Wednesday, 25 August 2010

• Collecting or Obsession...

  I can relate to Herb Vogel, the mailman/art collector from NYC who with his wife lived in a one bedroom, rent controlled apartment in Manhattan where they lived on her research library salary and spent his on unknown, still affordable artists for their entire married life. They collected not just one or two pieces by an artist, but Herb wanted the best by each one, often buying on credit.

  Herb liked to think of it as going deeper into the artist, seeing something not shown by one or two words that you can only see by being surrounded by an entire body of work. He had an eye for art that went beyond what the artist could see sometimes. More than this is good, that is better, this belongs, this is out of place, Herb saw something else- something unexplainable, and he didn't try to explain it, saying, "We liked it, it was affordable, and it fit in our apartment." His criteria for buying any new work was that simple.

  But the networking is more complex. He'd see an artist who'd introduce him to a friend or an influence, and then Herb and his wife, Dorothy, would move on to the new artist. There is an interconnectedness to their collection. Impossible to see as a whole since their tiny apartment didn't have enough wall, ceiling, floor space to show everything, the connectedness was in Herb's mind. Not buying what is hot, what will sell, what will gain in value, Herb and Dorothy bought because it spoke to them in a real way and they had to own it.

  Buying on a mailman's salary without selling any of their collection to pay for new pieces meant that they didn't have the financial resources to compete with big spenders and museums, but it also meant that they could afford to buy what had meaning to them without interference from the Art world. Unknowns, on the cutting edge, broke and struggling, the artists they bought from didn't have many other benefactors at the time. It meant money for more supplies, for rent, and a bit of ego stroking knowing you finally sold something. But if Herb saw something in your art, he wanted more and more, as if he needed it more than he needed food. That's the driving obsession part. 

  Their apartment looked more like an Art Hoarder's place than a gallery and their family thought they were crazy- doing without vacations, furniture, computers when all they had to do was sell a piece of art or two and be wealthy. But how do you sell something that is a piece of you, that is incomplete without the rest of the collection? Herb couldn't do it. And finally, they donated most of their collection to the National Art Museum- taking five moving vans to empty out the place. I wonder how Herb could let it go like that. Was it time for them to quit being caretakers of their collection and pass it on?

  It's the interconnectedness that I relate to- the need for missing piece, the thing that will make the last piece fit better, that will introduce to you a new mental path to follow down. That's the way it is with many obsessive collectors, I suspect. People talk like it's the big search for the Holy Grail feeling, but that's the easy explanation. More than the Hunt, more than the adventure, more than the puzzle, there is a need driving the obsession. 

  Today I found an early Takeshi Kaneshiro movie, China Dragon, a copy of City Hunter with Jackie Chan (subbed, not dubbed), and two older Bollywood films by Shahrakh Khan. I left behind a Sammo Hung movie because it was $20 used, but I'm already plotting my return. Here's the interconnectedness. There wouldn't be a Jackie Chan if Sammo didn't exist. Sammo made it big enough in the Hong Kong film industry that he had enough influence to get work for Jackie when no one else wanted to hire him. He's also the father of Jimmy Hung (Tension and Vanness Wu's business partner). The father of modern martial arts (gritty, urban, realistic, one-on-one) in movies, Sammo is one of those major connections that has strings out to unexpected places. Owning an early Sammo Hung with subs not dubs is like Herb Vogel owning a Sol LeWit. I guess I need to get back in the car asap and go pick up that copy of "She Shoots Straight/Lethal Lady (1990). 

   

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