Toronto building boom

[Urban Shocker]

So you're basically admitting to a form of bigotry.

One need not be ashamed of admitting to superior knowledge.

The ARTnews world's top collectors, 2011
By The Editors of ARTnews

* Hélène and Bernard Arnault
Paris
Contemporary art

* Debra and Leon Black
New York
Old Masters; Impressionism; modern painting; Chinese sculpture; contemporary art

* Edythe L. and Eli Broad
Los Angeles
Contemporary art

* Halit Cingillioglu
Istanbul
Impressionism; postwar, modern, and contemporary art

* Alexandra and Steven A. Cohen
Greenwich, Connecticut
Impressionism; modern and contemporary art

* Laurence Graff
Gstaad, Switzerland

* Philip S. Niarchos
Saint Moritz, Switzerland
Old Masters; Impressionism; modern and contemporary art

* François Pinault
Paris
Contemporary art

* Emily and Mitchell Rales
Potomac, Maryland; New York
Modern and contemporary art

* Sheikh Saud bin Mohammad bin Ali al-Thani
Doha, Qatar; London
Antiquities; Old Masters; Islamic art; contemporary art; natural history; minerals; architecture

 

[Ladies Mile]

How is this "throwing money at things?"

If four of the top ten collectors are American and three are Swiss, does this mean that the Swiss, statistically speaking, throw even more money at things?

 

[Urban Shocker]

Frankly arguments about progressive patronage are fairly idiotic. There's no way of knowing if today's unknown is tomorrow's genius.

Neither rich socialite Bertha Palmer loading up on fashionable Monet's in 1891, nor Chicago's recent acquisition of the bean count as "progressive patronage" though. Neither purchases would have been made by either clients if either artist were unknowns. Money was thrown at them because they were known and rather safe bets.

 

[Ladies Mile]

Monet was a safe bet in 1891?

I wonder why the English didn't seem to think so.

You are grasping at straws to make the acquisition process in Toronto seem innately superior. It isn't.

 

[Urban Shocker]

If four of the top ten collectors are American and three are Swiss, does this mean that the Swiss, statistically speaking, throw even more money at things?

Philip Niarchos is of Greek citizenship, and Laurence Graff is a U.K. citizen, so neither are Swiss.

 

[freshcutgrass]

You are grasping at straws to make the acquisition process in Toronto seem innately superior. It isn't.

Going broke over-paying for iconic trophy art you can't afford is not the superior method of collecting nor city-building.

 

[Urban Shocker]

Monet was a safe bet in 1891?

Oh yes. His fashionable paintings, thanks to a canny dealer who convinced wealthy Americans socialites to buy them, allowed him to live in a lovely house with a beautiful garden and a couple of acres by that time. He was rich, famous and a safe bet. If he wasn't Americans wouldn't have paid any attention to him.

 

[Ladies Mile]

Oh yes. His fashionable paintings, thanks to a canny dealer who convinced wealthy Americans socialites to buy them, allowed him to live in a lovely house with a beautiful garden and a couple of acres by that time. He was rich, famous and a safe bet. If he wasn't Americans wouldn't have paid any attention to him.

And what, pray tell, kept the English (and Canadians) from paying attention to him?

 

[Ladies Mile]

That still makes Switzerland, statistically speaking, more of a money-thrower than the US.

 

[freshcutgrass]

That still makes Switzerland, statistically speaking, more of a money-thrower than the US.

Only in terms of the "top ten list". In terms of the entire art market...no.

And of course it depends on what you are buying.

Does anybody recall over 20 years ago when the whole country collectively shat its pants over Voice of Fire? And then again 3 years later when they acquired a Rothko?

If it weren't for savvy public art directors, our cities and public art galleries could never afford to purchase important abstract works at market prices these days.

 

[adma]

Does anybody recall over 20 years ago when the whole country collectively shat its pants over Voice of Fire? And then again 3 years later when they acquired a Rothko?

It's only "the whole country" in the same sense that "the whole city" was worked up over the St Clair streetcar *harrumph* Ford *harrumph*

 

[TrickyRicky]

So remind me what this all has to do with Toronto's building boom again?

 

[freshcutgrass]

So remind me what this all has to do with Toronto's building boom again?

Go back and read the beginning of the thread. It's all about searching for the "iconic" trophy.

Some people are worried they will end up with..."I lived through Toronto's Building Boom, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt...and 150 condo towers, none of which are 1000 feet high"

 

[Urban Shocker]

And what, pray tell, kept the English (and Canadians) from paying attention to him?

Dealer Paul Durand-Ruel actually met Monet and Pissarro in London in 1870 when he was promoting his Barbizon school artists, and bought works from them - obviously prior to the first, 1874, Impressionist exhibition in Paris. As a Parisian dealer, he pioneered the highly successful idea of setting up galleries independantly of the official Salon system, created a thriving market for the Impressionists among bourgeois collectors, helped them create their collections, and took his show on the road to the States where he did the same. Then, as now, they formed a large, culturally impoverished and therefore highly receptive, source of income for him and his stable of artists.

 

[freshcutgrass]

As a Parisian dealer, he pioneered the highly successful idea of setting up galleries independantly of the official Salon system, created a thriving market for the Impressionists among bourgeois collectors, helped them create their collections, and took his show on the road to the States where he did the same.

This was a good system. It's too bad that the influence of galleries, critics & curators are being taken over by more market-driven forces, especially artists who forego the galleries all together, with the likes of Damien Hirst. Is the world ready for billionaire artists?

By the time post-war abstract paintings hit the art world, New York had taken over as the art world capital. LA & Chicago were also quite active collecting centres by default, and benefited from the growing popularity of corporate collecting of up-and-coming, and well known abstract painters/sculptors.

The world no longer has people like Peggy Guggenheim or Betty Parsons. Just like music, the art/design world is controlled by market-friven forces that don't reward talent.

Speaking of which, it's a shame that more Torontonians aren't aware of great collectors/curators such as Ydessa Hendeles. Despite being very well known and influential in the global art world, few Torontonians have ever heard of her, let alone visited her outstanding gallery on King St.