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Connect + Collect 1: Collecting for Beginners

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A Boisterous Dialogue: What It Means to Write About Art

“How many of you are art collectors?” asked co-host Jeffrey Kent at the first of six Connect + Collect lectures featuring artists and collectors in conversation. “For some reason, individuals don’t like that name, art collector, and we want to help change that… What if being an art collector meant you’re an advocate for artists? What if being an art collector means you help the community that you live in? We want to build a community of art patrons to support the artists that they live with.”

Kent, an artist and former director of the Subbasement Artist Studios, went on to describe the potential for Baltimore to a sold-out crowd – first as a place to purchase work from the next big talent, like Amy Sherald, an artist he worked with early on at the Subbasement, and second as a community where individuals come together to invest in the success of a place.

Jeffrey Kent, Mequitta Ahuja, Cara Ober, Schwanda Rountree

Connect + Collect is a new initiative brought to you by BmoreArt Founding Editor Cara Ober and Jeffrey Kent, designed to create awareness and momentum among new and experienced art collectors, and to promote a culture of collecting in Baltimore.

Our first panel on January 24 was hosted at Motor House with art collector, art consultant, and DC-based lawyer Schwanda Rountree and Baltimore-based artist Mequitta Ahuja, a Guggenheim recipient whose work is in Rountree’s collection. Moderated by Ober, the artist and collector discussed a range of strategies for beginning a collection from how to conduct research, studio visits, payment plans, and the need for cultural ownership and preservation. They talked about how their relationship evolved organically over the course of a decade, touched on the primary and secondary art markets, and engaged in a radically transparent conversation about topics not normally discussed in public.

Our first panel on January 24 was hosted at Motor House with art collector, art consultant, and DC-based lawyer Schwanda Rountree and Baltimore-based artist Mequitta Ahuja, a Guggenheim recipient whose work is in Rountree’s collection. Moderated by Ober, the artist and collector discussed a range of strategies for beginning a collection from how to conduct research, studio visits, payment plans, and the need for cultural ownership and archival preservation.

They talked about how their relationship evolved organically over the course of a decade, touched on the primary and secondary art markets, and engaged in a radically transparent conversation about topics not normally discussed in art galleries, classrooms, or in general with artists.

Our audience included new and established collectors from Baltimore and DC, museum professionals, curators, gallerists, academic professionals and professors, and artists. A reception in The Showroom followed and each ticket included a cocktail at the bar, so that guests could mingle and converse.

 

 

 

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