Episode 008: Robert Rosenkranz
Show Notes
This week's show offers an inside glimpse into a major private collection of time-based media art, with our guest Robert Rosenkranz. Come along for a walking tour of a home in the mountains of Aspen, purpose built for living with time-based media art. We'll hear about the unique challenges of collecting and living with time-based media, what Robert looks for when he's considering a new piece for his collection, and some of the hard earned lessons he's learned over the years as a collector.
Links from the conversation with Robert
> The Rosenkranz Foundation: http://www.rosenkranzfdn.org/
> Intelligence Squared US: https://intelligencesquaredus.org/
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Transcript
[00:00:00] Ben: From Small Data Industries, this is Art and Obsolescence. I'm your host, Ben Fino-Radin, and on this show, I sit down with artists, collectors, curators, conservators, all kinds of people that are shaping the past, present and future of art and technology. Welcome back, everyone. I hope your week is off to a great start. Before we get started this week, just a quick editor's note. This conversation was recorded many, many months ago when I was just getting started with producing the show and little baby podcaster Ben had some technical difficulties and recorded our guest using the wrong microphone. So you might notice a difference in the sound quality this week. Just know that I care deeply about your ears, and I am so sorry.
Now as we continue to build the collection of stories and perspectives on this show, I'm hoping to provide a rich spectrum of all of the types of people that contribute to the broader art world ecosystem, as it pertains to time-based media art, and collectors are a crucial part of that ecosystem. Collectors often get a bad rap and that's not entirely unfounded. There's a huge spectrum of all different kinds of collectors and let's face it some of them are not in it for the purest of reasons.
However over the course of my career, what I've found is that serious collectors of time-based media art just kind of cut from a different cloth. When you look at major collectors of time-based media art all over the world. These collectors tend to be passionately dedicated to the longterm stewardship of art, developing, lasting, and fruitful relationships with the artists they collect, often funding, important acquisitions and conservation work in museums, not to mention the incredible amount of work that comes with collecting and stewarding time-based media art in their own collections. Today I am so excited to share my conversation with just one of those top collectors: Robert Rosenkranz. Over the years, Robert has been building an incredible collection of time-based media, art, including early single channel video art classics, algorithmic and software-based art, as well as contemporary large scale immersive installations. Now full disclosure: Robert just so happens to be a client of mine and has been for a long time, he's actually kind of one of my day- ones. Working with Robert has been such an enriching experience and the impetus to collaborate with artists like Sondra Perry and Ian Cheng and Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and many, many more. Much of this activity happens in Aspen, Colorado, where Robert and his wife, Dr. Alexandra Monroe have a stunning home known as the Art Barn, which is purpose built for their respective passions. Time-based media art and Japanese tea ceremony. If the idea of a private collector planning and building a home for displaying time-based media art rings a bell, well, you would be correct. As you'll recall from episode four, that's precisely what the Kramlichs did, and this trend. Extends much further than just these two collections due to the significant space and technical requirements of properly showing time-based media art it's actually quite common for the major collectors to go all in and build or fit a space specifically designed for this purpose.
And that is where we will begin today's conversation. Come along and join me for a little walking tour of Robert and Dr. Monroe's Art Barn. Imagine after a winding drive up the mountain side, you would approach a rather unassuming barn-like structure.
[00:03:25] Robert: From the outside, they would see something as simple in form as a hotel in the game of Monopoly. Just as pure and simple as can be. The whole aesthetic of it is totally minimalist, but a minimalist aesthetic does require incredible attention to detail to get right. I was totally involved in every detail in this project and ever since my Vince Scully days, I was kind of a frustrated architect. So this is actually the first thing I've ever built from the ground up so it was an enormously exciting project from that point of view.
When you walk into the front door you're looking right through the building to a view out into the mountains and then when you walk into the great room, which is a room about, I want to say 30 feet by 60 feet or there about, magnificent views of the Aspen mountain through very large windows, on the opposite wall, there are no windows at all and we've installed a massive Sol LeWitt wall drawing from the seventies. Also in that space is a I don't know whether I'd call it a painting, an object, by Günther Uecker who creates these nail sculptures almost that are hung on the wall and they're records almost of a performative thing that he's done, hammering nails with great precision into a plywood panel. He was a quite prominent member of the Zero movement in Germany, in the sixties. This was a group of artists whose imperative was to make art in ways that had never been done before. Also in that space is a chess game by Yoko Ono and it's a chess game where all of the pieces are white and all of the squares are white. It's called Play It By Trust, and of course it brings up her traditional anti-war theme because after you play four or five moves, you can't even remember which are your pieces and which are your opponent's pieces, which makes it hard to continue a war. There's a Richard Serra drawing in that space, which is just a monumentally scaled drawing on Japanese paper using Sumi ink and it's as sculptural as a drawing can possibly be. The other work of art in that great room is a hanging sculpture by a German artist called Bjorn Schulke and it's a solar powered object that kind of senses your presence, there are motion sensors, and it's still most of the time, but if somebody comes into the space and walks in its presence, it starts activating itself and kind of moves around in the space. It's an engineering miracle because the only power is sunlight. There are no batteries and it has a little bit of a menacing feeling to it, but also a little bit of an amusing feeling to it. So it's got a, kind of, a psychological ambivalence and it's also technologically quite amazing looking thing.
Also in the Art Barn are a couple of galleries: two that are devoted to video art and another, that's devoted to the intersection of art and technology. One of the galleries is now set up for single channel video. That, that can change, very readily depending on what you choose to show but the downstairs gallery we typically or have often done more structured installations. We had a piece with three very large screens by Richard Mosse called Incoming, which I thought an absolutely brilliant work of art that used thermal imaging to convey the experience of refugees in the Mediterranean and what's installed there now is a work by Kahlil Joseph called BLK NWS. There's a wall with a photograph that he selected of cowboys, but they're Black cowboys right away confounding your conventional image of what a cowboy looks like.
BLK NWS is two monitors side by side television monitors, large scale, and is presenting news from a Black perspective how news would be edited if it were edited with something of a Black sensibility and Kahlil Joseph is I think a great artist, one of the terrific video artists of his generation. His background is in music videos, so he's used to cuts, he's used to juxtaposition of sound and images, he's used to a fast pace, and the way this is edited is just genius I think.
It's about 50 minutes and it is just so absorbing, I mean, it completely holds your attention. Each edition is unique, and then as a collector of that, you get a kind of a subscription to a constant refresh of new clips that he's preparing in the studio. So it's a kind of unique format and I think it's a great work of art.
[00:08:39] Ben: Who are some of the other artists that we would encounter if we were sort of flipping through your collection?
[00:08:44] Robert: The earliest would be Bill Biola, a major piece of his called Firewoman, which requires about an 18 foot high screen to show and I've never actually shown it. I mentioned Richard Mosse, who I think is great. Besides Incoming, I have The Enclave, which is a video that took five years to make and it documents experiences around the Congo war. Lucy Raven, I commissioned a work of hers. that's in the collection. I'm actually currently commissioning something from Richard Mosse dealing with the Amazon.
Some Frances Stark, I have a couple of works of hers, which I think are wonderful Ed Atkins is a special favorite, Doug Aitken Migration, I think is a great piece. One of the first things I bought was by a Dutch artist called Vandevere. It's called Home. He's an artist that is a video artist. He's a musician composer and he's an endurance artist. So he just pushes his own body to incredible lengths.
Hemmer I have to mention him as well. I have quite a few works. He's using technology in extremely interesting ways and he's one of the most intellectual and philosophically grounded artists. I could go on, there are probably 50 works in the collection at this point or 60.
[00:10:05] Ben: So it sounds like for you, everything from the architecture, the artworks, even the furniture, everything for you is all working together. It's all part of the same consideration.
[00:10:16] Robert: There's not a single thing in this place that wasn't a very deliberate choice, very much thought about. And you know, expressive of a unified aesthetic vision.
[00:10:29] Ben: So you mentioned with the Bill Viola Fire Woman piece the scale that that piece requires and how the opportunity to show that doesn't always present itself. I'm curious, what is it like as a collector of time-based media art to have works like that in your collection that you know, it's not necessarily conducive to showing in the home and maybe it really can only be properly seen in a museum setting or something like that. As a collector what drives you to collect a piece like that, that, you know, you wouldn't be able to just see every day if you wanted to?
[00:11:01] Robert: One of the uh, Richard Mosse works requires six screens and I want to say at least 18 channels of sound. That's a real challenge. I don't think I'll ever be able to install that except maybe in a museum setting, but there are some works that are just so brilliant that I just feel as a collector, whether I can display them or not, I'll have opportunities to lend them and they add, a kind of a richness and quality of the collection that I think is very worthwhile.
[00:11:32] Ben: So now that we have a sense of Robert's collection, let's take a big step back and hear where everything began for him.
[00:11:38] Robert: My life in the arts really began with a very charismatic teacher at Yale called Vince Scully. I had a basic introductory art history course with him and then I took an architecture course and he was so infectious in his enthusiasm for art. He communicated that so effectively that it really opened up a whole field of interest for me.
Although I went to Yale, studied economics, Harvard law school practiced law for a couple of years, because I grew up with such an extreme level of financial insecurity at home, I thought it was really important for me to pursue a career where I could become financially
independent and finance was that choice that I made.
I was a scholarship student. I didn't have anything like the means to become a collector, but when I got into a financial position to do that, it was something that I regarded as an essential part of a well lived life to have an active cultural life and that of course included being open to collecting.
I think what attracted me to this field in the first place was the sense that it seemed first of all, to be the natural language of young people. Younger generations get all their information from screens. They do all their communicating on social networks. It just seems like the normal, natural way that a young person would want to express themselves is through video and incorporating the technology that is absolutely part of their world.
Just seems a little unnatural to take a piece of canvas and stretch it on a wood stretcher and find some oil paints. So I thought there was something really contemporary and relevant about this form of, of expression. In many cases, the artist's intent was to create a immersive experience. I mean, you go into a museum, you go into a gallery, there are 10 paintings. You glance at each one for 15 seconds. I feel like if a work of art can't hold your attention for five minutes or 10 minutes or 20 minutes, you know, it's somehow deficient.
Whereas this video art was really, demanding or asking for attention. On the other hand, if it's asking for that attention, it's got to repay that attention. By repaying it can't be boring. I think there's a lot of video art that is frankly boring, and I don't have much tolerance for that.
I think it's gotta be intelligent. There are a lot of artists, frankly, who think that making some simplistic political point is interesting or worthwhile. I don't respond to intellectual simplicity or over emotionalizing things. I really want to see artists that have some subtlety that have some depth in their thought processes that have some real craftsmanship in what they're doing that they've mastered the technology.
So I do have quite high standards and I would also say that I'm not a compulsive collector, so to speak. It's not like I'm looking for things to buy all the time or have to be adding things to the collection. I think part of being a collector in this space is to know what's going on and keep up with new work and emerging talents, but I don't feel like if month went by and I didn't buy something that I somehow wasted that month.
I generally like to think about it. I mean I want see work in its entirety except for maybe some 12 hour works. I also want to feel after I've seen it that I'd like to see it again. If I don't want to see it a second time, I probably don't want it in the collection.
[00:15:25] Ben: Fair, because if you're adding something to your collection, you're going to be seeing it quite often. So I'm curious from your perspective what is fundamentally different for collecting time-based media versus when you're acquiring painting or sculpture or photography? I know you have a great perspective on this because between your collection, as well as your wife's collection, it really spans every imaginable medium beyond time based media.
[00:15:56] Robert: Well, I would say it's, it's much more of a commitment because you need a lot of space to install it properly. There's enormous amount of technical expertise that's required. I mean, as you know, I've got a team of four or five people who, you know, part-time four or five different technical specialties that are needed in order to present this work the kind of way it's intended. So it's it's very demanding of a collector. That's part of the reason I think there are very few people who are active in the field. It's mostly museums of course, but it is frankly daunting for most individuals to collect them this area.
[00:16:36] Ben: In your view when we think about private collections and private collectors within the broader art world ecosystem, what do you view as your role or responsibility as a collector?
[00:16:47] Robert: Well, I think you, at least I feel like I want to move the field forward.
I think this is a field of art where museums have been very active as collectors. They've done a great job as curators. They've done a great job as conservators, but I don't think they've done a particularly good job as exhibitors of the work. First of all, it requires a lot more space than maybe museums have.
Secondly, requires a different mindset on the part of the viewer. People just don't go to museums with the idea of being in a dark room, immersed in a single work of art for 20 minutes. It's just not part of the museum zeitgeist. So I felt like as a private collector, I could, in a sense honor, the intent of the artist to create these experiential environments in a sense better than museums could. I thought I was really bringing something to the field of significance by making a pretty serious commitment to it.
[00:17:49] Ben: That's interesting despite how much we've worked together I had no idea that that was part of your inspiration as a collector, the display and the manifestation of the work. That's phenomenal. Outside of the art barn, what are some of the spaces that you've had the opportunity, to realize your work?
[00:18:05] Robert: One of my works right now is on loan to MoMA I think it's an absolutely brilliant video by Cao Fei called Whose Utopia and it's in a second floor gallery, very large gallery devoted solely to this work. So that's very satisfying to see something that I think is a great piece of art displayed at MoMA in such a wonderful setting.
There have been works of mine that have been included in Whitney shows or other other cases works that the Whitney acquired perhaps not with my resources, but, but on its own where I've funded the, the exhibitions there. So that's another way of contributing to the field.
[00:18:50] Ben: Of course, because you're a trustee of the Whitney. So for those who aren't familiar, in addition to being a trustee, which of course means financial support for the institution, it's a form of philanthropy... you're also a collections committee member with Chrissy Isles. So what is the role of a collections committee member?
[00:19:07] Robert: The committee is really a way of communicating between the museum and a group of collectors who are financially supportive of expanding the collection in a way that has more depth, and more conducive to sort of social and intellectual interactions. I think that's really the main function of, of those committees.
[00:19:30] Ben: I've been really inspired to see the creative relationship and push and pull it it seems that you've developed with the curatorial team at the Whitney over the years, I think that you've definitely brought things to the table for them and vice versa. You know your dialogue with them has exposed you to more artists and it seems like that's been really enriching both for them and for you.
[00:19:53] Robert: I mean, I think you're touching on something that I feel strongly about, which is that there should be a symbiotic relationship between collectors and institutions. I think if the institutions have the expertise and they help you build a collection, that gives them a kind of moral claim on that collection down the road. Most of the things that I have acquired through Chrissie's good offices are promised gifts, to the Whitney. So there's a kind of a symbiosis there, which I think is a healthy thing.
There are some who would say, well, it's a conflict of interest or what have you, but I don't see it that way. I see it as a win-win for everybody, the collector gets expertise and access that he wouldn't have otherwise, the museum gets to add to their collection in ways that they wouldn't have otherwise, and it's pretty satisfying for both parties.
[00:20:51] Ben: " Promised gift" for those who aren't familiar, what does that mean?
[00:20:54] Robert: What I'm saying is that I'm never going to sell it in the secondary market or otherwise, when I dispose of it, the disposition is going to be by a gift to the Whitney. In the case of video, art it's sort of really easy because. It can be shown. The Whitney can consider it part of their collection right now. If they ever want to show anything, they can. They've got the files, so they can use it the way they would use a current gift, but legally I still own the work.
[00:21:22] Ben: So when you purchase a work as a promised gift, it's essentially a way of assuring this work is going to live in, the public trust, so to speak, it's not going to wind up at an auction years from now.
[00:21:34] Robert: Yes exactly, and that's that's also sort of helps me, with dealers and artists because artists like the idea that their work is going to end up in museums and they hate the idea that their work could end up at Sotheby's.
[00:21:49] Ben: What do you wish you knew when you first started collecting that you know now?
[00:21:54] Robert: The thing that sticks in my head most is the relationship with dealers. I sort of thought that if a dealer had a work of art, and these are mostly editioned works of art. So if there was an edition available unsold and I wanted to buy it that was the end of the conversation. I'd be able to buy it and be done with it. That turned out to be quite naive. There were dealers who basically, would give me some story that was not a hundred percent truthful about the availability of works because they wanted to sell it to a different collector or they wanted to sell it to an institution.
What I've learned in fact is that one has to establish with dealers a kind of a reputation of being a serious collector and a serious supporter of the field, such that they will want to place works with you. It's not just commerce, it's not just we have this available and you're willing to pay for it. There's more to it than that, and I didn't realize that at the beginning and I lost some very important works that I had identified very early on that were in dealer hands and they ultimately didn't sell them to me. They sold them to other people. I don't know if I could have reversed that judgment on their parts, but I wasn't even conscious that this was something I would have to think about doing in order to build a quality collection like I wanted.
[00:23:33] Ben: Yeah, it's interesting, right, that's I think a barrier that a lot of young collectors face when they're first entering the idea of, oh, I'm going to start collecting art and buying art. It's it's not a simple monetary exchange where if you want it and you have the money, it's not necessarily going to be yours. Sometimes for sometimes for good reasons, you know, there can be artists in galleries that as you were saying, they want to make sure that things wind up in museums or in collections where there'll be seen by the public. Of course it sounds like sometimes with dealers there's other, other tactics at play and other interests in play.
You've been active in collecting for quite some time now. How have you seen things in the art world changed during that time?
[00:24:14] Robert: The art world has become very entwined with money. For a lot of major collectors, the art is a real asset class for them. I mean, it's not uncommon. I know a lot of people who have 20, 30, 40% of their net worth in art. I know other people who have multi hundred million dollar collections that they never see. They just sit in a warehouse somewhere. So that sense of art as a parking place for big money I think that's new, and I regard it as an unwelcome development.
One of the things I liked about time-based media is the impulse to create has to be more pure. I mean nobody can make serious money creating video art it's just, there's no economics to it. You can cobble together maybe enough money to keep going and to produce an ambitious work from time to time, but you've got to be motivated by pure kind of artistic impulse or creative impulse, you can't be motivated by a desire to be rich someday.
The other change that I would say would be kind of important, is that in a sense, the collectors seem to be dominant now in a way that they weren't 30 or 40 years ago. 30 or 40 years ago, the museums were the arbiters, of what was valuable and then it became the dealers, but now it seems like the collectors just directly at auction without being intermediated by anybody are really propelling, both values and artistic careers. So it's been a kind of a democratization, I would say, almost of the field, if you wanted to put a positive spin on that.
[00:26:06] Ben: Is there a really most memorable art viewing experience with time-based media that you recall that you'd like to share with us?
[00:26:16] Robert: I think seeing The Clock the Christian Marclay piece with the film clips, I thought was just totally extraordinary. I saw that in a private collection - Peter Kraus'. I would say the experience of that and then seeing some other works and in his collection, and then visiting the Kramlichs and seeing what they were doing made me feel like, gosh, this is a really interesting field.
It is something that can be done by private individuals who can make a meaningful contribution. So I'd say that was very possibly the first impetus, seeing something great as The Clock in a private setting.
[00:26:58] Ben: Having seen both of those collections I'm inclined to agree with you on that. Is there any advice that you would give to an aspiring collector who's coming up today?
[00:27:08] Robert: I think collectors should collect in fields where they have the potential of buying the best. So, you know, if you're going to get a minor lithograph from Andy Warhol, well, okay. That's nice. And people know that you have an Andy Warhol, but you know, I just find collecting much more satisfying if you can be kind of a pioneer if you can go after the very best material in your field, if you can be more expert than most other people in that field, if you can learn more about it. To me, that's the satisfying thing to do as a collector and time-based media is not a bad place for that. There are works by young artists really fine works that you can buy for $1,500 or $5,000. I mean, the price points are extremely reasonable for young artists' work relative to the kind of prices that you might think quality works of art command if you go to Sotheby's or Christie's or wander into Gagosian.
[00:28:20] Ben: That's really inspiring. So well said.
Looking at the work that your foundation does, it would appear that your art collection and your philanthropic work with museums is really just the tip of the iceberg of your interests. I'm curious, are there any other kinds of projects that your foundation has in the works right now?
[00:28:36] Robert: Well, considering that this is a podcast, I'm going to do a little plug for Intelligence Squared US, a philanthropic initiative that I started almost more than a decade ago that produced live events and an Oxford style debate on public policy issues. Of course, with COVID we had to pivot to a purely digital set of strategies, and one of the main distribution ways now besides national public radio, which we've always been on is a podcast series. So I would commend that to your listeners, IQ Squared US podcasts, and you'll find podcasts that talk about the pros and cons of virtually every issue you might be interested in.
[00:29:19] Ben: Fantastic. Well, we'll make sure to put that in the show notes. Robert, thank you again so much. This has been such a delightful conversation and I know that our listeners will deeply appreciate getting an inside glimpse at your collection and just kind of what makes you tick as a collector, so I really appreciate it.
[00:29:35] Robert: Well it was my pleasure Ben and I wish you well with the project.
[00:29:40] Ben: Thanks so much, Robert.
And as always, thank you, dear listener for joining me for this week's conversation. If you enjoyed hearing about Robert's collection, you are in luck because this May, the Aspen Art Museum is opening a major exhibition, prominently featuring selections from the Rosenkranz collection, and I think there's going to be an amazing catalog and everything. So look forward to that.
Before we go, I just wanted to remind you that a major mission of this podcast is to equitably support artists that come on the show and that is something that I can't do without your help. If you are in a place to give, go ahead and hurry over to artandobsolescence.com/donate, where you can make your tax deductible gift to support the show, through our fiscal sponsor the New York Foundation for the Arts.
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