Collecting Art--For the Public to Share

Norton Simon is to be congratulated on the remarkable job he has done in building a great collection which will, hopefully, be shared in perpetuity by the people of Southern California and art lovers who visit us from around the world (“Norton Simon” by Suzanne Muchnic, June 24).

As much as I admire the Norton Simon collection, there are key differences between Simon’s philosophy and practice of collecting and mine. Our differences include:

* I don’t believe that shareholders of public corporations should pay for expensive collections of art, especially if they are not seen daily by employees and visitors.

* I believe in strong support for public institutions by using one’s entrepreneurial skill, time and money for the public benefit. I take great pride in having been the founding chairman of the Museum of Contemporary Art and helping to create a world-class institution. I prefer to support quality existing institutions like MOCA and the Los Angeles County Musuem of Art to creating a museum of one’s own.

* The primary focus of our art activities is to expose the widest possible public audience to contemporary art. I believe in sharing with others and, from our personal, foundation and corporate collections, we are active lenders throughout the world. I view us as simply the custodians of the more than 1,000 works we have collected.

That’s why the Eli Broad Family Foundation was born--to develop a collection of contemporary works to lend to museums, university art galleries and nonprofit exhibition spaces in the United States and internationally. Its mandate is to create a premier collection of the last quarter of this century.

The foundation is not open to the public; it is a “museum without walls,” a lending library of contemporary art. The foundation fills a special purpose--making fine contemporary art available to a broader audience. Museums and college and university galleries are often unable to purchase major works for their own collections.

With rare exception--and perhaps Norton Simon is one--great collections have been built by acquiring art while it was being produced, rather than going far back in time. Contemporary art is the art of our time, and by collecting it we support the arts infrastructure, including artists, art schools, art dealers and the next generation of talent.

Southern California has the second-largest population of working artists in the world. For our corporate collection, we decided that we would acquire works by young and emerging artists of the area. And we decided, arbitrarily, to select artists who had not had a major retrospective before 1975.

This was not a collection by committee, as is often the case with corporations. I personally visited artist studios, reviewed transparencies and slides, and made decisions. Only in contemporary art can you enjoy and learn from this process. We created the corporate collection not only for our company, but also to set an example which would stimulate other companies to do the same. This collection shows that you don’t need to acquire expensive works by established artists to have a provocative and interesting collection. Our entire corporate collection cost under $1 million.

Collecting contemporary art is tough. Artists, like students, have proven to be ahead of the rest of us in their thinking and their capacity to embrace new ideas, and in their call for reforms. Let’s remember that Michelangelo, Titian and Caravaggio were all contemporary artists of their time.

Getting advice from experts is good to a point, but I believe that one should not collect with one’s ear--one should collect with one’s eye and passion. You have to be willing to take risks, to believe in your own decisions. When I first started collecting 17 years ago, I was very careful; I didn’t want to make any mistakes. But mistakes are part of the process, and today, I have a lot of self-confidence. To me, meeting the artists, researching the art and making my own decisions is what’s really fun about collecting.

Times have changed in the 35 years since Norton Simon started collecting. A quarter-century ago, the sale of a painting for $1 million was news. Now, $50 million, $80 million and--perhaps soon--$100 million is news. There are now more collectors throughout the world and much more competition for art of all periods. Building a collection today requires more energy, more money and a greater commitment than ever before.

In all of this, there is a lesson that I hope is learned by museums--that more than ever, they need to, as someone wrote, “collect collectors,” by assisting them, showing their collections and appreciating the fact that they have devoted a good part of their energy, passion, intellect and resources to building a collection. Oftentimes, museum professionals do not appreciate people like Norton Simon, who have great practical wordly experience, but not cloistered academic experience. These people can be great resources to them, and even though they may be different, museums should embrace them.

At a time when art is being acquired by individuals worldwide, and much of it is hidden from public view, my philosophy has been and will continue to be to provide the public with the greatest possible access to contemporary art--the art of our times.

See letters to Counterpunch, F7.