Art Is Contagious
despite everything i’ve heard this
evening i think i have the best job in
the world
[Music]
i’m an art consultant i get to build
collections using art it’s like lego
blocks to small children except for i do
it in pictures
i get to build amazing collections like
the one outside here
but what i want to talk to you about
this evening is how you can get infected
by the art bug
i was eight years old i was in new york
with my parents
i had a very beautiful dress on i
remember
i walked into a large museum
and in front of me i saw this klaus
oldenburg’s floor burger from 1962 it
was vast i had never seen anything like
it it was called a sculpture what is a
sculpture sculptures are supposed to be
these big things made of metal
i looked at it i was completely confused
and transfixed and you know what
happened it moved me
and it moved me not because it was
important i didn’t know it was important
in fact it’s very important klaus
oldenburg is significantly important
the reason i loved it is it was so
different it smelled so different
so there was a shift in me most
definitely and ever since
i’ve loved americans and hamburgers
next
is actually a rather nasty story of how
i failed at my job i was 16 years old
tremendously fashionable i thought full
of art knowledge i thought
i was walking down
i had 100 pounds in my back pocket it
was my first art investment and remember
i am an art dealer at 16 years old i was
not i can assure you so i’m walking down
the portobello road i open a shop door i
walk in there enormous bins i ramble
through the bins and i pluck out what i
thought was a masterpiece at least i
thought it was what everybody else would
think would be a total masterpiece it
was a beautiful conte drawing of jesus
christ
i mean really beautifully drawn perhaps
in a perfect gold mirror i knew if i
bought it home everybody would love it i
knew that if i bought it inexpensively i
could sell it really expensively it was
the perfect thing i thought that
everybody else would think so i made the
acquisition i negotiated hard it was 35
i ran home with it i presented it to my
parents who at the moment or at that
time were hosting a rather significant
um art dealer and they all looked a bit
grim
they kind of looked at me it was flat i
had no heart connection with this thing
i was assessing it by absolutely the
wrong values
so those are the two moments where i
recognize that one i probably had a
career in this although that was a
failure
and two the art was really a disease
it was something that shifted you that
moved you that you really had to be
moved by it in order to engage with it
so very luckily ten years after that at
the beginning of my career i had the
great good fortune of meeting one of the
greatest musicians i’ve ever known and
i’m sure many of you agree it was david
bowie and david was
of course an artist himself but he said
and it was so profound he said that art
was seriously the only thing he wanted
to own which was very good for me
because i’m an art consultant
but
that it was profoundly nourishment to
him
it made a difference every day he woke
up every day thinking and thinking about
art and how he related to it
and this little guy was one of the first
sculptures that i bought for him so it
was my first interaction with him iman
his stunning wife comes into a gallery
i’m working for i’m rather bored
standing at the front desk and she
slipped over the counter a little
drawing by david of this spectacular
work teddy boy teddy girl from 1956
dancing figures by lynn chadwick this is
a seminal work by him it went to the
venice biennale i won’t bore you with
the art talk but suffice to say you can
even see these dancing figures from 1958
in their frock coats represented what
david really wanted to explore which was
the explosion of the art industry at the
time i knew it i’m an epic nerd i looked
at that piece of paper and i said come
along you’re in the wrong gallery she’d
actually walked into the wrong gallery
luckily for me so we strode across the
road and we made the acquisition and
iman invited me to tea that day to meet
david so i got into my cab with a
sculpture between my knees ran off to
you know his hotel room and i saw him
unveil it and i saw
his shift what shifted him
he was looking at an object of extreme
beauty but he was connecting with it
there was a conversation he was having
with it no one else existed in the room
and i’m sure many of you have had
experiences where you’ve looked at
things that have shifted you like that
i think you need a few tips or i think
everyone needs a few tips about how to
engage with art and how to get that
shift
all of you i hazard a guest walked into
this building right past this little
dude he’s on the front desk right at the
reception
this is an amazing sculpture you know it
it’s august it’s the thinker
and there he sits he’s 14 and a half
inches high he’s not beautifully
eliminated but i you know when you look
at art you’ve got to do two things
you’ve got to stand still
and you gotta look
look at this little guy tight fingers
relaxed hand in thoughtful repose
just walk around him spend a moment with
him give him the time of day for
goodness sake he’s pretty extraordinary
and after you’ve looked at this object
and it can be any object
then think about how you feel when you
see it that’s the other thing it’s a
conversation
so you look at the thinker and i tell
you during covert he was pretty anxious
as i am today
at times of study when my children look
at him they need to do their homework
but he has a majesty he’s telling us
something he’s in perpetual conversation
he was cast in 1902 he still works today
that is the power of being shifted by
art
so all i want you guys to do
is to step up and walk out of this room
if you have no time tonight i forgive
you i know it’s our collection my team
put it together
find something to look at and as i say
it doesn’t have to be something you love
in fact a good thing is to look at
things you don’t like
have that conversation
so look
so feel
and then after that discover about the
artist because i promise you in my world
it can shift you
thank you
[Applause]