This is a timely collection of essays dealing with the nature of art collecting from various perspectives, including those of private collectors, art traders and dealers, museum curators and directors, artists themselves, and legal experts. At a time when public support for the arts is dwindling, it is more important than ever that private individuals take up the slack. Hence we see here a valuable portrait of a specific collection (the Diane and Sandy Besser Collection), as well as its role in furthering an understanding of folk and tribal art.
The Bessers began collecting this art in the mid 1970s when they travelled to Mexico and Guatemala and began attending ethnographic art shows in Santa Fe. Since then their collection has grown to include works from around the world, including Himalayan and Southeast Asian masks, bronzes, and other forms of tribal art as well as Kuna curing dolls from Panama, Spanish colonial and modern bultos (three-dimensional wood carvings of saints) and retablos (altarpieces and other painted devotional images), intricately carved Asian keris or kris (dagger) handles, slingshots, textiles and beadwork. As Sandy Besser states in his essay, “How Do I Collect? To ‘L’ with the Norm,” he began collecting with the idea of eventually gifting the works to deserving museums. Both the Museum of International Folk Art (MOIFA) and the Museum of Spanish Colonial Art in New Mexico have been fortunate recipients of the Bessers’ largesse.
Daniel Cook, a former trader in classical and ethnographic Asian art, provides insight into the nature of art dealing in his essay, “A Perspective on Dealing and Collecting: Indian Miniature Bronzes and Himalayan Masks.” He discusses his joy in discovering art in out-of-the-way places, often rescuing works about to be discarded, for example, a seventeenth-century bronze statue of Krishna too worn from rubbing to be considered a sacred sculpture but perfect for a collector. He, like Besser, mentions the symbiotic relationship existing between dealers and collectors. He also points out that serious collectors like the Bessers “have the unique ability to stay open to art, no matter where it comes from, and they do not restrict collecting to one or two areas” (48).
Artists Arthur López and Luis Tapia, traditional wood sculptors from Santa Fe who make bultos and other religious objects, also discuss their relationships with collectors and museum curators. They discuss their pleasure in creating works well-received by art patrons, sometimes members of their own families, but also their dismay in dealing with collectors who demand things they are not willing to do or who try to whittle down the prices of works they have created.
MOIFA Director Joyce Ice (in “On Collecting: The View from the Director’s Office”), and the former Curator of Contemporary Hispano and Latino Collections at MOIFA, Tey Marianna Nunn (now Director of Visual Arts and Chief Curator for the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque), provide the perspectives of professional museum personnel. Nunn’s essay, “I Beat the Owl Lady: A ‘Collection’ of Personal Anecdotes on Collecting,” especially highlights the reasons why people become art curators, often based on their own delight in collecting. She starts with her own panda collection dating from the early 1970s (triggered by the Chinese gift of two pandas to the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., and the ensuing “panda-monium”) and ends with her recent fascination with Latin Barbie Dolls, which has led her through Mexico and other parts of Latin America. As she states, “The collections came from my scholarly interests, or perhaps my scholarly interests developed so I could justify these collections. I am deeply intrigued by popular culture and its connections to art history and social commentary, and this focus has been combined with my area of expertise in Latino arts” (102).
The final essay, attorney Susannah Evans’ ”Important Legal Issues for Art Collectors,” provides a useful index of the rules regarding the acquisition and disposition of art, whether to heirs or to charitable and non-charitable entities. As the laws are continually changing, she recommends that individuals obtain legal and tax advice when contemplating a transaction involving a work of art.
In addition to the entertaining and informative essays, the book includes a lavish number of illustrations of works in the Besser collection, as well as photos of installations both in their home and in the museum. Clearly, the Bessers loved their art and, more importantly, have sought to share their love of this art with others.
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[Review length: 739 words • Review posted on February 2, 2010]