Courting Collectors
Isabel Andrews, Tuesday, 10th June 2008
A recent article in the Art Newspaper in the wake of Art Basel reported on the growing trend of private collectors buying with the intent of establishing their own museums. Among the examples are film director Claude Berri who has recently opened a space in Paris for his contemporary art collection; Christian Boros who this month opened a Berlin gallery; and industrial heir Udo Brandhurst who is due to open a museum later this year in Munich.
While the growing wave of collectors setting up public spaces is undoubtedly good news for dealers and artists seeking prestigious exposure, I wonder how much of an impact this will have on public museums that are largely reliant on gifts and bequests from private collectors? In an article in The Guardian last year the director of the Henry Moore Foundation, Richard Calvocoressi, argued that relations between museums and private collectors have become problematic because museums are not necessarily able to put gifts or bequests on permanent display or name a gallery after a donor. Nor might they want to be seen to ‘glorify privilege and affluence’. I’m unsure how much of a factor this might be in alienating potential donors as presumably museum curators are well-versed in tackling these sort of expectations in the process of developing links with collectors. But given the acquisitions funding crisis cited by so many UK museums – an Art Fund report last year stated only 2% of museums viewed collecting as a higher priority than government-imposed objectives – it seems to me that the issue of prestige is the best hand that public museums are left to play when looking to acquire. As Cindy Rachofsky – who with her husband has pledged around 600 works to the Dallas Museum of Art – was reported as saying at Art Basel, ‘If you have pledged it to a museum, you are higher up on the pecking order.’
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