Art Newspaper

Dont look for any faces in the exhibition This Is a Portrait If I Say So: Identity in American Art, 1912 to Today at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art in Brunswick, Maine. The show is named after Robert Rauschenbergs work This is a portrait of Iris Clert if I say so (1961), which is simply a telegram that declares its title. Although each of the around 60 works in the Bowdoin exhibition represents a specific individual, it does not include traditional portraiture, says Anne Collins Goodyear, the co-director of the museum and co-curator of the show. The exhibition is divided into three chronological sections: 1910s-20s, 1960s and 1990s to the present, periods when issues of identity became particularly politically significant, she says.

Among the works on show are Byron Kims Emmett at Twelve Months #3 (1994), a grid of monochrome panels painted the colour of his son's body (skin, hair, etc.) and Dan Flavins whimsical Barbara Roses (1962-65), an early light work.

This Is a Portrait If I Say So: Identity in American Art, 1912 to Today, Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, Maine, 25 June-23 October

A survey examining the work of Bas Jan Ader, who died in 1975 attempting to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a small boat as part of a performance work, opened Wednesday (until 5 August) at Metro Pictures. Among the works in the show is a slide projection by Ader that reflects on his father's execution by the Nazis in 1944. At the Whitney, a show with lighter themes looks at the paintings of Stuart Davis. Stuart Davis: In Full Swing (until 25 September) includes around 100 pictures from the early 1920s to his death in 1964 and focuses in particular on how, after 1939, he tended to recycle forms and ideas from earlier pictures. It's also your last chance to see a show of Giorgio Morandi's rarely-seen work from the 1930s at the Center for Italian Modern Art (until 25 June). The exhibition, which closes this weekend, includes around 40 works and features, notably, two of seven self-portraits still in existence.

Want to know which artists Van Dyck, Matisse and Lucien Freud collected? Painters Paintings (until 4 September) at the National Gallery sheds a light on the collections of eight painters, some of whom collected each other. The show, which opened yesterday (23 June), includes Picassos Portrait of Dora Maar (1942), which he sent to his rival Matisse as a get-well present. If the British summer fails to materialise, there is always the South London Gallerys Under the Same Sun: Art from Latin America Today (until 4 September). Serious themes are contrasted by playful works and colourful palettes, including Federico Herreros site-specific floor painting in a nearby playground. If getting Ivan Turgenev, Fedor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy into a room together is your idea of a fun (literary) afternoon, dont miss Russia and the Arts: the Age of Tolstoy and Tchaikovsky (until 26 June) at the National Portrait Gallery, which closes this weekend. The exhibition is a rare opportunity to see some of the best portraits from Moscows State Tretyakov Gallery, which is lending part of its collection in a cultural exchange marking the 160th anniversary of both museums.

British arts organisations and artists are dismayed by the results of the European referendum, in which 52% of voters opted to leave. The decision by David Cameron to resign as prime minister in the early autumn has only added to the political and economic uncertainty, which will increase difficulties in the art world.

Stephen Deuchar, director of the Art Fund, voiced the concerns of many when he told us this morning that the fund is deeply concerned at the impact leaving the EU will have on culture in the UK, and particularly on its museums and galleries. He explained: At one level there is obviously now great financial uncertaintythe effect on European funding streams for the arts, for examplebut quite as important is the potential effect on the spirit that drives a myriad of international partnerships in the arts.

During the campaigning, there was overwhelming arts support for remaining in Europe. A survey of members of the Creative Industries Federation had shown that 96% backed remain.

The cultural sector is now so cosmopolitan that there is a strong commitment to internationalism and links with Europe, a sentiment which is strengthened by the fact that art has crossed borders for centuries. There is therefore a strong emotional commitment to being part of Europe.

Financially, there is great concern that there will be economic uncertainty for many months and even years, as the UK goes through the complex process of withdrawal. If the economy suffers, there could be further cuts in government expenditure, leading to lower levels of funding for arts organisations. Economic problems could also reduce corporate sponsorship for culture.

There are also specific issues impacting on the arts. The European Regional Development Fund and the Creative Europe programme grant millions of pounds a year to UK arts organisations. Tougher controls on visitors and immigration may make it more difficult for foreign artists to visit or work in Britain. A fall in incoming tourism would impact negatively on museums, such as Tate Modern, which has just opened its huge extension.

London, along with New York, is the worlds largest art market, and both the disruption of leaving the EU and possible trade barriers could have a damaging impact. The financial uncertainty is also likely to reduce buying by wealthy UK collectors. Although leaving the EU could lead to some advantages, such as changes to artists resale rights, the uncertainty is bound to have a damaging short-term impact. It will take years for the full impact of Brexit on the arts to become apparent.

Politically, a new Conservative prime minister could well lead to fresh faces at the Department for Culture, Media and Sportreplacing John Whittingdale as culture secretary and Ed Vaizey as the long-standing culture minister. Vaizey wrote on Twitter minutes after Camerons resignation: So sad to see PM going. Utterly decent to the end.

As the world grapples with waves of migrants and the resulting refugee crisis, a sharp-spirited non-profit art space in Sharjah, in the United Arab Emirates, has curated a thoughtful show on immigration from the vantage point of a nation with more than 75 resident nationalities. Al Haraka Baraka, literally translated as in movement there is blessing, examines foreign populations that settle in a land in perpetual flux.

All of the participating artists are based in the UAE and most are Emirati. Works range from the Emirati photographer Ammar al-Attars He Who Possesses a Skill Will Never Go Hungry (2016), an August Sander-like cataloguing of the Pakistani, Indian and Arab expat doctors, grocers and sundry professionals who peopled his childhood, to the deeply personal and complex three-act video narratives of Sharjah-born Palestinian Walid al-Wawi. A special trans-generational appearance is made by the pioneering Emirati land artist Mohammed Ahmed Ibrahim (b. 1962), whose sculptural work Fresh and Salt (1991) binds together coral from his native Khorfakkan in Sharjah with stone from the Caspian Sea, all wrapped in copper wire.

Al Haraka Baraka was commissioned by Unlimited Arab Exploration, an initiative founded and spearheaded by H.H. Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan bin Khalifa al-Nahyan, the grandson of the current President of the UAE. A formidable local contemporary art collector, Sheikh Zayed, lamenting the sporadic nature of most shows open to young UAE-based artists, founded his platform to give [these] artists exposure, and the opportunity to work with an experienced curator to a theme.

Al Haraka Baraka runs at Sharjahs Maraya Art Centre until 6 July 2016. 

Qubec City has a very special gift to celebrate this years Fte nationale (national holiday) on 24 June: the opening of the new Pierre Lassonde pavilion of the Muse nationale des beaux-arts de Qubec, an art museum in the centre of the Francophone city that focusses on collecting historic and contemporary works by Qubcois artists. The world heritage site that is Qubec City has just added a new emblem, Line Ouellet, the museums executive director and chief curator, said in a statement.

Construction began in 2013 on the building, named for the museums chairmanwho funded the institutions $3.9m purchase of the site in 2007and designed by the New York bureau of Rem Koolhaass Rotterdam-based architectural firm OMA (Office for Metropolitan Architecture). The project had a total budget of C$103.4m, with $41.5m in funding coming from Qubecs government and $33.7m from the Canadian government and private fundraising.

Spread over five storeysincluding two undergroundthe 15,000sq. m pavilion doubles the museums exhibition space and also includes an auditorium, a caf and an eco-friendly rooftop garden. The glass faade was designed to connect the structure with its surroundings, the Parc des Champs-de-Bataille, and it both allows natural light into the spaces and keeps out the harsh cold of Qubecs winters.

One special feature is an underground passageway that links the new pavilion to the museums three existing buildingswhich include a converted 1867 prisonthat doubles as an exhibition space for a work from the permanent collection the museum has never been able to display in its entirety. This is the late Montral-born Jean-Paul Riopelles LHommage Rosa Luxemburg (Tribute to Rosa Luxemburg) (1992), a 40m-long spray-painted piece on 30 individual canvases.

The museum has organised seven exhibitions drawn from its permanent collection to inaugurate the new galleries, including Decorative Arts and Design in Qubec, which looks back at the provinces contributions in craft and design since the 1950s, and Contemporary Art in Qubec: from Ferron to BGL (both until 5 September).

The first major survey in 15 years of the British artist Stanley Spencer (1891-1959) opens at the Hepworth Wakefield this month. Of Angels and Dirt (24 June-5 October) marks the 125th anniversary of Spencers birth and includes a number of his excruciatingly honest self-portraits, his monumental Shipbuilding on the Clyde series made during the Second World War and reunites, for the first time in 35 years, four of the five Empire Marketing Board (1929) works. It also includes a sketchbook of the earliest known drawings made by a teenage Spencer, which has never been exhibited, shining a light on his lifelong obsession with his hometown of Cookham on the River Thames.

Focus groups are not just for makeup and snack food any more. Museums are increasingly using the popular market research tool to gather input from the public and refine exhibitions and programmes. Originally developed to gauge the effectiveness of propaganda during the Second World War, focus groups are a new trend among art institutions, says Louise Mirrer, the president of the New-York Historical Society.Before its exhibition Martin Luther: Art and the Reformation (30 October 2016-15 January 2017), the Minneapolis Institute of Art ran six 90-minute focus groups: two with Lutherans, two with other religious audiences and two with non-religious visitors. Curators, educators and communications staff watched on a live feed in another room.

We wanted to understand where our different audiences are coming from, says Kristin Prestegaard, the museums chief engagement officer. Changes were made to exhibition materials after the focus groups revealed that non-Lutherans know little about the Reformation while Lutherans are less familiar with Luthers anti-Semitism late in life.

The museum plans to hire a full-time evaluator to run focus groups later this year. We really want to be visitor and audience-focused. Were all in on that, Prestegaard says.

The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) has run focus groups since reinstalling its collection in 2007. When consulted about the exhibition Dance! American Art 1830-1960 (until 12 June), some participants felt that Native American ghost dances were too sacred to depict. In the end, the two works that showed the ritual remained in the exhibition, but wall labels gave a respectful explanation of the spiritual meaning of the dances. Now, the museum is taking public consultation even further by reserving four spots for community members on a brainstorming team dedicated to the reinstallation of its Asian collection.

A dangerous precedent?
Some feel that the use of focus groups to develop exhibitionsa practice pioneered by science and history museumsencourages institutions to act more like for-profit businesses than mission-driven entities. Museums have visitors, not customers, and serve communities, not markets, the Sydney-based former museum director Des Griffin writes on his website. A 2012 article in the New Criterion review quotes Philippe de Montebello, the former director of New Yorks Metropolitan Museum of Art: When art museums rush to be commercial or seek to titillate their visitors, we see a lamentable failure of nerve.

The obsession with mass appeal also runs the risk of eroding academic rigour. One museum director recently told Laura Lott, the president of the American Alliance of Museums, that his institution was toying with allowing the community to vote on future acquisitions. If museums go overboard, they may end up narrowing their focus to only van Goghs and Monets, and things the public is familiar with, she says.

For better or worse, many say that museums can no longer afford to ignore the opinions of their constituents. Adam Rozan, the director of audience engagement at the Worcester Art Museum, says: Gone are the days of the lone curator, working for years in isolation producing exhibitions for themselvesor, worse, their peer groups.

Behind the two-way mirror: five common focus group questions
1. What does this object mean to you?

2. Does the object make you excited enough to come see the show?

3. When you picture yourself in an art museum, is there any dissonance in viewing both art and historical objects in context with one another?

4. Which of the shows themes do you find most interesting?

5. Are you confused by any of the themes?

Displays and rare books were urgently evacuated from the Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam overnight as unusually high rainfall caused water and sewage to seep into the basement. The threat of flooding to the museum early this morning was very serious, the deputy director, Ina Klaassen, told The Art Newspaper. Klaassen asked the fire brigade to pump water out of an overflowing pool in the museums garden, which abuts the building, but this proved impossible because the surrounding ground is too saturated with water.

The basement display in the pavilion building, which houses a collection of archaeological artefacts and design objects from 1300 to 1900, had to be moved to a higher floor, while the library storage, which includes some rare books, was also evacuated. None of the objects are believed to have been damaged. Only the areas directly affected by the flooding were closed off and most of the art museum remained open to visitors. But there are concerns that if further heavy rain falls over the weekend, the situation could get worse. Even the museums ground floor lies two metres below sea level.

The main galleries date from 1935, when there were fewer buildings in the area, which allowed for better drainage. There are already plans afoot for a new storage facility that would withstand flooding to be built on the museum grounds. Construction is due to start this autumn, to be completed in two years.

The First Quiz

The leading German art collector Heiner Pietzsch has said he will make new loans to Scotland rather than England in the event of a Brexit vote in the latest signal of the art worlds strong opposition to Britains leaving the European Union.

Heiner and Ulla Pietzsch have lent nearly 60 works from their Modern art collection to the Scottish National Gallery of Art for its summer exhibition Surreal Encounters, staged in collaboration with museums in Rotterdam and Hamburg.

Speaking at the opening of the exhibition, which includes major works by Dal, Picasso, Magritte and Mir, Pietzsch said: We will give pictures to Scotland because Scotland will stay within the EU. His translator and curator, Francisca Cruz, clarified that he meant loans to Scotland.

Pietzsch said: "It is very important for the whole world that England is European, that we stay together. Not only for Germany, for Englandbut for the whole world."

The exhibition was held up as an example of European co-operation. Drawn together by the veteran art curator Keith Hartley, it includes major loans from the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam and the Hamburger Kunsthalle, and will tour on to both museums after Edinburgh.

Heiner Pietzsch dates his interest in collecting back to an exhibition of degenerate art in Germany that fascinated him as a schoolboy in 1946. The couple have promised to bequeath around 150 works from their Modernist collection to the national museums of Berlin.

Around 60 works in the Edinburgh exhibition have been handled by the London dealer James Mayor. He says the impact of a Brexit vote would be disastrous, adding: It wont affect sales to America but it will affect sales to Europe because they will then have to import the painting into Europe, subject to varying import taxes, which can go up to 27% in Hungary.

British dealers at European art fairs would also suffer, according to Mayor. You would have to post bonds, the bureaucracy would be a nightmare and eventually it will have drastic effects on the London art trade because people wont want to consign work to people in England because they know that theres going to be a further tax if they sell it on to Europe, he says.

One possible advantage would be that Britain would relax EU regulations on artist resale rights, imposing royalties on the resale of artists work until 70 years after their death.    

Private British galleries holding foreign artists work among their stock might see a temporary gain if the pound devalued, but when it came to replacing that stock the price would be correspondingly higher, he says.

In this clip, workers assemble the cubes that undergird the artist Christo's latest project, The Floating Piers, which is open until 3 July on Italy's Lake Iseo.

Christies may have felt the ramifications of the impending Brexit vote as its Impressionist and Modern art sale on the eve of Britains EU referendum failed to reach its lower estimate. The sale total of 21.8m hammer (25.6m with fees) came in well below the expected 32.8m-48.7m, with a sell-through rate of 64%. Twelve of the 33 lots failed to sell, and only four fetched hammer prices above their higher estimates.

It was an uphill battle from the start, as three big lots were withdrawn at the last minute. Two were works by Picasso: Nature Morte and Nature Morte aux volets verts (both 1946), estimated at 2m-3m each. The third was Ren Magrittes Le temps jadis (1966), priced at 1.4m-1.8m.

Further disappointment came when the evenings cover lot, Monets LAncienne rue de la Chausse, Argenteuil (1872), failed to attract any bids. Estimated at 4.5m-6.5m, it was the only lot with a house guarantee.

Its a thin market, said the adviser Thomas Seydoux as he walked out of the room. Its hard to establish price points for many of the works tonight.

Modiglianis market, however, appears to be in rude health. Aided perhaps by the high price a Modigliani portrait fetched at Sothebys the night before, the artists portrait of Madame Hanka Zborowska (1917) saw multiple bidders from Asia, the US and Italy. The work sold for 7.3m (8.3m with fees), past its upper estimate of 7m.

Two records were set on the night. Ernst Ludwig Kirchners striking pastel on paper work, Blaue Artisten (1914), sold within estimate for 900,000 (1.1m with fees), the highest auction price for the artists works on paper. And Bernard Buffets Les clowns musiciens, le saxophoniste (1991) saw multiple bidders from Asia, most likely Japan, where the artist is particularly popular. But the work finally sold within estimate to a non-Asian buyer for 850,000 (1m with fees), narrowly beating the previous record.

At the press conference after the sale, the president of Christies Europe, Jussi Pylkkanen, spoke of the lack of stellar consignments. The gathering period of January and February was tough. There was uncertainty in other markets and, as you saw, volumes are generally down across the board.

Christies will now be turning its attention to its 250th anniversary celebrations. A curated sale to mark the occasion, Defining British Art, will take place on 30 June. There is more confidence now than before, and there are still auctions to come, Pylkkanen said.

Andrey Filatov, the Russian art collector who has been promoting Soviet-era art internationally, has signed a 12-year agreement to open a permanent exhibition of his Art Russe foundations holdings in the UK at Beaulieu Palace House, the Hampshire estate of Lord Montegu.

I want the public to admire the masterpieces of Russian art, rather than keeping my collection in a dedicated warehouse, Filatov told The Art Newspaper by email. The gallery at Beaulieuwhich is also home to the National Motor Museum and the popular attraction the World of Top Gearwill allow hundreds of thousands visitors every year to learn more about the depth of Russian art, Filatov added.


In a press release, Lord Montagu said: In the past, many stately home owners, including my ancestors, collected art from around the world, and so it is entirely appropriate I should be continuing that tradition by hosting this collection at Beaulieu.

Filatov made a fortune in ports and railway transport, and has sponsored exhibitions at Londons Saatchi Gallery and in Abu Dhabi. His foundation Art Russe, which he started in 2012, holds a collection of 200 paintings and sculptures, covering Russian art history from the late 19th century to the 1990s. Among the 25 works to be shown at Beaulieu in the opening exhibition this summer are Alexander Laktionovs Letter from the Front (1951) and Gely Korzhevs Hammer and Sickle (2003). The display is due to change quarterly. Private views of some of Art Russes most prized works, including paintings by Nicolai Fechin and Nicholas Roerich, will be held at Banqueting Hall and the Tower of London in June and July.

The South London Gallery in Peckham is 1m shy of its 4m target to fund the restoration of what may be one of the last, if not the last, remaining purpose-built Victorian fire stations in London. The plan is to transform the Grade II-listed building, which is down the road from the gallery, into a satellite space for shows and events. The gallery hopes to start the work in January 2017, so that the space can open in 2018. The firm 6a Architects, which is behind the extension at the gallerys main site, is working on the project.

Later additions to the Gothic- style structure, which was built in 1867 and converted into a sausage factory in the 1920s, are being stripped away to reveal as much of the original footprint as possible.

The public got its first glimpse of the fire station, which was given to the institution by an anonymous donor in 2014, when Under the Same Sun: Art from Latin America Today, organised with the Guggenheim, opened on 10 June (until 4 September). Although the major restoration work has yet to begin, a section of the first floor has already been shored up to prevent it from collapsing, because the wooden floorboards were completely rotten, says Margot Heller, the gallerys director.

Heller says that the new space will take the South London Gallery into a new era. The ground and first floors will be used to mount shows, and two shows a year will be spread throughout the entire four-storey building. There is also space for an archive and a studio for the gallerys artist-in-residency programme.

The Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice is restoring The Studio (1928), its large painting by Pablo Picasso, to its original brightness. The artist added a fresh layer of white to the canvas shortly after completing the work, to simplify the palette and composition.

Acquired by Peggy Guggenheim from a New York-based dealer in 1942, the work was lined with wax and resin in the late 1960s to prevent cracking and flaking. But the white has yellowed as the wax has risen to the surface, while the other colours have dulled. The Swiss bank BSI is sponsoring the project to conserve and research the work.

Hauser & Wirths arts complex in Bruton, Somerset, is only ten miles from Glastonbury, home of the famed music festival which opened today (22 June) to revellers and rock fans. In a canny move, the gallery is backing two performances at the five-day music jamboree including an appearance by artist Martin Creed on the Avalon Caf Stage on 26 June. The Turner prizewinner, who is known for his musical acumen, will launch a new album on 8 July entitled Thoughts Lined Up (Creeds latest tracks should bring some light relief for mud-caked Glasto attendees, who can also catch an exhibition dedicated to the artist at H&W Somerset, until 11 September). Hauser & Wirth is also supporting a classical music headliner on the Park Stage on 25 June, when the conductor Charles Hazlewood will lead a performance of Philip Glasss Heroes Symphony in honour of the most influential musician of all, David Bowie. A sonic laser light show by Chris Levine will illuminate the proceedings. 

Art has long been a passion of mineever since my mother, who was an artist, took me to the Frick Collection, the Metropolitan Museum, and of course the Museum of Modern Art, when I was young.

Over the years, my wife Janine and I have collected numerous works of artfrom post-war art, to Old Master paintings, to Renaissance and baroque bronzes, which you may have seen on exhibition at the Frick last year. And I currently sit on the board of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

But here I am writing as a student ofand an expert inmarkets. While I dont collect art for investment reasons, as the president and CEO of Blackstone Alternative Asset Management, I look at every asset class around the world. I look at whats under-valued and over-valued and way over-valued. And its through this lens that Id like to look at art: about this market, what we value, and how we got to where we are today.

First, even though conversations about commerce and art sometimes feel like were throwing the money changers into the temple, my belief is that theres nothing untoward about talking about the art market.

For almost as long as theres been art, theres been a market for it. Patrons, such as Isabella DEste, the Medicis  and the Catholic Church, financed some of the greatest artists of the RenaissanceDonatello, Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci, Bronzino. Emperor Charles V commissioned wonderful portraits by Titian, and Charles I of England recruited Van Dyck to be his court painter. And Alexander the Great loved buying artespecially when it was in his likeness. Look no further than the Pergamon show at the Met.

Fast forward a couple thousand yearsand there is still a massive market for art. Just last November, a Chinese billionaire bought a nude by Modigliani for $170m. Picassos Women of Algiers sold for $179m in May 2015. Those show-stopping transactions help comprise an art market that, last year, totaled $63.8bnthe equivalent of the GDP of a small country. And it feels like a new record is being broken every week.

But if were going to talk about this market and why people are buying art at these priceswe need to first talk about why we buy art at all. In his book The Value of Art, Michael Findlay describes three sources of arts value.

First, theres the commercial value of art. Put simply, some people are looking to art for a return on their investment, or to use as a currency hedge. And thats why more institutions, including banks and third party investors, are getting involved and providing leverage and guarantees.

Second, theres what Findlay calls the social value of art. Any artworks social value comes down to: Whats in fashion? What do you have hanging over your mantel? What can you brag about or show off to your friends?

Which leads us to the third, and most important value: the essential value of art. We see the beauty of a work and want it in our lives. And this is a question of quality.  Is it good? Is it great?  Will it last? By the way, Will it last is a literal question with some contemporary works. That Damien Hirst shark is eventually going to disintegrate. In fact, the original shark has already been replaced. Its also a metaphorical question when we think about what is enduring and timeless.

We can think of these three forms of valuethe commercial, the social, and the essentialas three of the main reasons people consider buying art, and why they pay for art. But when I look at todays market, I see too many people focusing on the commercial and the social, without (or before) considering the essential. People who buy with their ears, rather than with their eyes.

So why is that? Whats changed? I think its because were seeing a diminishedor sometimes supersededrole of expert mediators. In law and medicine, you need to go to graduate school and then train before you can practice your trade.  Not so for art.

Technology has, in many ways, made art more mainstream and accessible, and thats a very good thing. That has led to democratisation of taste-making where everyone feels free to express what they like or dont like, and thats probably not a bad thing either. But when that fashion component gets reflected in the marketplace by experts who have cleared no barrier to entry to become experts, thats when we can run into problems. And what do we get in the marketplace? Bubbles. Unsustainable pricing. Formulaic buying. Consensus thinking. Me too-ism.

Mediators play a very important role.  And credentialed individuals who can give expert advice are essential. These are the people who understand the history of art and what makes a particular piece good or not good. Historically, these are the people who recognise game changing artists such as Manet, Czanne, Bacon and Warhol. They have skills that make them better appreciators and evaluators of art. And traditionally, museums were the signature mediators. Today, the mediator role has broken down.  

Instead of looking at a piece of art and assessing its essential value, buyers and sellers are interested in commercial value. Its all about transactions. I can tell you, in my business, when investors make decisions without the advice of experts, it often does not end well.

Lets examine Jeff Koonss One Ball Total Equilibrium Tanka basketball in a tank of waterwhich just sold for $15.3m at Christies. It may be telling that it was sold at an auction entitled  Bound to Fail. Because while it might be a million-dollar idea, it is hard to get your head around this sculpture as a $15m object.

I look at what people are paying for certain works of art, and think, I wish I could short that, just as if it would have been advantageous to short the stock of certain Silicon Valley unicorns   summer when their valuations reached $10bn, $20bn, $30bn.

To be clear, Im not saying that there isnt great contemporary art out there, or that no one is going to remember Jeff Koons in 100 years. In that same vein, Im sure for a long time well be crediting Uber for its innovative approach.  But what is its real value?

Now, throughout history, there have been collectors who did a very good job of focusing on the essential. That the artists they collected became fashionable was a consequence of their collecting, not the causeand thats an important distinction.    

Im thinking of Alfred Barnes, who put Czanne on the map long before The Card Players made headlines when Qatar paid over $250m for a version of it. Or Peggy Guggenheim, who took risks on artists like Picasso and Pollock before it was fashionable. Pioneers like John Quinn, who brought artists like Gauguin and Van Gogh to the American public at the historic 1913 Armory Show, and helped usher in a new era of Modern art in the United States. Or the prescient collector of minimalism, Giuseppe Panza. Or the inimitable Gertrude Stein.

The collectors who we most admire today did not collect for social value or commercial value. They believed they saw essential value. And today, we know that they did. Of course its easy to forget that these incredible collectors were also unbelievable risk-takers. And the risks they took in the name of essential value would be unheard of today, because the art market rarely rewards risk-taking. It rewards sameness, and the security that comes with known quantities. So we buy into the value of an artists brand, rather than the inherent brilliance of the work. And we all begin to think the same way.

I believe we can have a market that reflects the spirit of the artists we admire and hope to collect. That recaptures the spirit of our most revered collectors. I believe we can take risks and be inventive, rather than valuing sameness and safety. And we can do it all in pursuit of something truly valuable. Because today is no different than 150 years ago.

Just remember that Meissonier and the Paris Salon, as well as the London pre-Raphaelites were dominating the art scene from 1850 to 1890, whereas artists such as Manet, Czanne and Turner were largely ignored. Markets rise and markets fall. But essential truths do remain, and those essential truths are worth the risk.

To recommit to the essential, we have to recommit to the arbiters of the essential.  

J. Tomilson (Tom) Hill III is President and CEO of Blackstone Alternative Asset Management (BAAM), chairman of the Lincoln Center Theater and a member of board of directors of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Council on Foreign Relations. He is a collector of Renaissance and Baroque bronzes and of contemporary art.


The text above is an edited transcript of Tom Hills presentation at The Art Newspapers 25th anniversary celebrations, hosted at the Museum of Modern Art in New York last month and sponsored by Volkswagen. Hill was among those invited to investigate the subject What is Art For? Videos of the different speakersGlenn Lowry, director of MoMA, Eric Kandel, a Nobel Prize-winning neuro-psychiatrist, James Davis of the Google Cultural Institute, J. Tomilson (Tom) Hill III, the collector and president and chief executive of Blackstone Alternative Asset Management, and Lina Lazaar, the founder of Jeddah Artcan be viewed on our website.

The Contemporary Art Society (CAS) and Frieze London have announced they are partnering on a new acquisition fund to support museums in the UK regions. This years 50,000 fund has been awarded to Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (Mima). The museum in the north-east of England plans to buy a work at Frieze London in October that addresses the migration crisis, according to Caroline Douglas, the director of CAS.

The public institution beat 70 other members in an open competition for the award. Mima made a fantastic case to acquire a work that focuses on the most urgent topic of our time, Douglas says, noting that Middlesbrough has the highest concentration of refugees in the country. They are doing some radical thinking about the role of the museum in the 21st century.

Mima describes itself as a useful museum after Cuban artist Tania Brugueras concept of Arte Util, a type of art with a social function. It means that the museum is not just a repository for beautiful things, but reaches out to the community and uses art as a means of social change, Douglas says.

Alistair Hudson, the director of Mima, says that the urgent issues facing the region have persuaded him to evolve a new institutional model. He adds: Ours is a vibrant, complex, post-industrial region that was created by migrants, and we view this story as an asset to inform and shape our culture and influence social change.

CAS set up its original collections fund in 2012acquiring works by Simon Fujiwara for Leeds Art Gallery and Hito Steyerl for GoMA Glasgow, among othersalthough the society has been quietly supporting UK museums since its foundation in 1910. Last year it placed 43 works of art and craft with 22 museums up and down the country.

Frieze London and CASs new collections fund is co-chaired by Beatrice Lupton with Cathy Wills and Anna Yang. The committee includes Nicola Blake, Hugo Brown, Theo Danjuma, Jill Hackel, Helen Janecek, Ken Rowe and Paul Smith.

Germanys leading art fair Art Cologne has moved its 2017 edition forward by a day to avoid a scheduling clash with the popular Berlin Gallery Weekend. Daniel Hug, the director of Art Cologne, says the decision will allow international visitors to visit both Art Cologne and Gallery Weekend comfortably in the same week.

In March, Hug announced that, due to scheduling issues at the fairs venue, the 2017 edition would take place between 28 April and 2 May, dates usually reserved for the Berlin event.

The proximity of the dates led to fears that visitors and participating galleries might have to choose between the two. At the time, the dealer Johann Knig told the German art magazine Monopol that he would pull out of the Cologne fair and try to persuade his Rhineland clientele to stay in Berlin too.

Now, Art Cologne has decided to hold its preview on Tuesday 25 April, rather than the usual Wednesday, and continue until Saturday 29 April. Berlin Gallery Weekend is scheduled to open on Friday 28 April and run until Sunday 30 April. A spokeswoman for Berlin Gallery Weekend says that while the move is a good compromise, smaller Berlin galleries with few staff may have difficulty participating in both events. If you are attending Art Cologne, you may still find the two-day overlap hard to manage, she says.