Partners. One recent exit: Legendary Entertainment, which was sold to China's Dalian Wanda Group for $3.5 billion earlier this year. In July, he and Chinese firm IDG Capital Partners raised a $1 billion fund to invest in the region. That same month he joined the board of the Blackstone Group. Breyer is also a minority owner of the NBA's Boston Celtics. His parents fled Hungary in 1956, and moved into a funeral home, the cheapest place his family could afford (his dad had a scholarship to Yale). In 1982, Breyer sent his resume and letter to Steve Jobs, who forwarded it to Apple's director of marketing, who hired him for the summer and part-time while he was an undergrad at Stanford University. http://www.forbes.com/profile/jim-breyer/
EDYTHE & ELI BROAD Eli L. Broad; born June 6, 1933) is an American entrepreneur and philanthropist. He is the only person to build two Fortune 500 companies in different industries (KB Home and SunAmerica). As of October 2015, Forbes ranked Broad the 65th wealthiest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of $7.4 billion. (...) Broad’s interest in art began in 1973 with his family’s first acquisition of a Van Gogh drawing, entitled "Cabanes a Saintes-Maries" (1888). Art collector and MCA executive Taft Schreiber became his mentor. The Broads' early acquisitions included notable works by Miró, Picasso and Matisse. Eventually, the pair began to concentrate on post–World War II art. Eli and Edythe Broad established The Broad Art Foundation in 1984 with the goal of making their extensive contemporary art collection more accessible to the public; to date The Foundation has made more than 8,000 loans to more than 500 museums and university galleries worldwide. The Broads have two collections—a personal collection with nearly 600 works and The Broad Art Foundation's collection, which has approximately 1,500 works Modern and contemporary art. In January 2008, the Broads decided that works in their personal collection would ultimately go to their foundation to make the artwork accessible to the public through the foundation’s loan program. Some of the best-known works are by contemporary artists including: John Baldessari's two text paintings from 1967–68 / Jasper Johns – flag paintings (1960 and 1967), mixed-media "Watchman" (1964), "hatch" (1975) / Jeff Koons – fluorescent-lighted vacuum cleaners (1981), floating basketballs and bronze lifeboat (both 1985), stainless-steel bunny rabbit (1986), "Bubbles," a life-size porcelain portrait of Michael Jackson and his pet chimpanzee (1988) bought on May 15, 2001 for 5.6M, the first "Balloon Dog" (1994, in blue), and a "Cracked Egg" purchased for $3.5 million in 2006. Broad owns more than 20 Koons pieces, and donated €640,000 ($900,000) to help sponsor a 2008 Koons retrospective at Versailles (with fellow Koons collector François Pinault). Roy Lichtenstein – three comic strip paintings (1962–65) and his 1969 abstraction of a mirror. In November 1994, Broad purchased "I...I'm Sorry" for $2.5 million USD at a Sotheby's auction, paid with his American Express credit card, and thereby earned 2.5 million frequent flyer miles. Robert Rauschenberg – 1954 red abstraction / Damien Hirst – Away From the Flock. Edward Ruscha's first word painting, "Boss" (1961) and his 1964 picture of Norm's La Cienega Boulevard restaurant on fire. / Cindy Sherman – twelve photographs from 1977–150 photographs. The Broads have the world’s largest collection of Sherman’s works. David Smith – Cubi XXVIII, executed in 1965. Broad's October 2005 purchase at a Sotheby's auction set a contemporary art auction record of $23,816,000. Broad claimed he had "been looking for a Cubi for more than a decade...I knew it would go way over the estimate and I was prepared, frankly, to pay more than what I bid."[citation needed] Andy Warhol's advertising image, "Where's your rupture?", two Marilyn Monroe images, a twenty-fold silkscreen of Jackie Kennedy, an Elvis, a dance diagram, a wanted poster, an electric chair and a torn Campbell's soup can—pepper pot (purchased for $11.8 million) – all from 1961 to 1967. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eli_Broad#Art_collection
Widely considered one of Los Angeles’s leading art patrons, entrepreneur Broad and his wife Edythe have been collecting for over five decades, assembling one of the world’s most prominent collections of postwar and contemporary art (see 10 Los Angeles Art Power Couples You Need To Know). They are currently building the Broad, a $140-million showcase designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro which will house their vast trove and is slated to open its doors in the fall of 2015 (see Broad Museum Director Opens Up About First Exhibition and Eli Broad Sues Museum Contractor for $20 Million Over Delays). Among the most recent acquisitions to the still-growing collection (see Kusama, Kentridge, and Kjartansson Among Eli Broad’s Latest Acquisitions) are Jordan Wolfson’s multimedia, animatronic sculpture Female figure (2014) (see Eli Broad Adds Jordan Wolfson’s Terrifying Robot to Collection), Yayoi Kusama’s immersive Infinity Mirrored Room – The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away (2013); Ragnar Kjartansson’s video installation The Visitors (2012) (see Kara Walker, Ragnar Kjartansson, Henri Matisse, Robert Gober and More Win AICA Awards); and William Kentridge’s sculptural video work The Refusal of Time (2012). https://news.artnet.com/art-world/top-200-art-collectors-2015-part-one-286048
JK BROWN & ERIC DIEFENBACH James Keith (J. K.) Brown and Eric Diefenbach have been together for 28 years and, according to a 2013 profile in Townvibe Ridgefield, have been collecting art for almost the entire time. Leaning toward the bracingly contemporary, they own pieces by Carl Andre, Sarah Braman, Joseph Beuys, and Gerhard Richter. Their collection is especially strong in postwar German art; the 2011–12 touring exhibition “De-Natured: German Art from Joseph Beuys to Martin Kippenberger, Selections from the James Keith Brown and Eric Diefenbach Collection” included pieces by Sigmar Polke, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Andreas Gursky, and Hanne Darboven. The couple are major museum supporters, with Brown serving as president of the board of the New Museum and Diefenbach leading the board of the Aldrich Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut, where they have a home. http://www.artnews.com/top200/james-keith-jk-brown-and-eric-diefenbach/
One chief criteria for James Keith (JK) Brown and Eric Diefenbach’s weekend house was an adequate space for their expanding contemporary art collection. But the Manhattanites were also looking for a community with an interest in the arts, close enough to Manhattan that they could come for a night during the workweek, and nice throughout the seasons. Their hunt ended in 2007 with a gracious modern home on Hawthorne Hill, just off Ridgebury Road. Built in 1994 with an extensive addition completed in 1999, the house offers striking vistas of Connecticut and New York as well as ample wall and lawn space for their art. Ridgefield also offered the right community. “Actually, we found a better community, more available culturally, than we expected,” Eric says. “We knew about The Aldrich but we didn’t know about The Ridgefield Playhouse. It’s a fantastic bonus.” “Another bonus,” adds JK, “is that there are good restaurants, especially important since we don’t cook.” Although their kitchen is well-equipped and their Vladimir Kagan dining room table and chairs are exquisite, you’re more likely to find the pair at Bissell House, Luc’s, Ross’ Bread, or 121 than at the stove. Brown, originally from a small town in North Carolina, is 50, and an investment manager. Diefenbach, 53, grew up in Rye, and is a lawyer in private practice. They have been partners for 26 years, and collecting contemporary art for most of their relationship. While their house—with its collection of mid-century modern furniture and museum quality art thoughtfully re-installed regularly by Diefenbach himself—is an ever-changing showcase for their remarkable eye and design instincts, there is nothing pretentious about the pair. In fact, they are much more willing to talk about almost any subject than about themselves. When asked about why they collect, Eric says that the answer is two-fold. “It’s nice to live with wonderful things,” he says. “But it’s also nice to enable people to make art,” acknowledging the important role of collectors in supporting living artists. “We think everybody benefits from that. Art makes us smarter, and helps people to understand their world better.” “It also makes the world smaller,” says JK, citing the friends from around the world that they have met through their travels. “There’s a community of people in the art world—artists, curators, and gallery owners—that have become friends.” One of those friends is Yvonne Handler, who grew up in Ridgefield, and met JK in New York. “He was my first boss,” says Handler, who currently lives in Greenwich. “So many people in the art world are not approachable. That’s exactly the opposite of Eric and JK. They are passionate and want to get a larger group involved. They collect interesting people.” Brown is president of the board of the New Museum. Diefenbach, who is board chairman of The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, is so passionate about expanding The Aldrich’s audience that he has enlisted Handler to help him to start a young professional group of supporters of the museum. They are casting a wide net to appeal to local Ridgefielders but also to professionals in towns like Greenwich, Darien, and New Canaan. “My taste in art is really old, old work—like Baroque and Rococo,” says Handler, “but Eric and JK have been such good teachers that I’ve come to appreciate contemporary art. I don’t like all contemporary art but their collection is fantastic.” She cites a small painting by the artist Alex Katz in the Hawthorne Hill collection as emblematic of the thoughtful way that the pair has collected. “It feels like a Matisse. It’s absolutely peaceful, serene.” http://www.townvibe.com/Ridgefield/September-October-2013/For-the-Art/
BETTINA & DONALD BRYANT Donald Bryant Jr. is a trustee of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. His home in Napa Valley displays his passion of modern art. Richard Serra’s “Out-of_round VII” is the focal point in his apartment’s master bedroom, as it is nearly seven square feet. In his living room he has a Picasso oil of a nude women, a Jackson Pollock drip painting and several Willem de Kooning oils. Mr. Bryant refers to his apartment in New York, a block away from central park, as his private museum. He and his wife use the apartment to throw parties for friends, curators, collectors and dealers. http://www.artfortune.com/collectors-5/
According to the Wall Street Journal, Donald L. Bryant Jr. teases museum curators with the line “You date [the art], you put it up, then you put it in a basement for a couple of years,” to which he adds, “I have a relationship with the art.” The Bryant’s two-level apartment in New York, which they refer to as their private museum, probably doesn’t have a basement. They do rotate their artwork, however, starting with artists like Johns, Kelly, Gober, and Rauschenberg, and then switching over to de Kooning, Pollock, Giacometti, and Dubuffet. Just like the Bryant’s wine—they own a highly successful vineyard in Napa—their artwork has improved with age. In 2013 Bryant sold an Andy Warhol portrait of Marlon Brando for $23.7 million. He had purchased it ten years previously for $5 million. In 2013, Bryant became embroiled in a nasty lawsuit with Henry Kravis, with whom he co-owned a Jasper Johns triptych. Kravis accused Bryant of “holding the paintings hostage” in an effort to back out of a commitment the two had made to donate the painting to MoMA. They eventually settled, agreeing to take turns displaying the work in their homes, with it going to the museum after their deaths. http://www.artnews.com/top200/bettina-and-donald-l-bryant-jr/
Embattled Art Collector Sells UES Gallery-Apartment for $12.97 M. The architectural firm of Beyer Blinder Belle has been here—oh, and Pollock, Picasso and de Kooning, too. The latter names, of course, represent the more alluring of those trios, but the former will be more useful to the very regal sounding buyers of a $12.975 million duplex co-op at 19 East 72nd Street. It seems rather unlikely, at any rate, that the art collector and California Cabernet kingpin Donald Bryant Jr. will be leaving the estimable collection of modern art with which he decorated his place to new owners Catherine R. and Arthur T. Williams III. That recent renovation, on the other hand, will prove difficult to take along. The “classic prewar details” and “dramatic environment for living and entertaining,” of the listing held by Cathy Franklin and Alexis Bodenheimer at Brown Harris Stevens will be staying, too. (But is it drama, really, that we want from our day-to-day lives? Perhaps. This is Real Housewives territory, after all.) And who, we ask, doesn’t enjoy a good “sweeping” staircase off a “magnificent” entry gallery? Who would frown at a “palatial” living room and “sophisticated” modern updates? There are dark, herringbone floors here, whose multicolored patterns recall certain very tasteful cheeseboards. There’s a semi-private landing off the elevator, appliances by Sub-Zero—and others by companies that we’re quite sure non-chefs have never heard of—and everybody’s favorite: Carrara marble! A one-time trustee of the Museum of Modern Art, Mr. Bryant found himself embroiled in legal unpleasantness last year when his business partner sued him over his alleged reluctance to honor an agreement ensuring that several works by Jasper Johns valued at $15 to $25 million that the two bought together would end up ultimately at MOMA. But even if those suggestions were valid, we find ourselves feeling mildly sympathetic toward Mr. Bryant. Having purchased his co-op for $10 million in 2006, he subsequently spent some $4 million and two years on that renovation by Beyer Blinder Belle, which, after all, was the firm behind the Grand Central Station overhaul. According to our back-of-envelope calculations, that leaves him out about a million bucks. Perhaps his buying buddy, too, will find pity in his heart. Though it seems unlikely. http://observer.com/2014/06/embattled-art-collector-sells-ues-gallery-apartment-for-12-97-m/
MELVA BUCKSBAUM & RAYMOND LEARSY Washington, D.C.–born Bucksbaum—who originally wanted to be an artist—and her second husband, former commodities trader Raymond J. Learsy, are best known for collecting contemporary art, but their collection includes everything from Peter Paul Rubens to James Rosenquist. The couple recently purchased The Hunting Party by Rosa Loy and Neo Rauch, and they are always adding to their collection of works by Laurie Simmons, a shared favorite. Bucksbaum is the patron behind the Whitney Museum’s Bucksbaum Award, which gives a $100,000 grant and a Whitney solo show to one lucky winner in each Whitney Biennial https://news.artnet.com/art-world/top-200-art-collectors-2015-part-one-286048
Melva Bucksbaum, who passionately collected art and frequently gave money to museums and artists across America, died at 82. Her cause of death has not been announced, but she was suffering from cancer. Having been on the Whitney Museum’s board of trustees since 1996, Bucksbaum is perhaps best known for her involvement with that museum. In 2000, she created the Bucksbaum Award, which is given to an artist participating in the Whitney Biennial and now rivals the Pritzker Prize and the Turner Prize in prestige. Recipients of the award’s $100,000 prize are asked to do a show at the Whitney within the coming few years. Past recipients have included Mark Bradford, Omer Fast, Zoe Leonard, and Raymond Pettibon. Bucksbaum was also a trustee at the Aspen Insitute and an emerita trustee at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. She and her husband, Raymond Learsy, were also longtime supporters of the Museum of Modern Art, the Tate, and Harvard University’s collections. Bucksbaum and Learsy were ARTnews 200 Top Collectors regulars for their 400-work collection, which continued to grow over the course of their marriage. The couple, who lived in Connecticut, owned work by Nan Goldin, David Salle, Robert Mapplethorpe, Richard Serra, Marina Abramovic, Louise Bourgeois, Jenny Holzer, Ana Mendieta, Juan Munoz, Carroll Dunham, Vanessa Beecroft, Sherrie Levine, and James Lee Byars, among many others. Bucksbaum and Learsy were known to scout galleries together, at times buying work on the spot. Bucksbaum and Learsy had initially planned to store their work in an old barn, but, after discovering that that would be a fire hazard, decided to build The Granary, a climate-controlled private museum in Connecticut. Designed by Steven Learner, who also worked on galleries House of Venison and Sean Kelly, The Granary was known for its intimacy—a 2010 Artinfo profile of the museum noted that it felt like the collectors’ home. Bucksbaum was a champion of art by women, and, in 2013, curated a show at The Granary called “The Distaff Side,” which featured over 100 works by women artists in the couple’s collection. “The Distaff Side” was the first and last show that she curated. Prior to becoming a collector, Bucksbaum had dreams of becoming an artist. As a child, living in Washington, D.C., she would take the bus to galleries and museums, where she would find herself moved by some of the masterpieces she saw. In particular, Bucksbaum was fond of work by Pierre-Auguste Renoir. The art world knew Bucksbaum for genuine love of, and support for, art. “You can tell the [Bucksbaum Award] is meant to make a significant difference in an artist’s life, and yet it’s given without strings,” Helene Winer, the co-owner of Metro Pictures, told the New York Times in 2003. “That’s because Melva is a good egg.” http://www.artnews.com/2015/08/17/melva-bucksbaum-art-patron-and-passionate-collector-dies-at-82/
The death of beloved art collector, patron, and Whitney Museum board member Melva Bucksbaum, who passed away last year at age 82, marked the beginning of a family battle over her considerable assets. At stake is a $30 million home and an impressive art collection featuring the likes of Henri Matisse, Peter Paul Rubens, Andy Warhol, and Robert Mapplethorpe. Page Six reports that Bucksbaum’s children, Gene and Glenn Bucksbaum and estate trustee Mary Bucksbaum Scanlan are embroiled in a hotly-contested row with Raymond Learsy, Bucksbaum’s husband of 15 years and a fellow Whitney Museum board member. Learsy reportedly filed notice in an Aspen court with the intention of challenging Bucksbaum’s will, claiming he is entitled to half of her fortune—estimated to be as much as $200 million. He currently stands to inherit $10 million as well as Bucksbaum’s $30 million Connecticut estate. “This is a clear case of greed by a colossal cad,” Scanlan told Page Six. “My sole purpose is to carry out my mother’s wishes to protect her family.” Bucksbaum and Learsy met in 2000 (the same year that the well-regarded, biannual Bucksbaum Award began. They were married a year later. According to the New York Times, Bucksbaum had been widowed twice before. Despite Scanlan’s sentiments, Learsy has some who will defend his character. “They support artists, even new ones. They buy according to their hearts, and they have good ones,” artist Pat Steir said of the couple. Neither Bucksbaum’s lawyer, William D. Zabel, nor Learsy’s lawyer, Hugh J. Freund, was available for immediate comment. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/melva-bucksbaum-estate-battle-414806
CHRISTIAN BÜHRLE Après 55 ans, la Fondation Bührle ferme son musée. Ses oeuvres seront exposés dans des musées suisses et étrangers, jusqu'à l'entrée de la collection dans la nouvelle aile du Kunsthaus Zurich en 2020 http://www.buehrle.ch/?lang=fr
La Fondation et Collection Emil G. Bührle est une collection privée d'art à Zurich. La fondation a été créée en 1960 par la famille du collectionneur d'art Emil Georg Bührle (1890-1956) après le décès de celui-ci. Le musée, installé dans une villa de 1886 située juste à côté de l'ancienne résidence d'Emil Bührle, présente principalement, à côté de sculptures en bois médiévales et de toiles de grands maîtres du passé, tel que El Greco, des œuvres de peintres impressionnistes et modernes du xixe et du xxe siècle. En 2006, le rapprochement avec le Kunsthaus de Zurich devient évident et le braquage de 2008 active les démarches juridiques. La fondation gardant sa personnalité propre, les œuvres seront déposées au musée dès 2015, après l'agrandissement de celui-ci1. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fondation_et_Collection_Emil_G._B%C3%Bchrle
La collection Bührle en fait-elle assez pour retrouver les propriétaires d’œuvres éventuellement volées par les nazis? La polémique est relancée par un nouvel ouvrage, alors que le Kunsthaus de Zurich s’apprête à abriter une grande partie de ces tableaux. La Confédération elle veut soutenir les musées dans leurs travaux de recherche. Le titre a déjà une petite odeur de soufre: «Le livre noir Bührle» (en allemand), sous la direction de Thomas Buomberger, historien et journaliste, et de l’historien de l’art Guido Magnaguagno, entend relancer le débat sur la collection d’art du marchand d’armes Emil Bührle (1890-1956). Le moment de la publication ne doit rien au hasard. Sous-titré «De l’art volé pour le Kunsthaus de Zurich?», l’ouvrage paraît en effet à l’heure où les travaux d’agrandissement du musée des beaux-arts de Zurich, commencent. Une grande partie la collection Bührle – comptant notamment, parmi ses 190 chefs d’œuvres, des tableaux de Monet, Cézanne ou Van Gogh, prendra place dans le musée agrandi qui doit être terminé en 2020. «La discussion sur la provenance a été relancée par l’affaire Gurlitt» déclare Tim Guldimann. Les conditions d’achat des œuvres par Emil Bührle (voir un portrait ci-contre) sont déjà largement connues, notamment grâce à la Commission Bergier dont les travaux sur les relations de la Suisse avec le régime nazi ont été publiés entre 1998 et 2002. On sait aussi qu’en 1948, un procès obligea le marchand d’armes à restituer treize tableaux, qu’il en racheta neuf et que sept de ces derniers se trouvent toujours dans la collection (selon un décompte de la «NZZ am Sonntag»). «Effet Gurlitt» Alors pourquoi cet ouvrage, maintenant? Pour Tim Guldimann, ancien ambassadeur suisse à Berlin, qui participait à un débat public sur le livre, «la discussion sur la provenance a été relancée par l’affaire Gurlitt» – du nom d’un marchand d’art allemand ayant légué son fonds, dont certaines œuvres pourraient avoir été spoliées, au Musée des beaux-arts de Berne (transfert toujours suspendu à un recours déposé en justice par des membres de la famille Gurlitt). Quant aux auteurs, ils expliquent leur démarche par le fait qu’une attention particulière doit être portée sur une institution soutenue par des fonds publics lorsqu’elle s’apprête, comme le Kunsthaus, à accueillir des œuvres dont l’origine n’est pas toujours certaine. Selon eux, la recherche sur la provenance des œuvres n’a pas suffisamment progressé. http://www.swissinfo.ch/fre/economie/art-spoli%C3%A9_les-zones-d-ombre-de-la-collection-d-art-buehrle-refont-surface/41695632
FRIEDER BURDA A major art collector, Burda bought his first work, a slashed red painting by Lucio Fontana, at Kassel’s Documenta 4 in 1968. In building his collection, he took advice from art-historian friends, including Werner Spies, Götz Adriani and Jean-Louis Prat. Burda initially planned to build a museum near Mougins, France, where he had a house. In 2004, he opened Museum Frieder Burda in Baden-Baden, in a €20 million building designed by architect Richard Meier.The collection includes more than 700 works, including several late masterpieces by Picasso and major holdings of Germany's important postwar artists, such as Gerhard Richter and Sigmar Polke, plus a few pieces from his father's collection. The focus in on German painting, from artists ranging from Max Beckmann, Eugen Schönebeck, Georg Baselitz to Corinne Wasmuht. Following its opening in October 2004, the museum drew 40,000 visitors in its first two months. Only a sampling of the permanent collection can be displayed at one time (many works continue to be lent to special exhibitions and other museums). The two-story glass and aluminum building itself is set on the edge of the main park in the town connected by a glass-sheathed bridge to the existing small Baden-Baden art museum, the Staatliche Kunsthalle BadenBaden.A stand of enormous trees, including historic oaks and a blood beech, tower over the buildings.Meier's building won the American Institute of Architects Honor Award for Architecture in 2006. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frieder_Burda
La Collection Frieder Burda rassemble près de mille œuvres d’art moderne et contemporain – peintures, sculptures, objets, photographies et travaux sur papier – et compte parmi les collections d’art privées les plus remarquables d’Europe. Le Musée Frieder Burda présente la Collection Frieder Burda au public en alternance avec des expositions temporaires, selon des perspectives et des contextes thématiques sans cesse renouvelés, faisant du musée un lieu vivant de contemplation et de confrontation aux œuvres. (...) Sa fascination pour la couleur et la faculté de la peinture à exprimer les émotions nourrissent l’intérêt pour l’art du collectionneur. De cette inclination est née une collection d’un genre très personnel, qui réunit des artistes précurseurs de la peinture du XXe siècle. Elle se limite à un nombre d’artistes restreint, dont les œuvres sont collectionnées avec conviction et dont de grands ensembles de travaux ont intégré la collection. Afin de permettre au public d’avoir accès à la collection, le Musée Frieder Burda a vu le jour à Baden-Baden, ville natale de Frieder Burda, sur les plans du célèbre architecte new-yorkais Richard Meier. Inauguré en octobre 2004, le Musée est financé par la fondation Stiftung Frieder Burda depuis 1998. https://www.museum-frieder-burda.de/fr/musee/collection/
The son of a renowned German publisher and art collector, Burda bought his first picture, a Lucio Fontana, in his early 30s, and in 2004 he opened his Frieder Burda Museum in Baden-Baden. The collection has now grown to include more than 1,000 works of art. Like his father, Burda focuses on established modern movements such as German Expressionism (Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, August Macke, Max Beckmann) and Abstract Expressionism (Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning), and he has acquired a substantial collection of works by his German contemporaries, among them Sigmar Polke, Georg Baselitz, and Gerhard Richter. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/top-200-art-collectors-2015-part-one-286048
The museum for the Frieder Burda collection of twentieth-century art has been designed to blend into the landscape of the Lichtentaler Allee Park and, at the same time, to harmonize with the classical profile of the adjacent Kunsthalle. The overall form and proportions of the new building correspond to the elevated plinth and entablature of the Kunsthalle, but each institution maintains its own tectonic identity. Nestled amid the majestic trees of the park, the new three-story museum is accessed from a main portico facing east. At the second floor a glazed bridge links the building to the plinth of the Kunsthalle. This bridge has been delicately detailed so as to intrude as little as possible on the character of the existing museum. http://www.richardmeier.com/?projects=burda-museum-2
MONIQUE & MAX BURGER The Hong Kong–based husband and wife duo own a large private collection of up to 1000 works by 120 artists. The Burger Collection focuses on Euro-American, Indian to Asian art, and also engages in art patronage, as well as lending their works to major museum exhibitions. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/meet-20-of-the-worlds-most-innovative-art-collectors-117315
Swiss collectors Monique and Max Burger started to build their collection in the early 1990’s, and are collecting international renowned artists from Europe, the United States and Asia. They have been resident in Hong Kong since 2005. Since that time they have developed an ongoing passion for collecting contemporary Asian art. Currently, they have put together more than 1000 works of contemporary art by 120 artists. Today some of these artists are internationally sought after and difficult to acquire. Parts of the Burger Collection have been shown in Cattle Depot in Hong Kong in 2013. http://www.larryslist.com/artmarket/features/top-5-art-collectors-in-hong-kong/
Burger Collection Hong Kong is a private collection of contemporary art representing a wide range of works reaching from Euro-American, Indian to Asian art. Burger Collection has turned towards a broader public with a curatorial concept of its own. The collection has ventured into collaborations with local institutions and individuals in different cities around the world, engaged in co-operations, and created new site-specific works with artists both within and beyond the collection. Works of the collection are available for view online and are being shown in prestigious institutions and museums worldwide. Burger Collection is patron, supporter or friend of many different institutions and museums worldwide such as:, Para/Site (HK), KHOJ Alternative Space (New Delhi, India), Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (Washington DC, USA), Museo Tamayo (Mexico), Hong Kong Art Gallery Association (HKAGA) (HK), Kunsthalle (Zurich, Switzerland), Hong Kong Museum of Art (HK), Lincoln Center (NY, USA), C&G Artpartment (HK), Haus Konstruktiv (Zurich, Switzerland), Asia Art Archive - as board member from 2006 until 2016 - (HK), Swiss Institute Contemporary Art (NY, USA) and Asia Society (HK and NY, USA). http://www.burgercollection.org/welcome/About.html
Monique and Max Burger are contemporary art collectors with a mission that extends far beyond simply acquiring artworks for their own enjoyment. Through the Burger Collection, now comprising over 1,000 works by 120 artists from around the world, the Burgers seek to cultivate artistic dialogue, share their artworks with the public via exhibitions and a comprehensive website, and engage in philanthropic activities that promote the careers of emerging artists internationally. But what is perhaps most impressive about the Burger Collection is that it is not merely international, but truly global in its scope and outreach. Like many who are included in the ARTnews top 200 Collectors list, the Burgers began simply and humbly with the acquisition of a David Hockney poster in 1979. They started seriously collecting in the 1990s, buying art whenever they traveled, which was, and still is, often. For Swiss-born Monique and Max, self-described globe-trotters who currently live in Hong Kong, collecting art from the farthest reaches of India or China is a vital part of what they do to connect deeply to a culture they are visiting and exploring. “Art of my time always was something magic to me,” says Monique, “impelling me to reconsider who I am and what I want. It is not a question of picking winners; it is a question of paying attention to those artists who are making interesting contributions, because what you get is not only what you see, but also what you learn. When my husband, Max, and I started buying art in the mid-90s, our choices were mostly based on intuition. We did not follow specific themes, motifs or media, but we were always inspired by artists who had a powerful point of view on political, mythological or philosophical topics.” Almost any major art collection today is international, i.e., comprised of works from artists of myriad nationalities. But the term globalism implies something much deeper. According to political scientist, Joseph Nye, globalism refers to “any description and explanation of a world which is characterized by networks of connections that span multicontinental distances.” In other words, globalism extends not just across national borders, but is a web of interconnected ideas and values. In the Burger Collection, a work by an artist of Indian heritage may be purchased in New York, stored in Zurich and then exhibited in Berlin, forming a true network or lattice of interconnected relationships. It is this principle of interconnectivity that is the key to understanding how all of the collecting, research and philanthropic activities form the coherent aesthetic and function of the Burger Collection. http://www.sieshoeke.com/assets/documents/2011_The_Art_Economist.pdf
Sylvain Sorgato
NAMEDROPPING prototype : BAI - BUR RVB
extrait d’un ensemble de 378 dessins noticés réalisés en 2016 et 2017
dessiné sur Samsung Galaxy Note4 et Wacom Bamboo en utilisant le logiciel ArtRage4 composé avec le logiciel PagePlus X7
tous les extraits reproduits sont en libre accès sur Internet, trouvés en utilisant les mots-clef : [nom + prénom] + art + collection les adresses des sources figurent au pied des articles
exemplaire de démonstration en mode colorimétrique RVB destiné à être consulté sur un écran
Sylvain Sorgato MMXVII