Collection collective: rethinking function, ownership and possession

Observing the growing number of public collections, and the changing status of collectibles’ ownership, Walter Benjamin anticipated, in the 1930s, the extinction of the private collector. However, as Benjamin put it, ‘only in extinction is the collector comprehended’ (2007, p. 67). From this point of view, one could legitimately propose that Baudrillard’s account of the non-functional system of collecting (1968/1996), with its emphasis on the private subject’s object possession, represents an analysis of a phenomenon which, if not entirely extinct, had already transformed beyond recognition. Contemporary with Baudrillard was an emerging field with its own logic of collecting that, towards the end of the 20th century, moves entirely to the realm of simulation: the field of contemporary art. My paper revisits Baudrillard’s 'System of Objects' with a view towards current modes of collecting art, and their connections to processes of financial speculation, brand management, and colonisation of public institutions. My analysis is informed by 'Collection Collective', a research project that I initiated in 2017 together with curators Raluca Voinea and Judit Angel from the tranzit.org network (see www.collectioncollective.art). The project explores ways in which a model of art collection collectively owned and run by cultural producers could function.