Wallace, heir to a fortune built by meat and tanned hides, is a major art philanthropist in New Zealand. He collects the art work of NZ artists, supports NZ art initiatives, and founded the biannual Wallace Awards. These awards bestow cash, mana and a year-long NYC art residency on New Zealand artists and assure that their work will be included in the 4,500 piece Wallace Collection.
A week after I submitted the application to the Wallace Trust, notice arrived that we’d be welcome to tour the house if we could come the following day. After a flurry of phone calls and a visit to Google Maps, we agreed to meet at 10 the next day outside Rannoch, which turned out to be tucked between the roaring Auckland motorway and a tree-lined, poorly marked Epsom street. A glimpse behind the artist-designed metal security gate into the large garden crowded with sculptures and native bush convinced us we’d correctly followed the treasure map.
Rannoch entry gateWe buzzed the intercom and waited till we heard the voice of the German housekeeper instructing us to enter. Since Mel Brooks’ humor seems not to have made it to NZ, no one but me needed to stifle a giggle as images of Cloris Leachman in Young Frankenstein leapt, unbidden, to mind. I half expected to hear a horse ninny in outrage as Carla, the housekeeper, gave us entry instructions through the crackly intercom.
Carla, who turned out to be more art history graduate than Brooksian device, flicked on the lights and instructed us how to navigate the house. She asked us to not open the doors marked Private, but other than that left us on our own to wander at will. So four free range fiber artists roamed, unescorted, around this wealthy collector’s home for 3 hours, gobsmacked as much by the freedom as the artwork. We also agreed that we could happily spend a week in his library, as he seemed to own every art book ever printed.
Despite having spent a lot of time learning about NZ art and being accompanied by 3 other people who had a pretty good working knowledge of contemporary Kiwi artists, I could only identify makers of a small fraction of the art on the walls and in the storage rooms we were equally free to examine. Here’s the thing: in a private collection, there are no accompanying wall labels. Forget the fact that we have become increasingly dependant on increasingly lengthy labels to explain the conceptual work we encounter on museum and gallery walls – at Rannoch we couldn’t even identify the artist, since a stunningly small percentage of the work was signed on the front. I took home a lesson from this, since I am at best inconsistent about signing my quilts.
We finished our trip with a long wander in the garden, ‘chockers’ (as in chock full) with sculpture. Arranged around the periphery of the house and strewn down a steep ungroomed hillside we would not have been allowed to clamber down in the US (liability laws being what they are) were sculptures in various states of decay. It made me ponder, not for the first time, on the nature of collecting and the psychological triggers of the collector. These sculptures, some hidden beneath burgeoning undergrowth, some furry with moss, some simply gasping at overexposure to sun and wind and rain, were expensive works by major NZ artists. Like the paintings and indoor sculptures gathering dust in the dark in the house’s attic and basement, these pieces seemed like out of favor orphans who had been taken in by Wallace in a fit of enthusiasm and then allowed to wander off into the gloaming after his interest had waned. As I lifted a trailing branch to view a sculpture, I thought of the “in the collection of” listing on my own resume, and my friends’ excitement when a famous collector acquires their work. I couldn’t help but wonder if our art is rolled up under a collector’s bed, forgotten and camouflaged by dust bunnies.
Why do we make art, and why do others collect it? Vanity, hubris, obsession—art can be made and bought for less than laudable reasons. But I think the basic -- and most profound-- reason we make art is to tell our stories and the most altruistic reason people collect it is to preserve them. I think I’d rather have my quilts stored under a collector’s bed than my own. Especially a collector who opens his home to others interested in the worlds artists create.