Collected by Thea Westreich Wagner and Ethan Wagner (excerpt)

Collected by

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Thea Westreich Wagner and Ethan Wagner

Collected by

Thea Westreich Wagner and Ethan Wagner

Centre Pompidou, MusÊe National d’art moderne, Paris Printed in Italy

Macel Sussman

ISBN 978-0-300-21482-6

Collected by Thea Westreich Wagner and Ethan Wagner

We want to surround ourselves with art that we respond to, that moves us, and that we think stands up historically.

Sometimes Thea and I get it right and sometimes we don’t. But that’s essentially the way we collect.

Collected by Thea Westreich Wagner and Ethan Wagner

Christine Macel and Elisabeth Sussman with a contribution by Elisabeth Sherman

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York Centre Pompidou, MusÊe national d’art moderne, Paris

Distributed by Yale University Press, New Haven and London

Bernadette Corporation Untitled (Please Read the Titles to Yourself), 2007 Wool on synthetic fabric, 14 1/4 x 24 3/4 in. (36.2 x 62.9 cm).

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; promised gift of Thea Westreich Wagner and Ethan Wagner P.2014.9

Contents

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Foreword Adam D. Weinberg Foreword Serge Lasvignes and Bernard Blistène Introduction Elisabeth Sussman and Christine Macel Plates An Interview with Thea Westreich Wagner and Ethan Wagner Christine Macel and Elisabeth Sussman Essays “I Was Just Thinking” Elisabeth Sussman Objects of a Common Time: Building a Contemporary Collection in the Twenty-First Century Elisabeth Sherman Bridging Europe and the United States: The Collection in Context Christine Macel Checklist Acknowledgments Photography and Reproduction Credits Index

An Interview with Thea Westreich Wagner and Ethan Wagner Christine Macel and Elisabeth Sussman New York, May 2014

Interview—Part 1 This catalogue and exhibition celebrate the promised gift of nearly eight hundred fifty works of art to the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, a significant part of the collection that you, Ethan and Thea, have been building together as a couple for more than two decades, Can you describe how you began collecting?

Ethan Wagner: Each of us started collecting on our own in the 1980s, and in that regard Thea’s story as a collector in the 1980s is quite remarkable. But before she gets to that it may be worth mentioning that we individually developed similar collecting traits or methodologies before we were a couple, and these approaches greatly influence how we go about collecting art together. Foremost, we’re both attracted to creative minds and are eager to learn directly from the artists that make work we find compelling. It’s the clearest way, at least for us, to understand an artist’s intentions, especially early in a career, before much has been written about a practice. And, perhaps connected to this, we both enjoy and have experience publishing artists’ books. Book projects provide a way for us to get even closer to the creative process—to be involved as the artist’s ideas and thinking develop.

Then, too, we’re both inclined to collect artists in depth, to go along with their journey as long as we continue to find their work interesting, challenging, and affecting. However, most of the artists we’re drawn to sooner or later attain prices that make it difficult for us to manage financially. I suppose this circumstance is common to most collectors.

Elisabeth Sussman:

Put another way, inevitably we must decide whether to purchase a work that will consume a large part of our available funds or use those funds to begin to acquire or continue to support younger or emerging artists.

It can be gut wrenching to stop acquiring work that we love and admire. But it’s made somewhat easier by the fact that we’re both intrigued by discovery. We just seem to get off on the learning challenges posed by new expressions, new ideas, younger artists that may not have received a ton of attention yet.

Christine Macel: Thea, how did you become involved in collecting? When and where did the journey begin?

Thea Westreich Wagner: I lived in the Washington, DC, area from 1964 to 1978, married with three children. Once my children started school, I gradually became involved in the worlds of the performing and visual arts. I began to visit the exceptional art museums and galleries that Washington offers—the National Gallery; the Smithsonian, especially the Freer Gallery; the Phillips Collection—and then audited classes in art history. Ramon Osuna, the owner of Pyramid Gallery, an important DC gallery at that time, was an early influence. He introduced me to several artists, and I found those experiences stimulating.

Soon thereafter I became a docent at the National Museum of American Art [now the Smithsonian American Art Museum], where Josh Taylor was the director. I also got to know Walter Hopps, the director of the Corcoran Gallery, who was another significant influence on my engagement with the visual arts. Spending time with him gave me

Interview 19 / 19

insights into how to look at and think about that meeting were Oliver Smith and Lucia Chase, directors of the American Ballet art with an open mind.

Theatre, among others. I guess word had My first husband and I commissioned gotten out that I was a bit of a balletomane, Philip Pearlstein to paint our portrait and Alice Neel our family portrait. Both experi- and somebody willing to roll up her sleeves and get to work. I subsequently became ences included significant amounts of time active not only with ABT but with the in the artists’ studios and furthered my interest in being with artists and experienc- Kennedy Center as well. Being at rehearsals is much like being in an artist’s studio. I ing firsthand how they went about their came to know many of the leading performpractices. For the Neel portrait, Dana, my middle child, wore red leggings and a brown ers and choreographers and set designers of the time, including Natalia Makarova, jumper. Alice would never address her by Rudolf Nureyev, Erik Bruhn, and Rouben name but would call her “Little Red Legs” Ter-Arutunian. My life as a collector has ­—it used to drive Dana batty. We would go into the kitchen to get something to drink— been inspired by creative people. And by my husband, Ethan, too.

Alice was not one to That’s it, period, end put out drinks or a of sentence. bowl of snacks—and Elisabeth: Did you a cockroach or two could be seen crawling have a paying job in around. After seeing this period?

Thea: Yes, one which that, Lauren, my eldest, would refuse to leave served me very well. I her seat. Only Anthony, was hired by the then my youngest, seemed director of BloomingLawrence Weiner, STONE AFTER STONE TO FORM A BRIDGE, 1983, unfazed. [laughs] That dale’s to head up the installed in the windows of Leo Castelli Gallery on Greene Street for Weiner’s exhibition Sculpture, 1983. This work is part of the little drama aside, it was public relations departpromised gift to the Whitney a fascinating experience ment for their new store with Alice. at Tysons’ Corner, which opened in the Elisabeth: What happened to those portraits? mid-1970s. I worked very closely with the Thea: Both were donated to Brown marketing director, who was an emerging New York art collector. I have to admit we University, the school both my daughters spent almost as much time going to galleries attended.

Elisabeth: As I recall, you were very involved in New York as working on PR. During that time I became acquainted with Leo Castelli, in the performing arts for some time.

Thea: Just prior to the opening of the Ivan Karp, Paula Cooper, Ileana Sonnabend, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing and Antonio Homem, among other dealers.

Arts in 1971, I was invited to a meeting at the Leo’s generosity was remarkable. I think he was won over by my curiosity and enthusiasm. home of Deeda Blair, the wife of William McCormick Blair, who was then head of the It was all a great training ground for serious Kennedy Center with Roger Stevens. Also at collecting. Then I left Bloomingdale’s, and I

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business took over. also left my ex-husband. With the help of Elisabeth: So that would have begun a clientLivingston Biddle, at the time the head of the National Endowment for the Arts, I was adviser relationship.

Thea: For me, yes. I recall that one of my hired to work with a team of consultants to assist emerging performing and visual arts first art-collecting clients, a real estate develinstitutions. The goal was to help them oper, had bought a big residential property qualify for NEA grants. That ultimately led for his wife and himself in McLean, Virginia. to my own consultancy, which over the years He hired me to find artworks that would be came to specialize in visual art. interesting and appropriate for the property’s I also had a brief infatuation with folk expansive grounds. I called Vito Acconci, art, which coincidentally Ethan did too. who liked the challenge and wanted to create For a short time I helped John Newcomer his interpretation of a playing field, but in develop a presence for his folk art gallery spite of numerous studio visits and discusin Washington. That experience let me know sions, nothing ever materialized. Vito, whom that being a gallerist wasn’t for me. During I adore, kept telling me he was working on it. this time I got to know Skuta Long story short, maybe five years Helgason, who first prompted later—I hope I am not exaggeratmy passion for collecting ing too much—he said with that artists’ books. distinctive voice of his, “Thea, I Christine: When did you move have it now.” I had to tell him that the client had decided to build a to New York?

Thea: I moved to New York pool and tennis and basketball courts instead of Vito’s art project. permanently in 1988, at which Anyway, I was on my way to time I opened my advisory office meeting many artists, and to in SoHo. Christine: How common was it acquiring artworks for myself— Christopher Wool and Thea, Rome, 1998 I purchased a Dan Flavin “monuto found an art advisory service ment” for Vladimir Tatlin, a at that time?

Thea: Well, there weren’t many art advisers Richard Tuttle paper wall piece, a Scott in those days, but I was among the first group Burton, a Julian Schnabel plate painting, and of them in New York. As I said, my advisory a small Cy Twombly Rome painting. I was meeting people and learning from them and, service was initially geared to serving the performing arts, but I continued to be actively because I am a collector at heart, buying was an essential part of the game. Back then involved with the visual arts and spent a significant amount of time in the New York you didn’t have to demonstrate some huge art world. My passion for art was obvious to financial wherewithal; what got attention was curiosity and enthusiasm. many. And anyone who knows me knows I Elisabeth: When and how did you discover am not shy offering up my opinions, so a few people I was working with talked to me a younger generation of artists?

Thea: The big change in the 1980s was about assisting in building their collections, and eventually the fine arts part of the the development of a slew of new galleries:

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Colin de Land’s American Fine Arts, Pat Hearn, Jamie Wolf, Oliver Wasow and Karen Sylvester, Jay Gorney, Nature Morte, Clarissa Dalrymple and Nicole Klagsbrun’s Cable Gallery, Metro Pictures, Lisa Spellman’s 303 Gallery, International with Monument—I’m sure I am leaving some out. Oh yes, Feature Gallery too. Hudson, who was from Chicago, would come regularly to New York and stay with me. He was a wonderful person, and we would talk late into the night about everything we were seeing and thinking about.

called Hawaii 5-0 that had chairs on wheels.

You’d go to dinner with one group and end up rolling over to another bunch of people.

The community was small, more intimate.

It wasn’t as competitive as it’s become.

There were not that many collectors then.

Christine: Was it affordable at the time, to buy, say, a Cindy Sherman?

Thea: I’ll say. I bought my first Sherman film still for $50. I think the first Wool painting I purchased was $7,500. I remember being in Koons’s studio on Maiden Lane in

(left) Tiffany Limos, Larry Clark, Cady Noland, and Jeff Koons at Thea’s sixtieth birthday party, thrown by Ethan, at Mezzogiorno restaurant in Soho; (right) Jeff Koons, New Shelton Wet/Dry 10 Gallon, New Shelton Wet/Dry 5 Gallon, Doubledecker, 1981–87. Two vacuum cleaners, acrylic, and fluorescent lights, 82 x 28 x 28 in. (208.3 x 71.1 x 71.1 cm).

Formerly part of the couple’s collection

The then-emerging artists Christopher Wool, Cady Noland, Mike Kelley, Cindy Sherman, Sherrie Levine, Richard Prince, Bob Gober, and Jeff Koons were very much in my life, and each played a part in my ongoing art education.

Elisabeth: Was that somewhat uncommon, in that, if you were a Castelli collector, as evidently you were welcome in that gallery, was it not unusual to make the shift to the East Village?

Thea: I was curious and there was so much to see and learn that was going on in the East Village. I was following Artforum, the Village Voice, the New York Times reviews, and, most important, meeting young artists and dealers. There was a lot of hanging out. There used to be a restaurant

the very early 1980s and listening to him talk about his vacuum cleaner series, The New. He told me to pick the vacuums I liked and he would make a sculpture for me. He didn’t finish the piece until several years later, but no complaints. I paid $5,600 for it.

Christine: What curators were important to you at the time?

Thea: In my formative years, John Caldwell, first and foremost. I cannot remember how we met, but we became fast friends and talked almost daily about what we were seeing and learning, and we often visited museum and gallery shows together. He gave a few of these emerging American artists I’ve mentioned their first museum shows.

Elisabeth: So were you giving him information or was he giving you information?

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It went both ways. John was unique in his openness to new ideas. We shared many art passions, but he had his own vision and I had mine. It was through John that I became the art adviser to Norman and Norah Stone. The Stones had been trying to get into collecting contemporary art, and John called me up and said I should meet them. We’ve had a great collaborative relationship ever since. They’re remarkable collectors, very individual. John actually helped the Stones get their Joseph Beuys vitrine.

Thea:

generation of artists and donated their work to the museum.

Ethan: Exactly. Along with Jack Lane, John sort of established an approach in American collecting institutions, which is to activate the support of a select group of trustees and collectors around an upcoming show or particular artist. At that time I lived in Northern California and observed all this firsthand. I also knew and liked John, and I paid attention to his curatorial decisions.

He was one of several coincident people or Richard Prince’s Inside World (New York: Thea Westreich and Kent Fine Art, 1989)

circumstances in Thea’s life and mine before we actually came to know each other.

Elisabeth: At this time, Thea, you curated or were very connected with several gallery shows and organized some important publishing projects.

Thea: The very first thing I helped them buy was I put on an exhibition with Kent John Baldessari’s A Painting That Is Its Own Fine Art in 1989 titled Inside World. I had Documentation [1966–68]. talked about my ideas with Richard Prince, Elisabeth: As I recall it, Caldwell went from and in the end the show was as much his as my own. I hoped he would do the catalogue the Carnegie Museum of Art to the San for the exhibition, which he did. I believe Francisco Museum of Modern Art, where he that was Richard’s first major artist’s book, was a curator from 1989 to 1992. You were also titled Inside World. personally involved with the collectors, him, Then there were two shows in 1988 at and the museum, and he was really committed Lisa Spellman’s 303 Gallery in the East to this group of artists that defined that parVillage. The first, which I curated, included ticular moment. The SFMoMA collection really needed beefing up. My recollection was one work each by Dan Flavin, Yves Klein, that they turned to a group of collectors who and Christopher Wool. The other, with which I was closely involved, had a work by had money and told them what to buy, and Bob Gober, a photograph by Gober and that those works should be promised gifts to the museum. That includes the Stones and Wool, a painting by Wool, and a Jeff Koons stainless-steel pail, which predictably a few other people, who bought a whole

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the back room and asked Christopher about it. He said, “Oh, Bob Gober, you should know him.” And I called Bob and soon went to his studio.

And speaking of Wool, he and I went to many exhibitions together, including the Warhol retrospective at MoMA in 1989, which I remember very well. Walking up close to certain paintings Christopher showed me how Warhol laid down his screens. I must say my understanding of Warhol’s work and much of what I think about painting in general comes from those early experiences with Christopher.

Ethan and I are lucky because we think alike around the matter of what makes for an interesting painting practice and what doesn’t. I fed off those experiences with Wool and some other artists, and Ethan fed off his own experiences with certain artists.

And while those formative impressions have remained with us, our collecting disposition as a couple has found its own course. It has never mirrored or precisely followed the approaches of those artists who were our early influences or the choices they would likely An Installation—Robert Gober, Dan Flavin, Yves Klein, curated

by Thea, 303 Gallery, New York, 1988 or do actually make when they collect work.

Ethan: So true. A few years ago, after we sensational. I spoke with every artist almost had installed our loft with work by a young daily about their works and how they generation of artists, Christopher was over wanted them to be installed—Wool, Gober, and as we walked around the space he really Mike Kelley, Sherman, Prince, Larry Clark, didn’t seem to respond enthusiastically to and Koons. much of what he was seeing. When he got to Elisabeth: I’ll just insert here that Thea is a Merlin Carpenter painting that has the the person who first told me about Bob Gober words “I Like Chris Wool” as its image [p.

231], Christopher gave it a side glance and around 1986. I didn’t know about him said, “Now that’s a great painting!” I mean it before then.

Thea: I met Bob through Christopher was funny, but in reality Merlin is part of a Wool when he was working as an art handler genealogy that means a lot to Christopher, at Paula Cooper’s gallery. I was in her gallery while most of the rest we had installed didn’t and saw a shell piece of Bob’s on the floor in seem to affect him very much. arrived almost a week late. Also that year I curated an exhibition at Max Hetzler’s gallery in Cologne, Germany, that included Cady Noland, Sam Samore, and Karen Sylvester. I learned so much about Cady’s thinking while working on that exhibition and the one I put on in 1991 at the Santa Monica, California, gallery of Luhring Augustine Hetzler. The latter was a much bigger and more comprehensive and historically important show. The space of the gallery and quality of each of the works were

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Thea, there is a significant amount of photography in your collection; can we talk about the connection between your personal involvement with photography and the photography collectors you advised starting in the 1990s?

Thea: Yes, but first I must talk about Larry Clark, who was a huge influence and helped me understand the history of photography and what makes for a good photograph. I had heard so much about him in the mid1980s and wanted to meet him. Everyone Elisabeth:

late 1990s were very serious, and bought significant work—a lot of great vintage prints.

To deepen my firm’s knowledge in the field we built a strong library of books on photography and hosted seminars with scholars, curators, gallerists, and auction experts. We talked through a more precise application of “vintage,” a word that was pretty loosely used at that time, and we had really edifying discussions about the fugitive nature of color photography, among other issues relevant to the medium.

Installation views of Larry Clark, Robert During that time Ethan’s told me that he was not Gober, Mike Kelley, Jeff Koons, Cady Noland, attention and my own were approachable, but finally I got Richard Prince, Cindy Sherman, Christopher Wool, organized by Thea, Luhring Augustine drawn to the works of Diane his telephone number from a Hetzler, Santa Monica, California, 1991 Arbus, Robert Adams, Lee friend at Printed Matter. So I called and to my surprise and delight, Larry Friedlander, and a number of more conteminvited me to his studio. That was the begin- porary photographers, such as Larry. In our ning of a long friendship, one that I treasure. clients’ collecting and in our own, several dealers in the US and Europe were generous When we first met, Larry cajoled me into organizing the bookshelves in his studio, in sharing their extraordinary knowledge.

Ethan: We were regularly looking at photowhich were a bit of a mess. It was one of the most productive jobs because as I shelved the graphic material, much of it from the early books I’d get Larry’s take on the artists and to mid-twentieth century, and it was nothing the history of photography. That served me short of fascinating. Because of all the very well when I later advised on the impor- research Thea was doing to advise her clients tant photography collections you referenced. in this field we learned and saw more than Those photography collectors that would have been the case otherwise. And began working with my consultancy in the no doubt that edified our own collecting of

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more contemporary material.

Elisabeth: Thea, were you able to make money as an art adviser?

Thea: Yes. It was hardly a fortune, but most years it’s been a profitable business—more interesting and challenging than profitable, I’d say.

Elisabeth: How familiar were you with what was going on in Europe?

Thea: Actually, there was quite a bit of talk beginning around 1985–86 about the art world in Cologne, mostly coming from artists. I went there on my own for the first time in 1986. The dealers, especially Max Hetzler and Gisela Capitain, were receptive and open and eager to share information

about the early days in Cologne without also mentioning Christian Nagel and Rafael Jablonka and also Jutta Koether, an artist Ethan and I came to collect. I think it was a few years later that Daniel Buchholz opened a small gallery, and he and his partner, Christopher Müller, have continued to be among a handful of the most influential galleries in our collecting experience and dear friends as well.

Christine: But did you collect European artists at the time?

Thea: I bought a few small-scale things for myself but also a few major works for clients, including one of Gerhard Richter’s first 1987 abstracts.

about their programs. Gisela and I became great friends and soon published several books together, including Black Book by Christopher Wool [1989], Reconstructed History by Mike Kelley [1990], 1992 by Larry Clark [1992], and Martin Kippenberger’s Das Ende der Avandgarde [1989]. She introduced me to Martin, who became a friend and an influential presence.

On that first trip to Cologne I also went to Walther König’s bookstore, and that visit and many since have furthered my passion for books. Walther showed me his own art book collection and shared his knowledge about the world of books. I can hardly talk

We deaccessioned a few of those earlier acquisitions. As we still do, we were trying to refine our thinking and our collection, and attempting to free up funds to buy new work. By the time we got together as a couple, Richter was already fairly expensive, and though we admired certain bodies of his work, we were always greater fans of Sigmar Polke. We each saw Polke’s work in a few museum exhibitions, including his first American exhibition, curated by John Caldwell at SFMoMA. And together we saw a few of Polke’s shows in Europe in the 1990s. In 2002 or so we flew to Texas to see his show at the Dallas Museum of Art. We

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Ethan:

almost bought one of the large resin paintings he showed there. Later we did acquire a beautiful Polke painting from Gordon VeneKlasen. Polke is one of our all-time favorite artists. But his prices were getting up there too, and for us to continue to buy the work meant forgoing other collecting possibilities. So, recognizing we’d never be able to collect Polke properly, the better works in depth, we later deaccessioned that Polke in order to buy other things.

Christine: It’s important to note that—not so much the fact that you eventually sold them but rather that these artists particularly interested you at the time—because otherwise you get the impression that your interest

Gilbert & George’s first show in America, at the Baltimore Museum of Art, which Thea saw.

Elisabeth: Ethan, can we step back for a minute so you can tell us how you became interested in collecting?

Ethan: I was born and raised in New York, and I must say in those years and for some time afterward I had no real awareness of or connection to the visual arts. After graduating from college I moved to Los Angeles, in the mid-1960s, and went to work in Democratic politics, first for a lieutenant governor and a few years later for a state legislator, Alan Sieroty. Alan happened to collect art and he and his family were great

(facing page) Christopher Wool’s Black Book (New York: Thea Westreich and Gisela Capitain, 1989); (left) Mike Kelley’s Reconstructed History (New York and Cologne: Thea Westreich and Gisela Capitain, 1990)

shifted to Europe in the 2000s specifically to collect European artists.

Ethan: Yes, you’re right. Another example is Keith Tyson. Our abiding interest in Tyson’s practice and our close friendship with him began in the mid-1990s. Also around that time Gilbert & George became important to us. There are a couple of their pieces in the gift [pp. 76, 77]. We had another work of theirs, a great picture that we bought in 1995, called Winter Tongue Fuck [1982]. We donated that work years ago to the Brooklyn Museum of Art in honor of its long-time director and our dear friend, Arnold Lehman. Actually, Arnold curated

supporters of the arts. One year, in the early 1970s, as a bonus for what we had accomplished in the legislative session that year, Alan gave me a painting. I thought that was about the most exotic thing in the world, to have this big, colorful painting hanging in my own home. An original oil painting!

Elisabeth: Do you remember what it was?

Ethan: I don’t. But I got a big kick out of living with it. In the mid-1970s I cofounded a public affairs consulting firm, with offices in Los Angeles, Sacramento, and eventually New York. We were one of the first firms to practice public policy–issue advertising. A few years later, with two partners, I started

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in Washington, DC, so I was there frequently.

When I had free time I’d walk over to the National Gallery. I’d spin in those rooms— Cézanne, Seurat, Van Gogh. I was so captivated by everything around me. So, by the early 1980s, I was quite smitten with art.

Around this time, I think 1984, my former wife and I traveled to Paris on holiday and saw La rime et la raison, the exhibition of Dominique and John de Menil’s collection at the Grand Palais. That show had an enormous impact on me, more than any other private art collection I’ve ever seen. The de Menils’ sensibility, their individuality, their range of interests, and their exquisite taste— it was just amazing. To this day I consider them the greatest American collectors. To me, they set the bar. Also during those years I was often in Los Angeles on business, so I was regularly able to visit the Temporary Contemporary, which was such a great place to see art in those years.

Christine: When is this?

Ethan: Mid-1980s. Somewhere in that period of time I began collecting ceramics, purchased mostly from the Garth Clark Gallery in Los Angeles.

Elisabeth: It was an outstanding gallery of ceramic art.

Ethan: I formed a bit of a ceramics collecGilbert & George, Winter Tongue Fuck, 1982. Mixed media, 95 x 79 in. (241.3 x 200.7 cm) overall. Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York; tion—nonfunctional objects, more than bowls gift of Thea Westreich and Ethan Wagner and such. I think the most important work Elisabeth: Could you give us the approxiI owned then was a larger-than-life-size figurative sculpture by Viola Frey, which I mate years you’re talking about?

Ethan: I would say that my consultancy installed in a side yard looking over our koi really got going in the late 1970s, and it was pond. In collecting ceramics or clay objects I developed an appreciation for craftsmanship in the early 1980s when I began to spend time in art museums. One of my most forma- and the tactile quality of things.

Anyway, a couple of years later, I became tive experiences was seeing the collection of Impressionist and post-Impressionist art in excited about the work of outsider artists, the National Gallery of Art. We had a client self-taught artists. I distinctly remember, on another consulting firm that managed statewide ballot measure election campaigns.

Before long my businesses were doing quite well and I had a fair amount of disposable income. It wasn’t a fortune, but it was a lot more than I would have had had I remained on the staff of the state legislature, even in the top staff position I formerly held. In other words, I had some money to spend on art.

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a business trip to New Orleans, coming upon the drawings of Bill Traylor, which were a revelation to me. The best of the eventual group of his drawings that I put together was one called Untitled (Orange Horse) [c. 1939–42], which Thea and I later gave to MoMA. I also collected works by a number of other artists from the American South— J. B. Murray, the Reverend Howard Finster, and Jimmy Lee Sudduth, among others.

Another specific interest was the Philadelphia Wireman. Over time, I must have bought a couple of dozen of his pieces from dealers in San Francisco and New York.

Thea and I later gave most of them to the American Folk Art Museum.

Elisabeth: Outsider art is hugely important again.

Ethan: Yes, and deservedly so. The best of it has a nice spirit, a sincerity and honesty that can be very compelling and moving.

But as a genre, if you will, it’s mostly disconnected from contemporary culture, from the “now.” And the “now,” our time, was increasingly important in the way I was responding to art. So after a few years my interest in outsider art began to wane.

My children, Deborah and her husband, Joe, and Ronald and his wife, Karol, still have some of those early acquisitions, among many works of contemporary art that Thea and I have happily given them over the years.

We’ve also given contemporary artworks to Thea’s daughters—our daughters—Lauren and her husband, Bob, and Dana, who has gone on to build her own very fine contemporary art collection. This art gifting is kind of a family Christmas tradition.

Christine: Ethan, earlier you briefly mentioned your involvement with John Caldwell and SFMoMA. When was this?

In the mid-1980s, I took an apartment in San Francisco, mostly because it had a more vibrant art scene than Sacramento, which isn’t saying much. I spent my weekends in San Francisco looking at contemporary art, though I also found that wanting before long. I became involved with SFMoMA, and particularly with an associate organization that once a month, on Saturdays, would visit artists’ studios. Most of those studio visits were a bore, but one Saturday in 1987 or thereabouts I met an artist named David Dashiell and I was immediately struck by his Ethan:

Bill Traylor, Untitled (Orange Horse), c. 1939–42. Gouache and graphite on cardboard, 11 x 15 in. (28 x 38 cm). Museum of Modern Art, New York; gift of Thea Westreich and Ethan Wagner

work. I hung behind the rest of the group after they left his studio to talk with him further. David and I became good friends, and in 1989 I published a book with him. Had he not died of AIDS at about the age of forty, I believe he would’ve gone on to be a major artist. Before he passed away I introduced Thea to David on a trip to San Francisco, and she too admired his work.

Around then I also became personally close to two other artists whose work I admired and avidly collected, Allan Graham, who lived in New Mexico, and Jacques Flechemuller, who lived in New York.

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I published artist’s books with each and learned a lot about art making from both. My inclination to understand as much as I can about art that I find interesting, especially the artist’s intentions and creative impulses, is, as we’ve said, an approach Thea and I share. It’s a great thing to share in a marriage.

It’s certainly provided wonderful experiences and enriched our cultural knowledge.

Elisabeth: Were you still running your businesses at this point?

Ethan: Sure. Most weeks of the year I was on a plane, heading to one client meeting or another around the country, or to Los Angeles as our main office was there. My consulting business was interesting, chal-

way she related to art. You could sense a deep connection just by watching her. I observed the same with Paula Cooper.

Around this time, as Thea mentioned, the East Village was happening. I remember walking those streets, which were quite desolate in winter. I was trying to work through in my mind the significance of the graffiti artists and other artists that were receiving a lot of attention, for instance Meyer Vaisman and Peter Halley. I heard people talking about Jeff Koons, but at first I didn’t get it.

Then one day, quite unexpectedly, I saw a driver open the back of his moving van and in it were a few of Jeff’s sculptures strapped down but more or less visible. I was just

standing on the street and I lenging, creative work. But (left to right) The three artists’ books published by Ethan: David Cannon looked at them and thought, learning about contemporary Dashiell’s Invert, Oracle (1989); Flechemuller: Paintings 1983–1987 “Oh yeah!” [laughs] I just art and, thinking back to how (1987); and Allan Graham’s Visual Eyes: happened to respond to the excited I was about it, collecting Translations from Toadhouse (1991) work in that moment. It was had become as compelling as quite serendipitous. my professional work, maybe more so.

Christine: Was it this feeling of distance By the mid-1980s, my firm had opened an office on Park Avenue, and I was in New that prevented you from collecting those York for about a week every month or two. I artists at the time?

Ethan: No, it was more that I wasn’t so spent much of my free time in museums and galleries. Leo Castelli and Ileana Sonnabend’s sure of myself and what I was willing to galleries on West Broadway were always spend money on.

Christine: But did you have a desire to collect noteworthy though intimidating stops. I was very admiring of Ileana Sonnabend and the these objects?

Interview / 30

Oh, I definitely possessed the acquisitive gene. As a child I collected postage stamps and baseball cards and tropical fish, and later in my first marriage, as I said, some folk art—if I can call any of that collecting. But locating and then committing to the contemporary art I liked was something I had to work through.

One of my regular stops in the East Village was José Freire’s gallery, Fiction/ Nonfiction. It was hardly one of the hottest galleries in the East Village, but, in line with what you’re asking, in those days I liked being a little off the beaten track, to find my own way. I bought a couple of José’s artists, particularly the work of Andrew Masullo.

I was very affected by those small-scale paintings of his. I learned an important lesson at that time, which is that collecting can be very competitive. Thomas Ammann, a well-known dealer/collector from Zurich, was also collecting Masullo’s work. When I discovered that Ammann had given the artist a work by Joseph Cornell as a gift, I knew that I wasn’t getting the first choice of Andrew Masullo’s paintings—Ammann was. It annoyed me for sure, but also motivated me.

Ethan:

Several Masullo paintings are in the gift to the Whitney, I’m glad to say.

What else were you interested in at that time?

Ethan: By the late 1980s my collecting became more confident and focused. I bought a work from Sophie Calle’s “Blind” series, a couple of small sculptures by Richard Nonas, a painting by Ian Wallace, three works on paper by Rosemarie Trockel, several sculptures by Susana Solano, and also works by Richard Pettibone, Polly Apfelbaum, Rona Pondick, and Alfredo Jaar.

I saw a show of Christopher Wool’s word paintings at Luhring, Augustine & Hodes on Fifty-Seventh Street in 1988. Regrettably, I didn’t buy anything from that show, even though I was very impressed and moved by the work. The irony, of course, is that Thea was very close to Christopher and already owned a lot of his work. Strangely enough, when we first started dating, at least for the first few months, Thea and I didn’t speak much about the art we each owned.

Friedrich Petzel was working for Thea then and he did a little selling on the side. I bought a beautiful Wool monoprint from him, and one of Mike Kelley’s blanket/toy animal pieces.

Elisabeth:

Mike Kelley, Arena #7 (Bears), 1990.

Found stuffed animals, wood, and blanket, 11 1/2 x 53 x 49 in. (29.2 x 134.6 x 124.5 cm).

Formerly part of the couple’s collection

Interview / 31

Plates—Part 1: 1980s The following pages present a selection of work acquired in the 1980s that includes work by the following artists: Richard Artschwager, Dan Flavin, Jacques Flechemuller, Robert Gober, Jenny Holzer, John Dogg, Jeff Koons, Zoe Leonard, Sherrie Levine, Andrew Masullo, Peter Nagy, Bruce Nauman, Joyce Pensato, Richard Prince, David Robbins, Cindy Sherman, James Welling, David Wojnarowicz, and Christopher Wool

Dan Flavin “monument” for V. Tatlin, 1969 Cool white fluorescent light, 96 x 32 x 4 3/8 in.

(243.8 x 81.3 x 11.1 cm) overall

Works: 1980s / 33

Robert Gober and Christopher Wool Untitled, 1988 Gelatin silver print, 13 1/4 x 10 5/16 in. (33.7 x 26.2 cm) Robert Gober Untitled, 1988 Acrylic and ink on cotton, 12 x 12 1/2 in.

(30.5 x 31.8 cm) (facing page) The Ascending Sink, 1985 Plaster, wood, wire lath, steel, and enamel, two parts: 92 x 38 x 27 in. (233.7 x 96.5 x 68.6 cm) overall

1980s / 34

Jeff Koons Luxury and Degradation, 1986 (details) Three photolithographs, 23 7/8 x 31 7/8 in. (60.6 x 81 cm) or 31 7/8 x 23 7/8 (81 x 60.6 cm) each

1980s / 36

Jeff Koons Come Through with Taste—Myers’s Dark Rum—Quote Newsweek, 1986 Oil inks on canvas, 46 1/4 x 61 3/4 in. (117.5 x 156.8 cm)

1980s / 37

Bruce Nauman Good Boy Bad Boy, 1985 Two-channel video installation, color, sound; 60 min. and 52 min., looped; two monitors; and two video players

1980s / 38

Bruce Nauman Normal Desires, 1985 Watercolor and graphite pencil on paper, 17 1/8 x 28 3/8 in.

(43.5 x 72.1 cm)

1980s / 39

Peter Nagy Entertainment Erases History, 1983 (printed 1986) Laminated photocopy with grommets, 24 3/8 x 40 3/16 in. (61.9 x 102.1 cm)

1980s / 41

Jenny Holzer Untitled with Selections from Truisms (Abuse of power comes . . .), 1987 Danby Royal marble, 17 x 54 x 25 in.

(43.2 x 137.2 x 63.5 cm) overall

Works: 1980s / 42

Richard Artschwager Chandelier I, 1976 Acrylic on Celotex, with metal frame, 37 3/4 x 35 1/2 in. (95.9 x 90.2 cm)

1980s / 43

Jeff Koons Dr. Dunkenstein, 1985 Framed Nike poster, 45 1/2 x 31 1/2 in. (115.6 x 80 cm)

1980s / 44

James Welling Untitled (XLVIII), 1988 Internal dye diffusion transfer print (Polaroid), 23 7/8 x 19 11/16 in. (60.6 x 50 cm)

1980s / 45

Richard Prince Nancy to Her Girlfriend, 1988 Acrylic and screenprint on canvas, 56 1/16 x 96 in. (142.4 x 243.8 cm)

1980s / 47

Richard Prince Untitled “Criminals & Celebrities” (Gang), 1986 Chromogenic print, with ink, 13 3/4 x 10 3/4 in. (34.9 x 27.3 cm)

Richard Prince Untitled “Cowboy Girlfriend” (Gang), 1988 Chromogenic print, with ink, 13 3/4 x 10 3/4 in. (34.9 x 27.3 cm)

1980s / 48

Richard Prince Untitled (Cowboy), 1980–84 Chromogenic print, 43 5/8 x 29 3/8 in. (110.8 x 74.6 cm)

1980s / 49

Richard Prince Untitled (Joke: I went to see a psychiatrist . . .), 1987 Acrylic and graphite pencil on canvas, 24 x 18 in. (61 x 45.7 cm)

1980s / 50

Joyce Pensato Reclining Glove, 1983 Charcoal on paper, 21 7/8 x 22 3/16 in. (55.6 x 56.4 cm)

1980s / 51

John Dogg Ulysses (Dogg), 1987 Stainless-steel tire ring, engraved faceplate, automobile tire, and rim, 28 x 28 x 8 1/2 in.

(71.1 x 71.1 x 21.6 cm)

1980s / 52

John Dogg Untitled (tire tread), 1987 Fiber-tipped pen on paper and fiber-tipped pen and ballpoint pen on paper, 11 5/8 x 8 11/16 in.

(29.5 x 22.2 cm) each

1980s / 53

Cindy Sherman Untitled Film Still #14, 1978 Gelatin silver print, 9 7/16 x 7 1/2 in. (24 x 19.1 cm)

(facing page) Untitled Film Still #9, 1978 Gelatin silver print, 7 1/2 x 9 7/16 in. (19.1 x 24 cm)

Untitled Film Still #27, 1979 Gelatin silver print, 9 1/2 x 6 11/16 in. (24.1 x 17 cm)

Untitled Film Still #23, 1978 Gelatin silver print, 7 1/2 x 9 7/16 in. (19.1 x 24 cm) Untitled Film Still #45, 1979 Gelatin silver print, 6 1/2 x 9 1/2 in. (16.5 x 24.1 cm)

1980s / 54

Zoe Leonard Untitled (Grass), 1986 Gelatin silver print, 19 9/16 x 29 1/8 in. (49.7 x 74 cm)

1980s / 56

David Wojnarowicz Untitled, 1989 Gelatin silver print, 14 1/8 x 18 5/16 in. (35.9 x 46.5 cm)

1980s / 57

Andrew Masullo 1667, 1988 Oil on wood, 18 1/16 x 14 1/2 in. (45.9 x 36.8 cm)

1918, 1988 Oil on found painted wood, 17 7/8 x 15 1/16 in.

(45.4 x 38.3 cm)

1980s / 58

1904, 1988 Oil and collaged paper on canvas, with wood frame, 23 x 23 in. (58.4 x 58.4 cm)

Jacques Flechemuller Flat, 1985 Acrylic and pastel on paper mounted on canvas, 60 x 42 1/2 in. (152.4 x 108 cm)

1980s / 59

Sherrie Levine After Joan Miro, 1985 Watercolor, graphite pencil, and opaque watercolor on paper, 13 7/8 x 10 7/8 in. (35.2 x 27.6 cm) After Kasimir Malevich, 1985 Watercolor and graphite pencil on paper, 13 11/16 x 10 11/16 in.

(34.8 x 27.1 cm) After Stuart Davis, 1984 Watercolor, opaque watercolor, pen and ink, and graphite pencil on paper, 13 7/8 x 10 15/16 in. (35.2 x 27.8 cm)

Christopher Wool Static, 1987 Enamel on aluminum, 72 x 48 in. (182.9 x 121.9 cm)

1980s / 61

David Robbins Talent, 1986 Eighteen gelatin silver prints, 10 x 8 in. (25.4 x 20.3 cm) or 8 x 10 in. (20.3 x 25.4 cm) each

1980s / 63

Jenny Holzer Untitled with Selection from The Living Series (You should limit the number of times . . .), 1980–82 Bronze, 7 5/16 x 10 1/4 x 1/4 in. (20.2 x 25.4 x 0.6 cm) overall “Affluent college . . .” , 1985, from The Living Series Bronze, 7 1/2 x 9 15/16 x 1/4 in. (19.1 x 25.2 x 0.6 cm) overall

1980s / 64