I didn’t choose to do so. The passion for photography was like a switch somebody flipped on. If looking at art had always felt like attending your fourth dance class – you know why you’re there, but you don’t really know what’s going on – the sudden realization that photography was my passion made me feel like I was dancing tango argentine with my eyes closed. Suddenly, everything made sense. Everything became visible and was turned into something I could look at. I understood a lot and felt even more.

Aroused by my new-found passion, I had the feeling of coming home—and, at the same time, of setting off on an uncertain journey with the goal of filling my new home with visual questions and answers. As far as I’m concerned, the medium of photography is entitled to provide food for thought. To paraphrase Martin Kippenberger, "photography thinks tirelessly in my head, pushes boundaries, or fails gloriously because of them." What to do with all the pictures? I hate it that my warehouse is getting too small and I need weeks for the inventory, simply because I cling to every single picture and remember fondly why I own it.

Collecting makes you suffer. None of it makes any sense. If I’m lucky, it will be my life’s work.

 passion for photography is evident in her collection, which includes numerous works by both young and established artists. In a global survey, the art platform artnet.com selected Daniela Hinrich as one of the “12 Young Art Collectors to Watch.” Blouin Artinfo counts the Hamburg resident among the “50 Most Exciting Art Collectors Under 50.”

EXPANDED.ART’s COLLECTOR TALK series invites art collectors of paintings, photography, editions, NFTs and more to share why they buy art and what excites them most about art.

PASSION FOR PHOTOGRAPHY

WHY DO YOU COLLECT ART, DANIELA HINRICHS?

A collection forms the understanding of our past; it is "an archive of temporalities," as curator Daniel Birnbaum put it. This in turn determines the possibilities that we can imagine for the future. Art, literature, and film build worlds. As Beuys said, "We need to invent the future that we want. If we don’t, we'll get one that we don't want." I firmly believe that we shape the future by collecting art.

It is part and parcel of the conception of our collection to bring together different generations and periods of time-based media art, from its beginnings in the 1960s to the present day. Although the collection is already multi-faceted and diverse, it is important to me to add still other voices and perspectives.

Art wants to be seen. Video art in particular is an essentially democratic art form: it can be reproduced without any loss of quality. The art market is responsible for the seeming scarcity of works in this medium. What I would like to do is to enable anyone, no matter where they are in the world, to view the works in my collection at any time and without restriction. Making these works of art widely available has been a long-cherished wish of mine. This past year, we launched a project that will fullfil this wish.

 owns one of the world's largest private collections of time-based art. Her main interest is the public presentation, promotion, conservation, and study of artistic practices in time-based media and performance.

In 2002, she founded the JULIA STOSCHEK COLLECTION with a focus on works in the areas of video, film, and digital art created by international artists since the 1960s. Since 2007, the collection has been made public through solo and group exhibitions in Düsseldorf. In 2016, a second exhibition center opened in Berlin Mitte.

In addition to her work as a collector, Julia Stoschek supports institutions, artists, and scholars in realizing projects in the field of time-based art. She is also involved in international art institutions. Stoschek is on the board of the KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, and she is a member of the Board of Trustees at MOCA, Los Angeles, a member of the purchasing committee of the Kunstsammlung NRW, Düsseldorf, and a member of the Performance Committee of the Whitney Museum of Modern Art, New York.

"ART WANTS TO BE SEEN"

WHY DO YOU COLLECT ART, JULIA STOSCHEK?

I don’t see myself as someone who ‘collects’ art, and I don’t want to be considered an art collector. At least not in the sense of what makes one an art collector outwardly, united with others by chance or even to gain social recognition. After all, you don't want to be categorized together with a bunch of strangers just because, like them, you visit the toilet twice a day, shower daily or only once a week, like potatoes, or secretly try to play on a shawm you made yourself from reed stalks.

To call oneself an art collector is actually rather sad. If anything, it should be something quite private and personal – something that really only concerns you and your loved ones.

Only showmen put something on display. Those who love art quietly collect wonderful things created by others through the centuries. They do so secretly, silently and with a sense of humility pertaining to the fact that something belongs to them temporarily: a work of art that they can never fully own.

, b. 1971, studied art history, American Studies and German literature at Hamburg University and New York University, PhD. While in New York between 1995-2003 he was head of the Art Science Research Laboratory under the directorship of Stephen Jay Gould, Harvard University. Since 2003, he is the global Head of Cultural Engagement at the BMW Group. Girst lectures at various international universities. In 2016, Girst received the "European Cultural Manager of the Year" award. Recent books include: 

Art, Literature, and the Japanese American Internmen

LOVING ART QUIETLY

WHY DO YOU COLLECT ART, THOMAS GIRST?

Although I undoubtedly buy art from time to time and have done so for quite a while, I wouldn’t necessarily call myself a collector. Collectors, to me, are people who approach the whole thing strategically, who search specifically and possibly also pursue commercial interests. I don't want to expose myself to that kind of stress; fashion is more my professional hunting ground (#wearstin). For me, looking at art, at its best, even within our own four walls, is purely for pleasure. Often, it is the artists I meet by chance who make me curious and then awaken my interest in their work. That's how it was mostly in the 1990s, when no party went on without cheap art selling in the next room. People knew each other; they had a beer together, and sometimes they took a painting home. Funny and Fucky, the two cute art figures by Evelin Höhne, have been with me ever since they were tiny little paintings and remind me of a good time. Since then, some works have been added: Paintings, photographs, sculptures, and illustrations leapt out at me from the page; others I recognized as reproductions or from Instagram and was excited to see in person. My own taste in art never ceases to surprise me. I have no idea what I like until I see it. But then I knew immediately.

 moved from Minden/Westphalia to Berlin in the early nineties. From 1995 to 2005 she ran the creative agency Artgenossen with two partners. On the side she did PR (without knowing it) for the Sicomat e.V. gallery run by friends (read about it in METROLOOPS by Claudia Wahjudi, 1999). In 2005 Kerstin Geffert co-founded Silk Relations, one of today's most relevant communications agencies for international fashion and lifestyle brands in Berlin. She lives with her husband, son and dog Bobby in a loft that unfortunately has far too few walls.

ART AS PLEASURE

WHY DO YOU COLLECT ART, KERSTIN GEFFERT?

Collecting digital art was never a goal for me per se, in fact the very opposite; I came to collecting digital works by chance as part of something bigger. While the majority of my collection still comprises paintings, my interest in the medium was initially piqued when I acquired two digital installations, the first, a small video installation by Neïl Beloufa, purchased on the advice of François Ghebaly, the French gallerist based in Los Angeles, followed by a digital work by Korakrit Arunanondchai, which was part of a larger installation that included a large bean bag, sculpture and painting.

This nascent interest subsequently blossomed into creating a dedicated space that embraces new media and all the innovative forms of artistic expression that accompany new technology. Since opening my gallery in Hackney, East London in 2015, I have focused on promoting young artists and especially digital natives, such as Stine Deja, Signe Pierce, Rachel de Joode, Aaron Scheer and !Mediengruppe Bitnik. If Duchamp’s BOÎTE-EN-VALISE, which unfolds to reveal a mini-museum containing tiny replicas and reproductions of his most famous works, can be interpreted as the artist’s attempt to write his own epitaph, then I like to think of the gallery as my own 

, a platform where I can curate seminal experiences around new media art for the viewing public, including my fellow collectors.

 is the founder and owner of Annka Kultys Gallery, a contemporary new media art gallery in London. During Covid the gallery launched 

, an online platform dedicated to showcasing digital art in its ‘natural habitat’.

Kultys is also a member of AWITA (the Association of Women in the Arts); a patron of Fluxus Art Projects, the Franco-British charitable association supporting artists in both countries under the umbrella of the French Ministry of Culture and the British Council of Arts; as well as an external board member at the Employability Advisory Board at the University of Westminster in London, assisting newly graduated art students find work in the art world.

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