Collecting, dealing, curating and appraising: in the wheeler-dealer world of art, Geoffrey Cassidy has pretty much done it all. But three years ago, the former international director of Sotheby’s Australia left the exciting and demanding world of the auction market to pursue something more subdued: renting out art.
Cassidy was in town over the weekend for Art Taipei, where he gave a lecture on Australia’s art market. But the questions asked by the audience of art professionals and aficionados suggested they were more interested in the company Cassidy currently heads, Artbank, than in Australia’s art scene.
Established in 1980 by the Australian government and self-funding since 1992, Artbank rents art out to individuals, government agencies and private corporations.
With more than 10,000 works by 3,000 Australian artists in its collection and an acquisition budget estimated at more than US$800,000 per year, Artbank is a major player in Australia’s art world. And even with the global economic downturn, Artbank still manages to rent out 65 percent of its collection, which is valued at more than US$29 million.
Cassidy arrived at Artbank in 2006 following a nine-year stint as a paintings specialist in Australian, Chinese and Outsider art at Sotheby’s Australia. Cassidy’s current passion is fulfilling Artbank’s mandate, educating the public about contemporary art and collecting art for his private collection
Taipei Times: How does Artbank operate?
Geoffrey Cassidy: We are unique because of the tensions between being an art support organization, which was why it was set up, and a business, which allows us to be self-funding. So our imperatives are not financial. Our successes are measured culturally and not financially, but in order to succeed culturally we need to be a thriving business.
We are two pronged in a way: we are about supporting artists in the most practical way possible, which is by buying the work and hence putting together a collection of this work and promoting the work by making it available to people to rent, and teaching people how to live with contemporary art.
It’s a very important institution in terms of buying Australian art. When I first worked in a commercial gallery 26 years ago, I can still remember Artbank coming and buying from us in Brisbane and it was the only red dot in the show.
TT: How do you teach people to live with contemporary art?
GC: A lot of our clients are not art people so we are really preaching to a non-art audience and I think that people are scared of contemporary art because they don’t understand it.
People come to us because they are allowed to take a risk that they wouldn’t normally take in going into a gallery and buying work by coming in and renting it. And one of the nicest things that we see is that people will come to you and say, “We hate these works, we want to change them,” and by the time they’ve lived with them for six months or a year they’ve learned to love them. So art can work its magic on people.
TT: Does Artbank collect new media art such as video?
GC: Australia seems quite advanced in the collection of video work. It’s actually quite accepted and a lot of people are collecting it and displaying it in their home. We talked a lot about how we should go about it ... but in the end I decided if new practices are happening, we couldn’t not collect it because we are about supporting artists. And it’s not expensive yet. Some of it is nice work, but most of it isn’t, so we could outlay, not an enormous sum, to get a good collection of works and [what] we are going to do is have a launch next month to let people know that we have this kind of work.
It often surprises me what engages people — the strangest things can engage the least likely people and that can be fun. And they wouldn’t come across it in their normal daily life. So I think we are kind of throwing people together with objects they wouldn’t ordinarily see and all sorts of strange things can happen.
TT: Can Artbank turn renters of art into art collectors?
GC: Absolutely. It is something that we encourage. Often when people want to buy work, we will send them to the gallery that sells that artist so they can, perhaps, buy the work. And we often see that the reason why people stop renting from us — and we do keep very good records about that — is that they purchase their own ... We don’t mind losing clients for that reason.
TT: What is the difference between working at Artbank and working at Sotheby’s?
GC: It’s completely different. The only thing that I miss about Sotheby’s is the excitement of the auction world. But I’m much more interested in art when it is not a commodity and much more interested in emerging art — particularly artists and what they are doing. So I think in terms of what I like about art and collecting art, I enjoy more what I’m doing now.
TT: Judging by the questions at this morning’s lecture, there seems to be a lot of interest in Taiwan about Artbank.
GC: There seems to be a lot of interest in it as a business model. But what I try to impress on people is that we are successful because we’re not just about making money. And it almost has to be a government that starts it because it has to be focused on its cultural activities, but it also has to succeed financially. And that’s the balance that makes it work.
TT: Has the financial crisis influenced people’s willingness to rent art?
GC: It’s hard to say. Logically you would think that there would be more people wanting to rent rather than buy. I couldn’t quantify that at the moment. It has affected our business in the sense that people are renting less. So we have seen a drop-off based on people spending less and not seeing many new clients because confidence hasn’t returned yet, but I think the worst is over.
TT: Does the Australian Trade Office in Taipei rent from Artbank?
GC: Yes, all the art up there is from Artbank. All the original works are from Artbank and there is a plaque explaining what it is and that it is from us. The previous trade commissioner was very interested in visual arts. And he got quite involved in picking the works. A lot of it depends on how interested the head of mission is. So it is quite ad hoc.
TT: In addition to your work at Artbank, you also collect privately. Have you seen anything here at Art Taipei that you want to buy?
GC: I haven’t bought anything and I can’t of course for Artbank because we only collect Australian art. Personally, there are a few artists that I like. A few that I’ve been tempted by.
TT: Why collect art?
GC: It’s a disease. I think passionate collectors collect because they have to.
TT: I’ve heard collectors describe it as an addiction.
GC: Yeah, I think it is an addiction, an uncontrolled addiction. I am a collector and ... it’s an addiction. I don’t have anywhere to put the works I collect now. I have no walls left. I have more works than I know what to do with. They are stacked all over the place — they are lent to family, they are lent to friends, they are all over the place. And yet I still buy them.
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