Reading the Art World: Georgina Adam
Art journalist and author, Georgina Adam has covered the global art market for over 30 years as a contributor to the Financial Times and The Art Newspaper, where she was Art Market Editor from 2000 to 2008 and is now Editor at Large. She is the author of Big Bucks: The Explosion of the Art Market in the 21st Century and Dark Side of the Boom: The Excesses of the Art Market in the 21st Century both published by Lund Humphries.
Her latest book, The Rise and Rise of the Private Art Museum, published just this month by Lund Humphries, is the subject of today's talk. I chose this book because it offers an inside look at the remarkable proliferation of private collector’s museums — primarily devoted to contemporary art —that have been built globally in the last 20 years.
As an advisor to collectors and in my work with clients on legacy planning for their art collections, I was interested to understand the motivations driving collector’s decisions—-and also to see how these private museums are impacting traditional support of public museums. Why are collectors opting to build their own museums to share their collections with the public rather than in partnership with existing museums? And what does this mean for the future?
Georgina’s investigation, based on her recent visits to over 50 private spaces across the US, Europe, China and elsewhere, delves into the reasons behind this boom, and the different motivations of collectors.
At a time of unprecedented levels of contemporary art collecting globally and with museums facing a near crisis of challenges to their missions, leadership, and financial stability, I found Georgina’s book to be an informative and really thought-provoking read for these times.
Learn more about Reading the Art World here.