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The Inner Circles
Suzanne McGee
11/01/2004
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At the next level—the International Directors
Council ($15,000 a year in dues) or the Photography Committee ($5,000 a year),
both by invitation only—membership provides access to the loftiest international
echelons of the art world. In mid-June, a group of two dozen members of the
Guggenheim’s Directors Council jetted off to Art Basel, one of the top art fairs
worldwide, with a curator by their side. They then traveled on to Athens to
attend the opening of an exhibition of works from the private collection of
wealthy Greek collector Dakis Joannou.
Museum curators like to talk of these
groups as comprising an extended family. When we first discuss membership with
one of these institutions, the wariness on each side often makes the exchange
feel like college rush week (except that we can, if we are so inclined, join as
many museum groups as will have us). “Eventually you decide which ones interest
or engage you the most and concentrate on them,” da Costa says. “It’s a natural
evolution.”
The Right Fit
Nevertheless, deciding which group will best help us pursue
our particular collecting passion can be difficult, unless we know where our
passions lie. Heller says rapport with the curators is one of the imperatives,
as are the obvious shared aesthetic sensibilities. If you do not identify with
Cezanne, Picasso and Jasper Johns, you will not be happy at New York’s MOMA, he
says. If you love Edward Hopper, “go to the Whitney, where their mission is
American art.”
In addition to Guggenheim, da Costa supports Innerspace, a
group that works with emerging artists who have not yet found galleries in New
York to represent their work. Membership is inexpensive, but limited to those
who have a real interest in the arena. “You can join a big museum group for the
social network and the prestige of the affiliation,” he says. “But Innerspace is
a group that only art-world insiders know about; it’s full of people who are
passionate about art.”
Heller suggests that if our goal is to have a profound
effect on an institution, “You can do it more easily and more cheaply outside of
New York. A regional museum, for instance, may end up doing a retrospective on
your favorite artist. If you give your collection to a smaller institution you
will see the impact, whereas if you give a painting to a giant institution, it
may well end up in storage for a lot of the time.” Heller is a long-time
supporter of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem and says the network of art-world
relationships he has built up through that affiliation has been
invaluable.
When it came time for the Stones to decide which New York
institution to back, they opted for the Whitney Museum rather than MOMA. “We
felt we could make more of a difference there, rather than be just another face
in the crowd,” Norah explains.
At their best, the new relationships beget the
kind of mutual gratification that the Houston Museum of Fine Arts has with
businessman and polo enthusiast John Goodman. As a young man, Goodman developed
a fascination with Asian art on trips to Thailand and Nepal. He organized a
recent benefit polo match with the maharaja of Jaipur as a guest. The proceeds,
says Margaret Skidmore, associate director of development of the museum, will
help finance the purchase of sixth-century Indian sandstone sculptures. “It’s
the ideal outcome,” she effuses.
Photography by Robert Adam Mayer.
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