Or: The dinner that requires a speech.

I have been collecting contemporary art now for almost five months. Which seems to be reason enough to ask me to hold a dinner speech about it at the first Independent Collectors dinner. Fearing that some of the guests will tap into the blog, I will not let out too much.

Just to keep everyone comfortable: No powerpoint. No slide projector. No equipment. Just a few words really. And this:

For everybody who can’t attend the dinner in Berlin, I’ll prepare a small video of the speech in english, in case you’re interested. I will post it sometime next week when I’m back from art forum Berlin. I’ll be packing my things now, try to grab a few hours of sleep, the hop a plane and off to another art fair.

Enjoy the art fair season!

Or: Once you start it, you can’t stop it.

I know it’s a local thing but since the exhibition “Flutung” by Luka Fineisen at the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart (link) has been recommended to me heavily by a fellow collector over at Independent Collectors and since my colleague here tells me that both the programme “Frischzelle” and the openings at the Kunstmuseum are good, I will spend an unusal Friday evening in Stuttgart. To see the thing and maybe talk to the artist, if I get a chance to do that.

Meanwhile, I had a look at the “Hacking Ikea” blast over at Platform 21, Eindhoven. (link) And I wonder whether to regard (at least some of) it as art or not. I have the same thoughts about an ad campaign by Leo Burnett India Mumbai, namely the one that one a Gold Lion for their Luxor campaign.

What you can’t see is that the three pages contain a biography of the respective person. You can read it top to bottom or you can read only the highlighted text. Both make perfect sense are are well written. Since these probably do not exist as shown (my questions by e-mail not have not been answered as I write this), I’m inclined to not call it art.

This follows a discussion I had and continue to have with Christian Schwarm, as to where to draw the line between art and advertising. No, we are not sitting there, discussing the nature of art. Who would want to do that? It’s more a matter of determining whether the context of a certain collection can justify the presence of items usually not regarded as art. The cover of FAZ for example, as seen in Schürmann’s “The Hole Collection” (link) makes perfect sense in that collection. This would mean that by consciously shaping a collection, the collector gains the freedom of including anything he or she likes.

Which in turn means that as an inexperienced collector you can find out what your collection will be even without spending a lot of money on art by famous artists. And of course you could argue that as a collector you can do what you want, anyway.

Still, I have to admit that I personally sometimes think more about what experienced collectors would think of my collection than about whether I want to live with something or not. I’m a newbie after all, trying to figure out the difference between unjustified intimidation by the market and justified doubt, between excitement caused by artistic quality and excitement caused by pure taste. And whether there is a difference at all.

Maybe I should think less and look at art more. Which is probably the only sane statement in this whole post.

Or: Art & Customs & Moving House.

I know, I promised a nice blog post about my wife nearly getting arrested at customs. Well, she went to collect an item that was marked “gift” on the collecting sheet. How was she to know it would be an artwork I bought in the USA and that therefore wasn’t a gift at all? And how was she to know that the artwork contained a design of Adolf Hitler and a Swastika, which is a forbidden symbol in Germany? (Here is a link to the artwork by Frank Kozik I’m talking about.)

Well. The swastika issue came up when she had to unpack the “gift” for the officer to inspect. The first thing to be seen really is the name “Adolf” and a swastika. The man looked not amused. It was quickly resolved when the certificate of the print being a “piece of art” came out, too. Which was marked with a “thank you for your order” sticker. Which in turn raised the “gift vs. non-gift” issue. “You said it was a gift! You can be arrested for that! Five years of prison …” A  phone call to me and me faxing the paypal certificate solved that one. My wife’s dry remark to the customs officer: “He probably didn’t tell me beforehand this was coming, because he knows pretty well that I do not approve of him buying that sort of stuff. He was afraid I’d give him the trouble he deserves.” Which kind of made him smile again, she said.

Yes, my wife had a right to be pissed off. And she was. Slightly. And why does she still like me? (This is not the first time I did something other people would have been pissed off or at least irritated by.) Maybe because I my collecting art generates material she can talk about whenever the conversation with her colleagues shifts towards illnesses of the body, astrology, children or ruined relationships … or a combination thereof.

Moving house is another business all together. I did so last week and I still am. The “moving” itself was fast but the setting up takes time. I still have some painting and woodwork left to do. Both of which is messy stuff and so I have to keep my art boxed. Not a pretty sight, I tell you! I can’t wait for it to invade my walls … maybe another week or so …