“Art collectors are bringing it up a notch by not only owning impressive collections but showcasing them to the public as well. These private museums are the perfect way to get a glimpse of the glamorous world of high esteemed art.”
With the news of Walmart heiress Alice Walton’s recent high profiled project of building the massive Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Arkansas and California’s billionaire philanthropist, Eli Broad who just opened The Broad to host his US$140 million worth of private collection, we thought it was time to take a look at how wealthy art collectors are promoting their prizes. From the edgy Rubel Family Collection, housed in a former Drug Enforcement Agency storage site in Miami and Francois Pinault’s coveted contemporary art on view in historic buildings in Venice, to a Sheikh’s rich collection of Arab art exhibited in a converted school in Qatar and Korean national treasures shown at Samsung’s masterfully designed Leeum in Seoul, here’s a glimpse at some of our favourite private museums around the world.
Deste Foundation for Contemporary Arts
Founded in Geneva in 1983, the Deste Foundation for Contemporary Art relocated to Athens Greece in 1998. It is home to the Dakis Joannou Collections, which features work in depth by Tim Nobel and Sue Webster, Tauba Auerbach, Jim Drain, and lots of other artist advised by the legendary art world figure Jeffrey Deitch, including Ashley Bickerton and Jeff Koons whose artsy paint job for Joannou’s yacht as seen here.
Ullens Center for Contemporary Art
Founded by Belgian collectors Guy and Myriam Ullens in 2007, the Ullens Centre for Contemporary Arts (UCCA) was one of the first comprehensive non-profit art centres in China. Housed in a former munitions factory in the 798 district of Beijing, UCCA has exhibited holdings from the founders’ personal collection of Chinese contemporary art and featured temporary exhibitions by some of the best artists working in China today, including Huang Yong Ping, Zhang Huan, and Yan Pei Ming, whose 2009 installation is seen here.
Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain
Cartier Foundation Paris, designed by Jean Nouvel and opened in 1994, houses a collection of international contemporary assembled by the luxury watchmaker and jewellery company since 1984. The collection includes more than 1000 works by some 300 artists, including Wim Delvoye, William Kentridge, Mathew Barney, Cai-Guo Qiang and Ron Mueck.
The Rubel Collection
Don and Mera Rubell started collecting contemporary art in the mid ’60s, but they really put the Rubell Family Collection on the map when they re-purposed a massive Drug Enforcement Agency warehouse in Miami in 1993 and started showing the collection, which includes works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Cindy Sherman, Keith Haring, Takashi Murakami, and hundreds more cutting-edge artists, to the public.
Zabludowicz Collection
Founded in 1994 by the London-based billionaire couple Poju and Anita Zabludowicz, the Zabludowicz collection features more than 2,000 contemporary artworks with a focus on emerging art. Housed in a converted a chapel in northwest London as well as a Times Square office building in New York, and a barn on Sarvisalo (an island near Helsinki in Finland), the collection includes art from 1970 to the present, with a list of artists that’s a virtual “Who’s Who” in contemporary art.
Leeum
Established in 1965 by the Korean electronics giant, the Samsung Foundation of Culture ran a couple of gallery and museum spaces before opening Leeum Samsung Museum of Art, in Seoul in 2004. Consisting of three architectural triumphs designed by Rem Koolhaas, Mario Botta and Jean Nouvel, the museum houses Korean national treasures from the past and international modern art from the twentieth century, while also exhibiting the art of the present and future.
Foundation Beyeler Basel
The Foundation Beyeler grew out of an extensive collection of twentieth century art assembled by Swiss art dealer, Ernst Beyeler and his wife Hildy. The foundation was started in 1982 and opened its permanent home in a spectacular building near Basel designed by starchitect Renzo Piano in 1997. Major artworks by Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Francis Bacon are juxtaposed with important objects of tribal art.
Francois Pinault fondation
Head of Christie’s auction house and the stylish Gucci Group, French magnate François Pinault moved his vast contemporary art holdings to the Palazzo Grassi in Venice in 2005, and in 2009 added Punta della Dogana, a former Venetian customs house that was renovated by Japanese starchitect, Tadao Ando. The François Pinault Foundation includes major artworks by Maurizio Cattelan and Rachel Whiteread as well as signature pieces by Piotr Uklanski, Takashi Murakami, Sigmar Polke, Cindy Sherman, and
countless others.
Mathaf Arab Museum of Modern Art
Based in Qatar, the Mathaf Arab Museum of Modern Art was founded by Sheikh Hassan bin Mohamed bin Ali Al Thani, who started collecting modern Arab art some 20 years ago. The Sheikh is listed as one of the top 10 collectors of contemporary art in the world — buying more major works than anyone else last year. The museum, which opened in 2010 in a former school in Doha that was redesigned by French architect Jean-François Bodin, features art from the 1840s to the present from every Arab country.
Yuz Museum
Founded by the Yuz Foundation in 2014, Shanghai’s Yuz Museum is already regarded as one of China’s and the world’s most significant contemporary art spaces. As well as hosting a programme of high-profile temporary exhibitions, the attraction also houses significant works from the private collection of its founder Budi Tek, a Chinese-Indonesian entrepreneur and art philanthropist. Designed by the Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto, the Yuz—a roughly 97,000-square-foot converted airplane hangar has hosted blockbuster exhibitions such as Giacometti, Andy Warhol and the Rain Room from Random House International and plans to showcase famous artists such as KAWS and Anselm Kiefer in the coming year.
