Interview with Bertrand E., collector 
 

1. First, how could you briefly define what is a collector ? And how may you become one: genetic inheritance or personal accomplishment ? Cute sin or life hygiene ?

 
First of all, I have not started collecting with artworks. My first encounter with an object took place around my 13th year, by the discovery of a Louis XIII coin on a hill, in the forest of Fontainebleau. This was the oldest object that I could touch and contemplate. Immediately it was transformed into questions. Who was this king? What was the living like at this time? What was at the place where I found the coin? Over the readings that followed, the subject was telling me its story and that of its time.
It was like a click. A search for meaning that would nourish each new encounter with new objects. They became in my eyes smugglers of trades from yesterday, of extinct civilizations or of nomadic peoples. They softly communicate the memory of gestures, in the depth of patinas, dull forms coming from long-term use ...

So today, not an object collected remains silent. They emerged for me as beacons in the encyclopedia of time, and forge a close link with our past, as a hand coming through centuries.
In this quest of objects, one morning I awoke collector. It was perhaps implicit in my community but I lacked the red thread that gives a meaning to a collection, as a life choice, a testimony for the other, accomplishing something important.

So it was decided, the focal point for the arts would be nomads, from the border of the Neolithic up to contemporary creations of Papua and Australian aboriginal, at the crossroads between aesthetic, useful and... divine.
The poem of the french poet "Lamartine", discovered when I was 9 years old and never forgotten eversince was embodied: "inanimate objects, do you have a soul that attaches to our, with strength to love?" .

2. You specialize on the Australian Aboriginal art, a field that "e-Land Arts" carefully looks at. How do you distinguish the trend to the hype ? What shall happen when the "Quai Branly Museum" has had time to take a little dust ?

Changing apartments, town, country, I wanted to take a fresh impetus and based on objects, I decided to go towards contemporary paintings. But one does not leave so easily the geographical openness of "Nomad Arts".

Thus, a first revelation was the Aborigine Museum  in Utrecht (Netherlands), and its rich collection. I could not resist buying my first painting, and therefore reconciling my two passions.
Three hours had been enough to open up my eyes to this art, that questions  the origin of the world, in another sense from Courbet, by carrying the message of the first forgotten nomads. These paintings were for me, some living and precious testimonies from picker and hunterorigins . Beyond millennia and continents, it was like the missing link in my collection, a connection with the many flint objects carved from another desert: the Sahara.

These artists are exceptional. The culture of writing does not exist. The whole mythology of the first Australians have been handed down orally from generation to generation, with some materials such as paintings, less ephemeral today and more transportable through the linen canvasses. The creations are related to the "Dream time", mythological era of the creation of the world (our history). They offer different levels of reading to laymen and to insiders, with abstract harmonies that sing the earth. With traditional designs, close to pointillism, or with bold innovations, the aborigines offer to our admirative gazes disconcerting creations, spiritual, with extremely high aesthetic qualities. Every work, every dream is like a manifesto. Today, the larger the canvas, the more complex, the more absorbed I feel in his contemplation.

It is correct: one can have the impression of an anwakening of aboriginal art in France, especially with the painted ceilings of the Quai Branly Museum, and its unique collection of barks. They are all the more remarkable, that they follow the great French tradition from yesterday, with the paintings or frescoes in Versailles chapels. But it is a long time since Aboriginal art attracted avid collectors and museums around the world, such as the USA, Holland, Japan, also France, with the Museum in Lyon, and of course in white Australia. The major auction houses like Sotheby's also organize remarkable annual sales. Some Galleries are also proeminent in this field, in France and abroad, since the inception of this young movement of paint in years 70-80. In my opinion, this certainly constitutes a fair tribute and a lasting recognition for these peoples.

3. In Paris, a colleague (Gallery Prazan) has taken the initiative to introduce in 2007 the collection of a man of cinema, Alain Delon. In its edition of April 28, Le Monde reported that it could find "a person of hypersensitive, swinging between Zen and the purest violence." Do you actually agree that a collection can reveal as much about its owner ?

First of all, a collection first questions the eye, with an invitation to dialogue, a window on another perception. In a combination of works collected, the collector reaches out to the curious, and invites him in a conversation with the object. I see there a privileged opportunity to exchange or share enthusiasm and emotion, and I trust that this does not reveal everything about a person! Perhaps some aspects but not the essentials. On my side, Aboriginal painting by far exceeds some personal views, for a spiritual resonance of the universe. It rather calls for humility in front of a millennial culture.
 

4. Finally, for the collector that you are, how do you integrate the new internet media: friend or foe ?

Visiting museums, discovering different works and styles, schools, ages: this definitly forges his eyes, refines one's taste, so that you finally draw your own way in the artworld and in the footsteps of a collection. But it takes so many years to visit extensively the Museums specialized in a field.

This is where Internet plays a unique role. The Museum collections are largely available on the web, and you can also search some targeted sites. The art galleries online, their temporary exhibitions can also keep abreast of an artistic movement. The major Auction Houses also offer on their Internet sites a picture of the price level of already reknown artists.

In a short time you can find thousands of paintings, chat with experts, join a community. What yesterday required years of investment is now within reach of a click, although sometime with the necessity of some good enlarging glasses, and gives an incredible acceleration to our knowledge.

As for the purchase, I often buy paintings based on photographs from across the internet. Soon, our eyes get used to the exercice and learn to distinguish what is essential. Should I have a doubt on the object or its value, I never hesitate to ask for complements of information, a picture with a superior format in ordre to observ the detaisl with my specific Image Software. I have so far never been disappointed by a purchase. The trustful relationships are built with galleries online mostly through e-mail exchanges (often due to time differences), and it provides an opportunity to further expand its network and deepen the knowledge.

Yes internet is great  !