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  • FT: Behind the scenes in private museums

    Behind the scenes in private museums

    By Lucinda Bredin

    Published: November 26 2010 22:03 | Last updated: November 26 2010 22:03

    `Guilty', the yacht of Greek-Cypriot industrialist Dakis Joannou that
    houses his art museum, the cladding of which is painted by Jeff Koons

    In the mid-1990s, I was given an assignment by Vogue to write about
    going shopping with a well-groomed Turinese woman, Patrizia Re
    Rebaudengo. But instead of Bond Street, the black cab wove around east
    London - Hoxton, Shoreditch, Deptford and some netherland now probably
    underneath the Olympic stadium. Re Rebaudengo was not buying clothes,
    but she was bang on trend: she was acquiring art. And once she started
    buying works - some of which were the price of a small house - she
    didn't stop. The big question was: where she would put it all? The
    answer arrived five years later in the form of a long 1,500 sq metre
    building in an industrial suburb of her home town, designed by Claudio
    Silvestrin. This was the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo.

    Re Rebaudengo was part of the zeitgeist. In the past 15 years, there
    has been a proliferation of private museums and galleries that house
    the collections of the rich. Just a few notable examples are the
    Ronald Lauder's Neue Galerie, in a townhouse in Upper East Side,
    Manhattan; the Rubell Family Collection in a former customs house in
    Miami; and François Pinault's showcases in Venice - the Palazzo Grassi
    on the Grand Canal and the Punte della Dogana - unveiled at the 2009
    Biennale. Dakis Joannou, the Greek-Cypriot industrialist, has gone
    further, fusing symbols of extreme wealth: his art museum is housed on
    a yacht (named `Guilty'), which is arguably a work of art in itself,
    as the cladding is painted by Jeff Koons.

    The recession and talk of swingeing cuts has hardly made a dent in the
    schedule of new openings. In August, US west coast-based billionaire
    Eli Broad announced that Diller Scofidio + Renfro are designing a
    $100m building in Los Angeles, across the road from the Museum of
    Contemporary Art, to house the Broad Collection. This was trumped in
    September by the Mexican telecom king, Carlos Slim (the richest man in
    the world), when he unveiled his plans to build a 150ft-high aluminium
    structure in Mexico City designed by his son-in-law, Fernando Romero.
    It will have five storeys of exhibition space to show a small
    proportion of his 66,000-strong collection.

    Of course, showing off your collection is nothing new. What is
    generally considered to be one of the world's first museums opened
    circa 1628 in Kennington, London, where John Tradescant would take
    visitors around his collection of curiosities gathered from his
    travels. Tradescant charged sixpence, but since then the motives for
    opening private museums have not tended to revolve around money but
    rather to establish one's intellectual and aesthetic discrimination.
    In the 1560s, Albrecht V of Bavaria created his celebrated Kunstkammer
    to flaunt his collection and lord it over other European princes.
    Buoyed by new world riches, the Whitneys, Fricks, the Guggenheims and
    the Rockefellers cemented their position as America's cultural
    dynasties by funding museums. Indeed, state-funded institutions were
    the late arrivals at the party - and many of those were based on
    private initiatives. The founding collection of London's National
    Gallery, for instance, belonged to the banker John Julius Angerstein.

    But although the private museum model has been well-established, it
    doesn't account for the sheer number of museums that have opened in
    the past 15 years. In Germany, for example, it is estimated that more
    than a dozen museums have opened since 1995. Understandably, directors
    of major state institutions have mixed feelings about this trend. Rich
    collectors were once content to channel their patronage into galleries
    and museums in return for their name writ large: Robert Lehman, for
    example, bequeathed his collection to the Metropolitan in 1969 and in
    return, the museum built a private wing for it. But Lehman had enough
    clout to ensure that his collection would be displayed together and
    constantly on public view. Since then, few other collectors have been
    able to dictate these terms.

    The collector and philanthropist Eli Broad

    Even fabled collections have slipped through the public sector's
    fingertips. As long ago as the 1940s the Armenian oil magnate,
    Calouste Gulbenkian, tried to donate his ensemble of Old Masters and
    antiquities to the National Gallery. However he found only suspicion
    when he suggested a private annexe, and negotiations collapsed.
    Gallery papers released a few years ago show there was a prevailing
    distaste for Gulbenkian - regarded as a `slippery benefactor' who was
    undoubtedly trying to leverage an advantageous tax deal - and his
    collection, which was snobbishly regarded as lacking in
    connoisseurship. Eventually Gulbenkian's son, Nubar, custom-built a
    museum for it in Lisbon.

    Today, many private museums are built to make sure the works remain on
    display. Anna Somers Cocks, the founder editor of The Art Newspaper,
    traces the rise to the 1990s contemporary art market boom. `During the
    ascending, speculative market, people put their money into art and
    began to buy more than they could house. They could, of course, leave
    it in storage, but then they wouldn't have the fun. There is a big
    club of rich collectors with foundations who go to each other's
    events, meet at the fairs and feel they are doing a bit of good.'
    Displaying works could also enhance their value. `It isn't necessarily
    that people want to advertise their collection in order to sell the
    works later,' says Somers Cocks, `but that can't be a million miles
    away from people's consideration.'

    It's unlikely that Eli Broad or any of the other collectors I talked
    to would agree with the idea. Many have a policy of never selling
    work. However, when I asked Broad why he was building a separate
    museum for his collection when Lacma (the Los Angeles County Museum of
    Art) had already built a wing designed by Renzo Piano, no less, he
    said that while the correct storage of the archive was a
    consideration: `The space in Santa Monica was woefully inadequate and
    we wanted everything together.' If he had given his collection to a
    prestigious institution such as the MoMa in New York, `95 per cent
    would be in the basement. I want the work to be seen.'

    This is the mantra of all collectors with private museums and
    `spaces'. Anita Zabludowicz and her Finnish husband Poju opened 176 to
    show their collection in a converted chapel in north London three
    years ago because of `storage issues' - and, because, as Anita says,
    once you've bought the art, `it's not fair to young artists to have
    their work hidden away.' Zabludowicz does admit that at first
    attendances were disappointing, `but three years on, we now have quite
    a following. I think we have found a niche.' To tie in with Frieze,
    176 has a show by Toby Ziegler, steel shapes based on existing
    sculptures that have been abstracted by a computer programme and then
    rendered in three dimensions. By the admission of the collection's
    curator, Elizabeth Neilson, it `is not easy work. Anita saw his pieces
    five years ago and bought it as a message of support, which is in
    keeping with the philanthrophic outlook to the collection.' The works
    are also large. The somewhat drastic solution to keep them on show is
    to build a special `art barn' for them on the island that the
    Zabludowiczs own in Finland.

    Like the Zabludowiczs, many owners of private museums/spaces see
    themselves as in a position to fill a gap in arts provision. Dasha
    Zhukova, for example, says that she opened The Garage in Moscow
    because `there was really no space in Moscow where you could see the
    best modern and contemporary art from around the world alongside work
    by leading Russian artists'. Her vision was to import the idea of
    looking at art as a lifestyle choice. `I saw the building [the former
    Bakhmetevsky Bus Garage, designed in 1926 by Konstantin Melnikov] and
    I fell in love with it. I wanted to make it into a place where people
    would come to look at art, buy books in the bookshop, see a film or
    attend an event and just hang out.'

    Patrizia Re Rebaudengo also feels she is filling a gap. When I caught
    up with her 15 years later, she said she had moved on from showing her
    collection at the Foundation. These days, she says, other museums ask
    to show it. She was channelling her efforts into outreach projects.
    This, she says, is especially needed as the Italian government has
    historically paid little attention to contemporary art.

    Not surprisingly, museum directors are reticent about commenting on
    private institutions. Who wants to fall out with potential
    benefactors? Some collectors such as Frank Cohen, the Mancunian DIY
    king, who has a private space, Initial Access, in Wolverhampton,
    actively want to collaborate with museums. `Let's face it,' he says,
    `I've got the funds and the art - and they've got the audience. When I
    loaned my collection to Manchester Art gallery, 77,000 visitors saw
    it. It was great.' Off the record, though, some museum and gallery
    heads have voiced their concerns about what will happen to private
    museums after the founding collector has died. Charles Saatchi tried
    to pre-empt the problem by offering parts of his collection to the
    nation in advance but after an enthusiastic welcome, the details of
    the bequest are yet to be hammered out. Because it is not just a hefty
    endowment that is needed, it is energy, commitment and passion. Both
    Zabludowicz and Re Rebaudengo said it was a full-time job.
    `Ultimately,' said Anna Somers Cocks, `I don't know whether this
    phenomenon is going to last.'

    Lucinda Bredin is arts editor of The Week and editor of Bonhams Magazine

    http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/b1309d24-f823-11df-8875-00144feab49a.html#axzz17G7h9qJ1




    From: A. Papazian
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