Approach

An engagement runs in four phases: assessment, positioning and cultural strategy, integration and partnerships, and activation. The document that guides everything else is written in the second phase, before anything is bought.

Published by ArtisDomus, written by Polina Surina.

Phase 01 · Assessment

Before anyone proposes a work, the practice studies the owner, the place and the field.

The practice looks at the project’s context, its position in its market and the owner’s long-term goals. The aim is to see what culture could do for it.

This answers three questions. Who owns the asset, and who decides? Who is the place for, and who will actually be in the room? Which museums, foundations, collectors, galleries and artists could carry the project?

If the asset already holds works, the practice also checks what is there: legal ownership (title), provenance and the state of the paperwork. The glossary explains due diligence and provenance.

Phase 02 · Positioning and cultural strategy

A written thesis comes before the first purchase. Every later decision is checked against it.

The second phase produces three things for the asset, the collection or the brand: the cultural brief, the curatorial direction and the positioning framework. Together they form the written thesis. It says what the place has to mean, to whom, and why each work will be there.

The thesis also says what must be left out for that meaning to hold. A collection built without one is decoration with a larger invoice.

For a private collection, the thesis is usually an acquisition policy: written rules that a family office or a board can hold the collection to. For a building or a brand, it becomes the brief that the architect, the operator and the artists all work from.

Phase 03 · Integration and partnerships

Every work has its place, and a stated reason for being there.

The third phase carries out the strategy. The practice finds works and sets up direct partnerships with artists, architects and cultural institutions. Each decision fits the identity and the scale of the project.

Before the search begins, the practice sets criteria for the project, and scores each candidate work against them. The criteria cover the artist’s record with institutions and their upcoming museum programme. They also cover whether the gallery is ready to build a shared programme, the price compared with similar artists, and whether the work could be replaced within the collection.

Before any money is paid, every work goes through the same checks.

1. Authenticity and the artist’s record. How to check a contemporary work is authentic, with the certificate of authenticity and the catalogue raisonné.
2. Ownership, provenance and money-laundering rules. What to check before you pay and what the money-laundering rules require of a sale.
3. Price. How to tell what a work is worth and whether a gallery price can be negotiated.
4. Borders, if the work crosses one. Leaving the United Kingdom, leaving France and entering the UAE.
5. Commissions. Who owns the copyright and what the contract says when the work disappoints.

Phase 04 · Activation

A collection earns its place through what happens around it.

The fourth phase builds long-term value through programming, commissions, partnerships and continuity. For a hotel or a members’ club, that means a programme guests and members come back for. For a brand, it means an artist collaboration that still makes sense after the season it was launched in.

For a family or a foundation, it means looking after the collection: insurance, storage, loans to institutions and a plan for the next generation.

A members’ club collection strategy · Insuring a work kept abroad · Lending a work to a museum · A trust or a foundation for an estate

In writing

Each phase ends with a document the owner keeps and can hand to someone else.

The owner can pass these documents to a successor, a board or an auditor. That way, someone who was not in the room can check the advice.