Amsterdam’s Young Collectors Circle “Art of Collecting” brings to light the personal relationships between a collector and their favorite artwork from their collection.

The Collector

Ivo Schouten is a freelance graphic designer and desktop publisher and lives with his wife and their two children in Amsterdam.

The Artwork

This concrete sculpture is called “A Concrete Atled” and is by artist and street artist Boris Tellegen aka Delta. I wanted to buy an object/sculpture for once, to make myself consciously focus in that direction for once. I already had a piece by Boris Tellegen, but his sculptures were either no longer available or they were too large. So when I came across this sculpture in an exhibition by the Mini Galerie, Amsterdam, I didn’t need much time to deliberate. I was immediately sold! Its shape, the combination of the material and its elegance make it special for me.

I am the art buyer in our family. My wife enjoys going to art fairs, but she doesn’t feel the urge to actually purchase a piece. This sculpture was a rather impulsive buy and at first my wife assumed I was joking about the fact that I bought something again: “But didn’t you buy something last week?”.

I usually let the art “lie around the house” for a while after buying it, so I can slowly get an idea of where it belongs. But with this piece the final placement was extremely disappointing – for some reason the sculpture totally faded into the background. So I had a plinth custom made and now the placement does the sculpture justice. I don’t see the sculpture as a static object, because it looks different from every angle. That’s why I don’t think I’ll ever grow tired of it.

I am the art buyer in our family. My wife enjoys going to art fairs, but she doesn’t feel the urge to actually purchase a piece. This sculpture was a rather impulsive buy and at first my wife assumed I was joking about the fact that I bought something again!

IVO SCHOUTEN

The Collection

For my thirtieth birthday, my eldest brother gave me a small artwork he commissioned from a student at St. Joost in Breda, where he worked at that time. So when someone asked me what I wanted for my birthday a couple of years ago, I felt it would be fun to select an artwork and then ask for money to buy it.

The pieces I own are usually graphic in nature, by people like Anuli Croon, Graphic Surgery and more from Boris Tellegen. The last work I bought was a silkscreen print by Hansje van Halem. A work has to appeal to me immediately. I go to art fairs and exhibitions to get inspiration and to see what’s out there and I also look online to immerse myself in someone’s work. Then I usually let it rest for a while, to see if I still find it just as interesting after some time has passed.

I don’t save specifically to purchase art, but I do make sure that I always have some money at hand to buy it. At this moment I don’t have anything specific in mind. I would like to see works by Geoff McFetridge in real life – I’ve been following him for a while now. If money and practical considerations were no object, I would love to have a membership to the depository of the Stedelijk Museum, for example, so I could have an artwork in my home for a while. Although not everything is equally suitable for home display – in the Groninger Museum I once saw a piece by a Chinese artist, He Xiangu, who had boiled Coca Cola down to a thick paste. It had a rather pungent odor, so that may not be the best thing to have at home!

It’s wonderful to have art in your home – for yourself to enjoy and occasionally just stand in front of and admire, but to also see what other people say or think about it, if it evokes something in them. I think it’s important for my children as well. They are surrounded by it, you can discuss it together, and it’s fun to sometimes see their friends look at it in amazement. I would like take my children to an art fair one day and give them a certain amount of money to choose something for themselves – although my son could probably think of “better” things to do with the money.

I don’t save specifically to purchase art, but I do make sure that I always have some money at hand to buy it.

IVO SCHOUTEN

The “Art of Collecting” series is an initiative of the Young Collectors Circle and Laura Hein.