Jean-Marc Bottazzi didn’t spend his childhood visiting museums, rising up, he says, “with out a lot cash, in a cultural desert close to Lyon”. Artwork, nonetheless, runs in his blood: his youthful brother is the painter Guillaume Bottazzi, and their relationship sparked his love of viewing artwork—and shopping for it too.
At this time the Japanese bond dealer has settled in Hong Kong after a stint in Tokyo. His assortment numbers round 1,000 works and displays his international biography, with notably deep holdings of abstraction and conceptual images from Western Europe, the US and East Asia. This contains the Summary Expressionist painter Robert Motherwell, and Simon Hantaï, whose fractal-like folded work and different experiments on canvas make him “France’s most vital post-war artist”, Bottazzi says.
From the East, he favours artists related to the Japanese avant-garde motion Gutai, such because the painter Kazuo Shiraga, in addition to earlier experimental pioneers like Ei-Q, proudly owning a number of of his distinctive photographic works that had been made and not using a digital camera.
Having an artist brother has knowledgeable his philosophy on amassing. “You wish to actually make a distinction to an artist’s life. It’s not about ticking off packing containers and having one in all every thing—in any other case your private home will appear to be an residence in Trump Tower.”
For Bottazzi, deep amassing means the enduring help of A-Yo, the 96-year-old Japanese artist whose rainbow-patterned work and sculptures symbolise an anti-elitist method to art-making, influenced by Fluxus. Bottazzi was the important thing lender to a current monographic exhibition of the artist at M+, the Hong Kong museum the place is each a donor and a member of its worldwide committee for visible artwork.
As he speaks to The Artwork Newspaper, he’s within the strategy of buying one other tranche of works by A-Yo, so as to add to the 100+ works by the artist he already owns. As he says: “After I acquire, I actually acquire.”
The Artwork Newspaper: What was the primary work you obtain?
Jean-Marc Bottazzi: An summary baroque-style portray by my brother within the early Nineties
What was the newest work you obtain?
Both a Fontana Tagli, or a Man Ray, La Priere (1930) photographic version.
What do you remorse not shopping for while you had the prospect?
Two issues: a Minotaur {photograph} by Man Ray that I didn’t have the balls to purchase ten years in the past. One other is {a photograph} of the author Yukio Mishima by Eikoh Hosoe, for which I didn’t pull the set off shortly sufficient.
Should you might have any work from any museum on the planet, what wouldn’t it be?
Marcel Duchamp’s urinal.
What’s the finest recommendation you could have acquired on amassing?
Focus and decide to few. Strive to not make a template assortment simply since you’re wealthy. The collector Uli Sigg has made such a distinction by his focus.
The place do you wish to eat and drink in Hong Kong?
Ta Vie, Ole, Feuille.
What’s your least favorite factor about artwork festivals?
That the primary day is the busiest. What sort of privilege is it to be surrounded by a crowd of individuals. I choose going to festivals on the finish. In case you are actually following a gallery then you definitely already know what they’re bringing. ‘First Selection’ is faux. Complete hype.
What tip would you give to somebody visiting Hong Kong for the primary time?
Go to M+, after which go to M+ once more. It’s the perfect factor to occur to the town. The tensions it presents between West and East make it so attention-grabbing.
