Interview|Art Patrons: David Zwiner
David Zwiner Lecture Content:
Hello Qiao Zhibing, hello friends of Qiao Zhibing. I’m very sorry I can’t be in Shanghai today. This was a trip that I was particularly looking forward to, but the weather has made it impossible for me to travel this time. We had a heavy snowfall here and all the flights were stranded. So, I’m talking to you by video, and I hope this will allow me to discuss some of the topics that interest you, about the position of a gallery in this professional field.
First, let me start with Qiao Zhibing. You were the first Chinese collector I ever met, and I met you about seven years ago at Art Basel Hong Kong, maybe even earlier, when you bought a work from our gallery. I think your first purchase at our gallery was an Adel Abdessemed work, but I’m not sure. You are a long-time collector with our gallery, and you are one of the most important collectors of Western art in China. I know that you are a respected leader in China in terms of collecting and presenting art. I am excited by this news that you are opening your personal space. Again, I am very sorry that I could not be here to celebrate with you, but I promise to be in Shanghai in the near future as I look forward to seeing your work. Now let me start all over again. Twenty-five years ago, about this month, I started a gallery in SoHo, the heart of New York. At that time most of the galleries in New York were in SoHo, with the famous Castelli Gallery, Sonnabend Gallery and other big names, and I was still a newborn. I opened very small galleries on Greene street, in a space that was probably just a little bit bigger than the office I’m standing in now. I was fortunate that we were able to expand and grow over the last twenty-five years. First we opened a gallery in Soho that was twice as big, and then we opened a gallery in Chelsea on 19th Street. The Chelsea district is now internationally known, with galleries all over the place. I hope you will find the opportunity to travel to New York and visit our gallery in Chelsea sometime in the future. This district is definitely the most unique in the world, and it is a wonderful gift to New York City. Because all the galleries are free to enter, and they are so important in educating and serving the community. Of course, it’s also a wonderful place to meet different people and interact with art. We’re also very excited to be expanding our business first from New York to London. And this year we are expanding to Asia with the opening of a gallery in Hong Kong. I would love for all of you to visit our booth at the gallery and art fair on Queen’s Road. We are now working with fifty-five artists and artist estates. Working with a living artist is very different from working with an artist’s estate and requires a different level of expertise. If you go to our booth at Art Basel, you will see both the work of living artists, such as the top Jeff Koons, who is our selected artist for this show. And, of course, Wolfgang Tillmans, an artist that Qiao Zhibing knows and collects. Also, you will meet the work of the late artist Josef Albert, the artist of this work behind me. Other artist estates include Donald Judd, Dan Flavin, and others, and we represent their estates. I feel very fortunate to have found artists that I find endlessly exciting, and the two most recent artists to join the gallery, Jordan Wolfson and Oscar Murillo, are both in their 30s and very talented. I’m often asked how I discover new talent, and it’s interesting to note that there’s no clear answer. But one thing I do know is that if I see something I like, I notice it immediately. If I try to analyze that feeling, it’s probably because it’s something I can’t summarize in a normal way, it’s something completely new. I’ve seen a lot of art in my life, even from a very young age, and most of it fits into a certain category, but sometimes you come across something that you can’t categorize, it’s like an idea that doesn’t belong to anyone else except for its own qualities, and that’s usually when the alarm bells go off in my head and I look at it very carefully and examine it. I had that same thought when I first saw the works of Jordan Wolfson and Oscar Murillo back in the day. Let me say a little about the collectors. Once again, I would like to use Joe Zhibing as a role model. We like collectors who are well-prepared, we like collectors who are right in the moment, we like collectors who pay attention to the movements of the artist, who have been baptized by the years, and who collect works in depth. If you collect the work of every artist who is a big hit and hotly discussed at the moment, that might be a good collecting strategy, but I don’t agree. I think the strongest collection is when you pick the most outstanding one from each generation of artists and focus on that artist’s work from different periods. Again, Qiao Zhibing, I particularly like to see you in Basel, in Hong Kong, London and New York, following the artists you love and collect. If you can travel around, you’ll find it easy to get to know the artists you’re interested in and collect. You will find it easy to know that the artist you are interested in is in that collection network. And if you have the opportunity to get to know that artist, you will be amazed at how much there is to learn, how unforgettable the whole experience can be, and how it can ultimately stimulate and drive your collecting journey. To that end, this year we are bringing one of the most famous living artists (if not the most famous), Jeff Koons, and one of my ideas is that collectors who come to the show will get to meet Jeff and he will be there to talk about his work in person. Of course you can go to the opening reception of the gallery and you can see the artist in person, which is also a great way to meet the artist in person. I get asked a lot about whether art is a good investment or not, and I have an interesting answer for you: it’s both a good and a bad investment. How is that possible? Let me tell you why. If you buy a work with great enthusiasm and have no intention of selling it at the moment, then it is a good investment. I have seen many passionate collectors buy great works of art over the years without ever thinking about selling them, and end up creating great value. When the time came for them or their descendants to sell, they discovered that what they had done had extraordinary value. Collectors who collect works just for investment often tend to fall into what I call going with the flow of taste, so they will buy works that are very big hits and trendy, but usually such works with inflated prices will not last much longer. So when you try to make money with your collection you need to be very careful, you need to find an art advisor and use your own intelligent judgment, or find a friend like Qiao Zhibing to provide you with the right guidance, and I would also like to stand my ground and say this: at this point in time, I think the best art is concentrated in only a few good galleries, and I think it’s very important to choose galleries that you want to be happy working with. It is important. The more art you buy from a gallery, the better relationship you can build with the gallery, and the more likely you are to get the best work. Believe me, because most of the best works, the ones that are in the most demand, are always in high competition, so it’s usually hard to get the work you want unless, of course, we already know you well. Of course, having a local gallery in Asia gives me the opportunity to get to know you in the future, and again, I sincerely hope that I will be able to come and meet you in person. I am also often asked by collectors how to sell their work. It is often easy to buy, but sometimes it can be very difficult to sell. Of course in Asia, the most widely known place to sell is the auction house. Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Foyers do a great job of promoting Western art and are also a great place to sell art. However, one thing to keep in mind is that the auction house market and focus is generally very narrow. They do a great job of selling certain artists, but it’s hard for them to reach a broader market. So my advice is that if you buy a work, first go back to the gallery that sold it to you and discuss with them the value and marketability of the work again. If the situation is not ideal, then an auction house is a good option. But our gallery works very well with our collectors, and we have sold works on their consignment very well. There is a big difference between the United States, Europe and mainland China, in that in Europe and the United States we have a dense network of museums. These museums are usually supported by a large group of patrons and collectors who live in their own cities. They provide an excellent indicator for the public, a benchmark for why works are important, and they create Western art dogma and indicators that clearly tell us where we should start collecting or when we should do something about our galleries. This museum phenomenon is temporarily absent in China, at least none of the publicly funded museums are publicly recognized, and I can only say that the burden falls on collectors, and it is amazing what has happened in the last ten or even five years. Private museums or private art spaces have taken on the responsibility of presenting Asian and Western art. I must applaud you here, you, Qiao Zhibing, and your friends like Wang Wei, for opening private museums and artist spaces in mainland China to promote art, which is an admirable thing to do. I hope that here I can answer the questions that you would like to ask me in person, and I hope that I can talk to you more in the future. I hope you will find time to come to Hong Kong, especially next week, when we will be opening an exhibition for Wolfgang Tillmans. Wolfgang is a German photographer and one of the most popular artists today, and I am particularly honored that he has agreed to have a solo show in our gallery during Art Basel. Of course, if you come to the fair, you will see a lot of work by our gallery artists. This time we have chosen to show, of course, the great Jeff Koons. I very much hope that I will be able to talk to you in person and share those works with you. Once again, I’m very sorry I can’t be here in person, but I know we’ll meet in Hong Kong.
I grew up surrounded by art, and my father had a gallery in Cologne, Germany, which he opened in 1960. And I spent my favorite years there. So much so that I remember seeing paintings by Roy Lichtenstein, sculptures by Donald Judd, paintings by Sigmar Polke, paintings by Georg Baselitz, all displayed in my living room. These works kept appearing and disappearing because my father, who was an art dealer, would own some of them and then sell them. But I remember really looking at them, and they created a stirring and a profound impact on me, a wonderful childhood memory. Once my father came back from America and he bought a large group of Andy Warhol’s Brillo Boxes, which are probably one of the greatest Pop Art sculptures. The group he bought was the largest ever assembled in the series, and it made them difficult to sell. So for many years, they have been in our home. And they became the perfect hiding place for me to play hide and seek as a child. My tiny body was hidden behind those Brillo soap boxes and no one could find me. If you go now to the Museum Ludwig, one of the most important museums of European Pop Art, located in Cologne. You can look at the Brillo Boxes in the museum and you can imagine me as a child standing behind them.
Let me tell you about the basics of running a gallery. The most important thing you can do as a gallery is to select talented people. If you can’t pick artists that appeal to your audience, you’re not going to be a successful gallery owner. We were fortunate to be able to start working with some of the more established artists in the early days. For example, early on, we already worked with Luc Tuymans, who is now one of the most acclaimed living artists. If you can’t find talented people, you’re going to have problems. But when you do find talent, you have to work extra hard so that they can see the future. Always put the artist first. That’s why I think of my gallery as artist-centric. You want to know what’s important to the artist and get the message out about their work and the meaning behind it. It’s great to have work in a gallery, but it’s equally important to bring an artist’s work into major museums and international art institutions. And it is very important to produce catalogues and books. Through books, an artist’s work can be seen by many people, not only by those who have access to galleries and museums, but also by those who want to learn and read. When I mentioned about learning and reading, I think that’s one of the key elements, which is very important, especially when you want to engage with visual art. Visual art is not just a commodity, it’s not just an object, it’s a channel for thinking about life. Unless you are deeply involved in the planning and conceptualization and ideas behind an artist’s presentation, you will not reach the level of understanding that an art lover, collector, or curator has of these things.