“Pleased to meet you … ” is a series of conversations I have with other collectors and members of Independent Collectors. These conversations happen via e-mail, skype, phone or in real life and will therefore be a bit different each time. A new conversation will be published every month.

The first conversation was conducted by e-mail with Christian Pfaff from Hamburg, who has spent over 86% of his life as a collector already … and he is just 44 years old at the time of writing!

“To administrate an addiction is not a style.”


Hallo Herr Pfaff, where are you right now?

At the moment I’m sitting on a roof terrace in Kathmandu, Nepal, thinking about my soon ending six months time-out and the return to Hamburg. Every 5 or 6 six years my wife and me use a time of a half year minimum just to recharge and enjoy.

This sounds like a good plan. Has anything shown up on your “art radar” in the places you’ve visited this time? In contrast to your usual dwelling place Hamburg?

Since my travel brought me from Canada and Alaska to Nepal and Thailand, I had the opportunity to meet some artists and visit galleries. I accidentally found a very interesting gallery in Ottawa, Canada, called “Le Petit Mort” (→ link) which is showing contemporary local works not specified in any media. The owner Guy Berube does a fine job bringing an exotic variety of artists together. However, I liked the paperworks of the young upcoming Ottawa artist Graham Robinson who creates lots of his sculptural artworks with cardboard. I bought three of his recent works.

“I don’t buy shares from a soccer club, I’m in for the games!”

I’d be scared to have the works sent to me by mail from Canada. In fact, I even worry when they’re shipped within Germany… aren’t you afraid something could happen to them?

I travel as often as it is possible and of course I’m always looking for art related places and buy art there. Shipping this works sometimes can be really funny and most ends up at the main customs office in Hamburg. I recall receiving a big work on canvas from Asia without receipt. The officers were more interested in the old movie posters I had put in the package to stuff the thing. I’m still waiting for the fragile cardboard works from Canada. So far no sign that they’ve reached anywhere. I’ll pray for a while.

While we keep our fingers crossed that they will arrive unharmed, could you tell us about your style of collecting: Charles Saatchi or Ronnie Biggs?

My style of collecting isn’t either methodical or going for the big catch. Coming from a family with creatively gifted but also neurotic personalities, art always was part of my daily life. My aunts collected reliquaries from catholic saints or created costumes. One even studied with Wilhelm Baumeister. My cousins faked antique furniture or made stamps from little newspaper classified ads. One family member ended up in jail for the forgery of train tickets in the post WW2-time. It’s no wonder that I started collecting art (and doing art by myself) very early. But my access to the art world is a very direct one: I collect what I like. I don’t care for big names or the show. I appreciate the whole picture, meaning I like to meet the artist, I like to know more about his works, his opinions and about him- or herself. Investment and stockbrokership is definitely not my cup of tea. It never was. And even now with a nice little collection the thrill doesn’t come from the gain of worth of the one or the other piece, but the story every picture tells. Back to the question: I was never a strategic collector in the way Saatchi did it. This way of administrating an addiction is not my style. The Biggs Thing – preparing for the one and only chance – is neither my approach. Why wait for only one artist or even one work?

“Does the work evoke feelings, does the artist? That’s what we are talking about.”

Since you mention thrill, I just cut in here quickly, if I may. The thrill in collecting, how much of it is coming from the nightly walks you take around town, when you are armed with … well, what are you armed with? I heard some interesting stories about that from you in Berlin a while back.

The thrill about collecting is not about buying, even if i must confess that it gives me sometimes a kick to see the red dot. I like good concepts, interesting ideas, craftsmanship and most important a authentic attitude from the artist or the work. I like humor in this sometimes so bureaucratic and stiff intellectual scene. Off course there’s also a „hunting part“. Walk through studios, art spaces – looking for a good catch, looking for an eye-opener or even for a good laugh. I appreciate that very much. Since i’m also in interested in the off-side like street-arts i sometimes stroll at night through the streets looking for the newest, coolest stickers, tiles, tags and whatever – try to scratch, cut or peel them of or find out what the next big thing of 56K or other guerrilla artists is. I can remember doing it by myself ages ago, so it’s both, fun and thrill…

You seem to rather not talk about the saw (or do I just think you mentioned a saw?), so let’s talk about some of your favorite artists from your collection… name three:

4000 (Thomas Egeler), Hamburg, Germany – unbelievable
Christian Junghanns, Hannover, Germany – my pop art revolutionary
Andy Warhol, still – I love the shoe drawings he did in the NY Times


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… PART 2 can be found in the Independent Collectors discussion forum, where you’ll find out why Pfaff is collecting “4000″ instead of Jonathan Meese, how the glamorous part of the art world compares to his own, what the question was that I haven’t asked him, and some more.

Click to read more: → IC Discussion Forum

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And since I don’t want to leave you with such a stub, here is PART 3 of the interview …

Talking about personal and emotional attachment to artworks … Imagine your house is on fire and you can rescue just one piece from your collection. Which one and why?

The question which piece of art I would rescue from my collection in case of the big fire somehow reminds me of that long unnerving trial I had to undergo to be allowed to do the social service instead of the military duty: “Would you shoot a terrorist who’s trying to kill all kids in a kinder garden?”. Usually it’s not about the final answer but about the way you got to it … It’s really hard to decide: the Picasso or the first drawing of my son? More than about every single artwork I think about my diverse collection as a whole. Still, there’s one work I really appreciated for the last twenty years or so. It is a small still life by 4000. That little piece of shitty wood was just perfectly right at the time it was painted. It shows simple things: a bottle, an apple,a table, a small book, no more no less – acrylic, black and white. The splintered piece was given to me by the artist in a melodramatic situation at an early grey Hamburg morning after a furious opening. It’s an artwork perfectly made for me. I changed the hangings in my house constantly for the last decades. The still life stayed.

I could keep this going but I have been intruding in your holiday long enough … to finish off, do you have a question for the next collector?

If your house is on fire and you’ve rescued all the pictures, which one would you put back in the fire because you don’t like it but would want to have the insurance pay for it?


This is a great question!Thank you Christian for your time, your stories and your pictures!


Feel free to comment on this conversation in the comments or the discussion forum at Independent Collectors. Throw in some more questions, I will forward them to Christian every once in a while, if he doesn’t read and answer them automatically.

Picture credits: lottegandaki

This entry was posted on Monday, November 30th, 2009 at 11:23 am and is filed under Pleased to meet you ....