With Blake Byrne, T’57
The following is excerpted from an interview published in the catalogue Open This End: Contemporary Art from the Collection of Blake Byrne, on the occasion of the exhibition on view February 19 – July 12, 2015, at the Nasher Museum. The interview is assembled from conversations between Blake Byrne and Bruce Kogut, director of the Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Center for Leadership and Ethics at Columbia Business School, and between Byrne and Barbara Schwan, the executive director of The Skylark Foundation in Los Angeles.
Barbara Schwan: When did you actually start seriously collecting? At what stage of your life were you able to focus on that?
BB: I really seriously started collecting in 1988. After my divorce, and after I had accumulated a little money, I lived in New York at 58th Street and 7th Avenue, and worked at 56th and 6th. Fifty-seventh was a big art street, so when I was walking home I would pop in and out of the galleries, and that’s when I met the art dealer Jack Tilton. He talked me into going to the Basel Art Fair in Switzerland, where I bought the first six pieces: a sculpture by Martin Disler, which has been in the front entrance to my house ever since; a conceptual piece by Richard Tuttle, now in the promised gift I gave to The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Juan Muñoz—the box with the banisters, also in the promised gift; Cristina Iglesias—promised gift to MOCA; a work on paper by Mario Mertz (I sold that, sadly—I shouldn’t have). Oh, and Pizzi Cannella. I gave both of the Cannella works on paper to my son John and his wife Charlotte.
BS: Was there a moment that you remember when you realized that you had the bug, you had a passion for collecting?
BB: Well, I think it was on that first trip to Basel. That was really exciting. Wow! So many names—I learned so much in those three or four days. I look back and realize that I could have bought a Gerhard Richter candle piece for, like, $45,000, but that would have taken most of my budget, which was $60,000. Jack suggested setting a budget, which was great advice. So that was substantial and I wasn’t ready to make that kind of commitment. But I still remember that Richter piece. Of course, today it would be worth something like $5 million [laughs].
BS: When you first started collecting, did you have any goals for your collection? Did you have a vision for it, or was it something organic that just happened?
BB: I don’t think I had any particular goal; I just bought things I liked. And Jack was helpful too—it wasn’t just willy-nilly buying what I liked. At the end of the day we’d go back and forth. He’d have an artist and I’d say, “Well, that artist is too expensive for me.” And he’d say, “Well, this is a good up-and-coming artist.” And so on. So, I’m sure he influenced me. For example, I don’t remember the exact conversation, but I’d say I liked X, Y, and Juan Muñoz, and he’d lead me towards Juan Muñoz. The fact that I ended up building a museum-worthy collection is incredibly rewarding.
BS: Do you feel that people like you, who have accumulated important art collections, have a responsibility to make it available to the public through exhibitions and donations? And, if so, is it an ethical or moral responsibility, or just a personal choice?
BB: I think it’s a responsibility because the art doesn’t belong to you. The art belongs to the artist and will always belong to the artist. That doesn’t mean that after the artist sells it, they can come grab it out of your house [laughs], but it’s only yours while you live, or while you live with it. Then it belongs to somebody else and then it belongs to an institution. And then it becomes a part of history, depending on the level of interest and importance that outsiders attach to it. Of course, historians sometimes differ on who was important and who influenced whom.
I don’t think there can be a rule, but I always say—and this might hurt somebody’s feelings—collectors really become collectors the first time they have to put something in storage. Up until then they are just accumulating or filling the walls. But when they have to start putting things in storage, then they become collectors. That’s sort of a joke, but probably pretty true. People that are collectors usually have several hundreds of pieces of art.
And you have to think about how you’re going to de-access. Certainly, there are pieces in that collection that are going to benefit people in the community by being viewed at the local museum. So, I think that’s a natural. Hey, save your favorite pieces for your children; others you’re going to sell, and others you give to your favorite museums or university museums. I think that’s all part of it. Is it compulsory? Well, gee whiz, it’s not really yours, you just paid for it. So, I think if you collect art, philanthropy is very much a part of it.
BS: One of your goals for this traveling exhibition is for each school to hold a panel discussion that would include alumni who are art collectors, people from the local community that are in the museum and gallery worlds, and faculty from the art, business, and law schools to discuss art collecting, philanthropy, and ethics as they relate to the business of art. Why is the subject of ethics important to you and what issues are you hoping will be brought to the table?
BB: I joked about it a little bit, but it’s a serious issue. The art world at the top level is filled with a lot of very wealthy people including very wealthy dealers, artists, and very wealthy people who are involved with museums. And you know, interestingly enough, the government doesn’t pay a lot of attention to it. If these people run around and cheat each other, who cares? It’s just one rich person ripping off another rich person. That’s my jaded look at government regulations.
I do think that, right now, it’s not easy; it seems like there is no real code of ethics that is adhered to in the art world. I’m not talking about people who are fraudulently copying works or that kind of thing. I’m just talking about the dealing going back and forth, and telling each other the truth. I think at some point in time, we just have to sit down and say, hey, these are the rules we should live by. That’s one reason I want to do the panels, and also to talk about the things you and I have been talking about—philanthropy and collecting.
One thing I didn’t cover when we were talking about making donations of art is that if you’re a collector and start putting things in storage, don’t forget that maybe one of the two things you put in storage might be of interest to somebody else, either through a museum or through deaccession. And you take that money and maybe make a contribution to the local museum. Because museums, like collectors, can’t collect everything, and there’s nothing wrong with collectors selling things. I always laugh and say when a piece of art and I stop talking to each other, it’s time for that piece to move on and share their conversation with somebody else.
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