Curating Your Corporate and Private Collection
December 14th, 2011
http://www.aiproductions.org/events_20111214.htm
The Featured Panelists were:
Heidi Lee: New York-based Art Advisor
Kipton Cronkite: Founder & Creative Director, KiptonART
Sari Cohen: Collections Manager of Neuberger Berman Art Program
Sarah Connolly: Creative Director of Cavern Home
Bringing together both dealers and designers, this panel focused on how to build a comprehensive collection that will not only retain its investment value, but also work well visually in a home or office setting. Panelists broached how to balance investing for investment’s sake but also how to curate a cohesive collection. Heavily rooted in a design perspective, the discussion also covered how to successfully showcase art in a personal or professional space, and how to integrate art in its environment.
Appropriate for interior designers, corporate buyers, first-time art buyers, investors, and artists who wish to break into this burgeoning market, Annika Connor moderated this discussion as we explored every facet of this interesting intersection of art and business.
Panelists Bios:
Heidi Lee: New York-based art advisor, Heidi Lee, founded HLAA in 2002. She has extensive experience with art acquisitions, estate liquidations, collection management and appraisals. She has worked on numerous corporate collections including Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, Capital Group, Davis Polk, A.T. Kearney and Exxon’s Teagle Foundation and has helped clients acquire and appraise over four hundred works of art by internationally acclaimed artists. She has advised clients on important paintings by Mark Rothko, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Roy Lichtenstein, Agnes Martin, Damien Hirst, Keith Haring, Richard Prince, Ghada Amer, Anish Kapoor, John Baldessari and many others. She is currently advising private clients of JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley Smith Barney and Christie’s.
Lee is deeply entrenched in the art world and travels nonstop to attend major art fairs, auctions, and exhibitions. She is co-chair of the New Museum’s Contemporary Council and chairman of Christie’s Education Alumni Society. In conjunction with the Philippe Charriol Foundation, she curated her first exhibition in December 2002, featuring twenty-five artists from around the world including, Kenny Scharf, Nina Levy and Anton Corbijn. This summer she won a grant to curate an exhibition featuring critically acclaimed artists Keith Haring, Shepard Fairey, Robert Williams and Ron English.
Heidi Lee received a master’s degree from Christie’s Education in Modern Art, Connoisseurship and the Art Market and is a USPAP certified art appraiser. She is also a member of the Sheba Medical Center’s SILC board.
As a part of this panel, Ms. Lee will give advice on key points to keep in mind when collecting as well giving concrete examples of names to know and good buys for new collectors.
http://heidileeartadvisory.com/
Kipton Cronkite: Founder & Creative Director, KiptonART. Recognizing there was no vehicle to help emerging artists gain a foothold in the industry, Kipton founded KiptonART in 2002, an organization dedicated to giving emerging artists a voice by providing them access to collectors, gallerists, curators, auction houses, interior designers and the general public. KiptonART consists of a leading art e-commerce site, which features an online gallery, weekly curated private “flash” sales and an online magazine acting as the voice of emerging art trends in the U.S. Artwork on the site is quite accessible with pieces starting as low as $50 and ranging into the thousands for more established artists. Currently, the site lists over 1,800 registered artists with a gallery featuring some 10,000 pieces ranging from paintings and prints to sculpture, photography and mixed media. The total value of artwork on the site exceeds $40 million.
Another unique aspect ofKiptonART is the art rental program. Customers looking to decorate their homes or offices can choose from the roster of pieces and rent for a minimum of a year with the option of rotating pieces of similar value once a year. Rental prices are based on the experience level and curatorial evaluation of the artist.
After the site launched, Cronkite made it a point to become involved in arts related organizations and charities to not only meet like-minded people, but to support living artists. Outside of KiptonART, Cronkite is major supporter of all things art as he has chaired a number of committees for charities and cultural institutions such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Frick Collection and the American Friends of the Louvre. In addition, he is often looked to as the voice for art trends and insider knowledge having written for Fine Art Connoisseur and been featured in Vogue, Vanity Fair, and New York Magazine, among other publications.
As a part of this discussion Kipton will discus starting and running KiptonART as well as his own experiences working as a curator and working with other collectors, designers, and curators to help individuals and companies create outstanding and affordable art collections.
http://www.kiptonart.com/
Sari Cohen is the Collections Manager of Neuberger Berman’s Art Program. In 1990, Neuberger Berman, an asset management firm, inspired by the heritage of Roy R. Neuberger, a renowned collector of 20th Century art, began a program of supporting contemporary artists through the purchase of their work. For the past five years, Sari has served as a collections operations manager of the Neuberger Berman Art Program which consists of artworks in a variety of media by emerging and mid-career artists that are installed in Neuberger Berman’s office globally.
Prior to working at Neuberger Berman, Sari was the Collections Manger for The Jewish Museum in New York where she developed and implemented policies and procedures pertaining to the permanent collection. She received her master’s in art history from the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University and her bachelor’s from NYU as well.
For this panel, Sari will discuss collections management practices and techniques as pertaining to corporate art collections.
Sarah Connolly is the creative director of Cavern Home, a boutique wallpaper company that specializes in hand screened prints and artist collaborations. Cavern's Artist Edition line features works by Tom Slaughter, Panamanian artist Miguel Fabrega, photographer Jordan Doner, Annika Connor, among others. The Artist Edition papers are installed in Creative Time's office, the Charleston Museum in England and numerous residences, and have been featured in over a dozen magazines including Elle Decor, House Beautiful, and Country Living. Cavern strives to make art accessible through the decorative arts, while expanding the avenues and mediums for artists to display and sell their work.
Prior to joining Cavern, Sarah worked as an interior design at Kemble Interiors. Sarah graduated from Harvard with B.A. in Art History.
For this panel, Sarah Connolly will talk about the elements of home design and decor that can be used to enhance an existing or future art collection, and how wallpaper, paint, upholstery, and other design elements can best be used to enhance and highlight the art.
http://www.cavernhome.com/