“I think the best advice I’ve heard from a lot of people is: you should collect what it is you love, you should learn it.”
Are those sounds just the installation?
Those are the white lights. There’s a series of LED lights that provide color and another series of white lights that are incandescent lights that provide pure white light. There are two rows and when the white lights heat up, they start to expand and that’s the clicking you hear.
Notice how blue it is now? When we opened it, which was exactly — which is hard to believe — exactly six minutes ago. I would have described the color as being a very soft cloud white and now it’s blue — an eggshell blue.
Do you come to this room everyday or week?
Oh no, I would say maybe a couple times a month. I actually prefer to do it when I’ve got company, it’s a lot more fun. I have done it myself when I’ve needed to destress, but it’s much more fun with company.
When was the Skyscape installed?
2002.
You’ve stated in a past interview that you don’t like to give advice, because sometimes people don’t want to take it. But what would your recommendations be for someone who is looking to get into collecting art?
Again, one of the reasons I don’t like giving advice, just to be clear, is everybody’s in a different place. So, for instance, if you’re someone like David Geffen, or you’re someone like Eli Broad — he may say the best way for you to collect is to collect the bluest blue-chip material. People can’t do that. Only a handful of people can afford to do that. A: I couldn’t afford to do that and I’m a reasonably wealthy guy. B: if I was able to do it, I wouldn’t have been able to do a particularly good job.
People are always trying to think, ‘you know, how can I do this to make money? How can I make this an investment?’ I think the best advice I’ve heard from a lot of people is: you should collect what it is you love, you should learn it. Before you even buy anything, go to a lot of museums, go to a lot of galleries and look at a lot of things. The more we see — all of us, any of us — the more it’s going to shape the type of thing that we become interested in and it’s going to change dramatically over time.
It’s almost like music. When you’re a teenager, you’re going to listen to really pop music and be really into it. As you get older, your musical taste becomes a lot more sophisticated — you’re not interested in the same things. I think in many ways, art is the same thing.
I actually like to go look at art that is well regarded by a lot of critics that I particularly don’t care for. And I like to look at it so I can try to understand what is it that these people that are far better educated than I, that are far more knowledgeable than I — what did they see? Why did they like it? There’s always a learning for me. Also in terms of creative thinking, to me, it’s always a great jolt, a great kick in the head.
I’m not in business anymore, but when I was and I was perplexed and would take a walk, because walking always helped me meditate and relax. I loved to go see art and particularly art that I don’t know well unlocked something in my head. It’s not like it’s a direct line, where I go see a show and unlock the answer to my question — it doesn’t happen that way — it’s a process.
So I think the whole idea of if you’re interested in art, whether you are interested in collecting it for your walls, or collecting it for your eyes — some people I know, I call them the great collectors — and they don’t own anything. They go to every show, they see everything. They have a great appreciation for it. They collect it in their mind. And I think that is every bit of a collection as owning an artwork and putting it on your wall.
Unless you have unlimited means, I do think that the notion of specializing in picking something that is very personal to you, that has real meaning to you and not thinking about it as, ‘is this the right investment?’ Nine times out of ten, its going to be a terrible investment. Some people that are buying blue chip stuff and only the best of the best by the best artists can make money. But normally, its just not a way to make money and I think it cheapens the whole idea to think of it that way.
I’ve been very lucky with this collection. I just happened to pick Minimalism and Light and Space before it became a hot item. It’s so important to emphasize that I didn’t think I was going to get a jump on the market. I didn’t think it was going to become big, I did it because it really spoke to me and I really loved it.
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wazup.