21 november 2019, Oscar van Gelderen & Manuela Klerkx
Steven Delva's pick...
In this section we let a selection of art lovers – from occasional buyers to art professionals – talk about their perception of art and preferences: where do they want to see art? Where do they purchase art, and above all: from which artists do they buy? Below, an interview with Steven Delva (landscape architect, age 41)
What does art mean to you?
Art that attracts my attention is mainly based on beauty. Beauty that takes my thoughts somewhere else and lets me form a story that’ richer than the everyday.
Did you get an appreciation of art from your parents or did you have to find your own way?
As a farmer's son, I often imagined myself in a living work of art: arable lands with endless, artificially drawn lines that move with the hilly landscape, a group of trees on the horizon. It produces a composition that to me qualifies as pure art.
Katinka Lampe, 2417192, 2019, Galerie Ron Mandos.
Where do you get your information about the ups and downs in the art world: newspaper, trade magazines, television, online?
Magazines such as See All This and Metropolis M tend to end up on our reading table. We are often found at international fairs, in cool galleries and also dare to choose an exhibition as a holiday destination, for example Levi van Veluw at Dello Scompiglio.
Where do you prefer to look at art? In a gallery, museum, exhibition or online?
Besides museums and fairs, the gallery remains the place where we prefer to come. These are places without any distractions, places where an artist is given room to tell his or her story in full.
How many times a year do you buy art? Do you buy editioned work or do you prefer unique pieces?
What we purchase ends up in our home, a loft built on top of an old brewery at the Hoogte Kadijk, or in the design studio and guest rooms. Since we do not buy for storage, we limit ourselves to the amount of art that the rooms allow for.
Tire, 2016, Feipel & Bechameil, Galerie Fontana.
And where do you buy: in the gallery, at an art fair, at an auction or online?
I almost exclusively purchase at galleries. A work I notice at a fair leads me to a gallery. If the gallery owner adds an interesting interpretation to the work, we often proceed to purchase it.
Is it important that you and your partner always agree on a purchase?
There are no discussions. The conversations why a certain work is inspiring are enriching and interesting. You go along with the experience and thoughts of the other when you see the work. And then we always manage to reach a decision whether we take it home or not.
Is there a gallery with which you have a special relationship?
Ron Mandos, at the Prinsengracht in Amsterdam. That is the gallery par excellence that has managed to collect a group of artists that really appeals to us. Ron and Nick exactly what appeals to us and are more than happy to take us along into their world of wonder and beauty.
Anonymous Self-Portrait XXXXVII, 2019, Anthony Goicolea, Galerie Ron Mandos.
If you had an unlimited budget, from whom would you purchase a work?
Certainly a work by my Belgian favourite Luc Tuymans. Preferably a very large work, allowing one to wander into, as it were. Alternatively, one of Roni Horn’s resin objects. Another dream of mine is to own a great work by Renato Nicolodi.
Who are your favourite artists?
The very sympathetic Belgian Renato Nicolodi makes beautiful architectural art objects. His works that evoke a stillness in time and space.
Works by Dutch artist Katinka Lampe have been hanging in our homes for half a year and are getting more beautiful day by day! Lampe makes portraits with great precision without being an exact representation of a specific person.
The artist duo Feipel & Bechameil creates fantastic surreal spaces and installations that evoke a sense of alienation and of no longer having control over reality.
Terra Incognita, 2019, Renato Nicolodi, Galerie Ron Mandos.
