Collector
‘The Collector’ was an immersive and evocative installation created for 2014 Frieze Masters in London (Helly Nahmad gallery), consisting of the interior hallway and rooms of a modernist apartment set in Montparnasse, Paris in 1968, accompanied by a curated film of contemporary television broadcast and nostalgic music of the period, and filled to the brim with the found collected objects and artworks of one man’s life time, amongst the piles of books, stacks of Paris Match magazines and pinned up revolutionary posters are mouthwatering art works including Lucio Fontana’s slashed canvas, a Picasso self-portrait, and Giacometti's ‘Trois hommes qui marchent’ casually placed by the bed.
‘Visitors were entranced...crammed with pitch-perfect period details’ New York Times
"a statement about how art used to be at the centre of the political and intellectual life of it's times... not merely an expensive commodity" Hyman collection
Perhaps the most ardently discussed, most visited, and photographed stand of London’s Frieze Masters 2014 . An immersive installation and an artwork in its own right, celebrating people's passion for collecting.
It is set in Montparnasse in Paris in 1968 and filled with the found collected objects and artworks of one man’s lifetime.
Revolutionary posters torn from the streets sit alongside framed paintings surrounded by collections of notes and postcards.
Two televisions play news footage and original programming from the French winter Olympics, the Tour de France and documentary and film clips from Goddard and Truffaut.
An audio soundtrack with music featuring Miles Davies ‘ L’ascenseur du echafaud , to Nino Rota’s soundtrack to Fellini’s La Dolce Vita , Giovanni Fusco’s soundtrack for Antonioni’s ‘L’avventura, George Delarue’s music for Jules et Jim, and from Martial Solal’s theme to Goddard's ‘A bout de souffle’ to Charles Trenet’s theme song , and on to Francoise Hardy and Charles Aznavour.
The apartment is filled with art magazines and gallery and auction house catalogues to stacks of curated magazines and papers, and the surfaces cluttered with found objects right down to contemporary cinema tickets.
The installation is the result of 3 months work sourcing French flea markets and Brocantes, collecting, and curating everything from the furniture to authentic art magazines and books, down to 1968 Paris cinema tickets, authentic art gallery letterheads and business cards, and curating and editing the television film and audio soundtrack. It was assembled from kit form and installed and dressed at Frieze Masters.
To some extent we all collect and curate; objects, music, books, magazines and popular culture, photographs and memorabilia, all of which make up the landscape of passions we surround ourselves with.
At any point in time that landscape describes and defines us more clearly than a portrait or photograph could do.
The installation is designed and created by Robin Brown, and produced by Anna Pank. Commissioned by the Helly Nahmad Gallery and based on Helly Nahmad’s concept.
