John Kaldor Family Collection, AGNSW

This one is more of a reflection than a review, because while the works are spectacular, there are more interesting forces at play behind the scenes that I would like to explore.

The AGNSW’s shiny new 3000 square metre marble basement level has, as its inaugural exhibition, a vast display of works from John Kaldor’s donated collection. Worth a cool $35 million, the works are exhibited in the new contemporary gallery baring the Kaldor family name.

The exhibit is indeed impressive, including works from many of the most important art movements of the late twentieth century and the new millennium. Kaldor is one of the world’s foremost collectors of Sol LeWitt’s works, and the artist is generously represented in the gallery – note the LeWitt row. Along with LeWitt, his Conceptualist counterparts adorn the walls and floor of the gallery, including Carl Andre, Frank Stella, Donald Judd, and Bernd and Hilla Becher. Pop Art icons Jeff Koons and Robert Rauschenberg are present, as are video and photographic big-names like Gilbert & George, Andreas Gursky, Nam June Paik, Bill Viola, and Australia’s golden boy of the moment, Shawn Gladwell. Of course, Christo’s wrapped gems are also on display. Unsurprisingly, artists who have been brought out (or will be shortly) through Kaldor Public Art Projects are also represented, including Barry McGee, Urs Fischer, Ugo Rondinone and Michael Landy. 

Along with the works from his private collection, Kaldor had also commissioned three new works by artists already in the collection; Rondinone, Richard Long and a very cool reproduction of a room in the collector’s own home created by those from LeWitt’s studio.

Something of note however; the very generous donation of this collection cost the gallery (ie. NSW government) about $30 million in itself – money spent to refurbish the basement floor, which was originally the storage room, and hence moving storage of artworks off site. While I am obviously a fan of government spending on the arts (I know which hand it is that will most likely feed me), it is interesting that Kaldor has found a cheeky loop-hole that many of his wealthy collector peers from around the world have not discovered (or at the very least, not pursued). Usually, when an art collector has a substantial amount of works in his (yes, mainly his) possession, he will most likely fork out his own money to build a fancy facility to match the fancy art that it will show – Charles Saatchi and Francois Pinault (whose museum ostentatiously sits almost adjacent to Venice’s Biennale venues) are notable examples, as is Australia’s own eccentric iconoclast David Walsh with the opening of MONA at the beginning of this year. This way, the collector gets to share his work with the public, and also bask in the glory of his collection, which is first and foremost a portrait of him as a collector, and by extension a person, and only secondly a presentation of whatever eras of art from which he has collected. And of course, the running and maintenance of these private galleries has ongoing costs, for the life of the venue – Walsh’s, for instance, will cost about $10 million per year to run. So it seems then, by comparison, that Kaldor may have side-stepped a costly project through the relatively small donation of $35 million worth of art; the AGNSW and NSW government carry the costs of building the venue, and of course the costs of maintaining it and staff in perpetuity, while Kaldor gets to share his collection with the world and have his name on the gallery wall anyway. It’s a win-win for the business-savvy art lover.

Last, but certainly not least: going back to my point about any private collection being primarily a portrait of its collector. Notice the names that are listed here: there is one woman, who appears in partnership with her husband. In fact, out of the vast collection of works donated by Kaldor, 194 are by male artists, six works are collaborations, and two works are by female artists. These statistics prove a far cry from claims of this being the most ‘comprehensive’ collection of contemporary art, as Mr Capon would have you believe in various pieces of press. It has occurred to me that there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for this – Kaldor simply chose to keep the works made by women and donate the men’s ones. But I doubt it. So beware when you go to see this admittedly impressive display of works – there are women Conceptual, video, photographic, Pop, etc, etc, etc, artists, even if Mr Kaldor did not deem it necessary to collect them equally. [Image (C) 2011 Alan Miller]