From the Michael Reid Archives: ‘Collecting Art’ 2011
“Collecting art is an art in itself, focused on telling a story and tapping into the world we live in … “, starts Michael Reid in the Autumn/Winter 2011 issue of Vogue Living. For this inaugural From the Archives edition, we revisit Michael’s piece—published nearly 15 years ago—and discover that his insights resonate just as profoundly with today’s collecting rationales.
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WHAT I WANT to look at here is not why people collect, but what constitutes an art collection. The short answer to the riddle of what differentiates a gathering of artworks from an art collection is the curatorial thread of narrative. An art collection tells a story; it is formed when there exists an inherent dialogue between the artworks in the group, and when this overall narrative is larger than any single constituent. When the body speaks, then you can say you have an art collection.
The art-collecting journey may be centred on a certain type of object, such as Meissen porcelain, where a grouping of works over time tells a stylistic history of the famous factory. The grouping may tell the viewer about a period or school of art, such as Australian Surrealism in the 1930s. The collection may examine an artist or craftsperson in depth, so that we see how he or she developed as a professional. A collection of artworks can even tell as much about the collectors themselves as about the art they possess: who they were, where they travelled.
If collecting any type of art is about creating a story, then there is one general rule of thumb for many collectors of contemporary Australian art. It is that the story they wish to narrate must be an understanding of their world through the art of now. Contemporary practice is understood to be the art of this very day, going back 20 years or a generation. Collectors use the art of right now to illustrate the spirit of the times.
Contemporary art has always been a tool used by artists and collectors to make sense of our complex and multifaceted world. Contemporary Australian art, as such, is not a single voice but a multitude of voices, opinions, and abilities that range across painting, sculpture, multimedia, installation, street art, ceramics, weaving, sound art, film, and so on—all visually chattering away at the same time.
The trick for many collectors of contemporary Australian art is to gather the threads of a whole swag of artists and weave all these visually different individuals into a coherent art collection that helps you to explain your world. It sounds highfalutin, as some things are, but collecting is also immensely fun, and I assure you, no bones get broken.
The best contemporary work is by artists who can describe the world in the first person: “This is my life, this is my set of experiences, this is how I see things.” When building up a contemporary art collection, the collector is, in fact, taking 25 or 30 artists-cum-individuals —who all describe their world in the first person—and weaving those individual art threads into some sort of larger visual fabric that shows what our society looks like.
Paintings just hanging on the wall are so old hat. Stack them on the floor against the wall, as people do in many a stately home (we look at art, we do not worship it). Build a display shelf about half a metre off the floor and rotate paintings on it at your whim. Hang a mass of paintings and artworks across the wall from top to bottom—a new take on the mid-19th-century salon hang.
It’s all about activating the home environment in diverse ways, crossing over textures, materials, and spatial relationships between artworks. Be brave and do not let your surroundings get stagnant. Combine acquiring art with, if possible, meeting artists at exhibition openings. Turn your art-collecting journey into a conversation with artists about the directions their art is taking you in. You will learn and may even make some new friends. For when artists are on their best exhibition behaviour, few will bite. At the very least, I can guarantee no broken bones.
