Collection collective: collection of contemporary art

Collection Collective was initiated as a speculative curatorial proposal wherein a group of artists, designers, architects, lawyers, economists, and cultural producers were invited to reflect on the possibility of constructing a contemporary art collection that is owned and managed collectively by its members. As a curatorial research hypothesis, the project asked whether an alternative can be identified to narratives which, from the Florentine studiolo and the Kunstkammer, and up to contemporary private collections, conceives the phenomenon of collecting as an alibi for a narcissistic self-identification of the private subject. It functions according to a very simple principle: each member offers work for the collection according to skill and expertise.
For the first stage of the project, Judit Angel, Raluca Voinea, and Vlad Morariu invited cultural workers with whom they had already collaborated and had established a history of friendship and mutual trust. The project materialised in Bratislava, in late 2017, where a first model of the collection was publicly presented at Collection Collective: Template for a Future Model of Representation, an exhibition that took place at tranzit.sk. The space also represented a good occasion for the participants to meet at an internal seminar, which saw the official founding of the Collection. Thus, Bratislava represented a transition point from an ‘acting as if’ phase – acting as if the Collection existed - to a collective commitment to the articulation and implementation of the Collection. In Bratislava we interrogated the way this project positions itself within contemporary art world discourses, its aims and objectives, and its functioning principles. Friendship and mutual respect should remain a guiding value for the collection’s expansion and thus, during 2018, each founding member has invited new members to join in. The Collection now includes more than 50 members
At present Collection Collective embodies a prototypical international art collection established, owned, and managed collectively by its members. It is rooted in three tenets that determine the current conditions for the production, presentation, and consumption of culture and art:
(1) The precarity of public cultural institutions in Europe and beyond, which facing a growing wave of right-wing populisms and nationalisms, and the demands to show value for money, fail to include works that critically address the status quo in their collections. Collection Collective represents an effort to reintroduce to the public discourse the question of political and cultural autonomy, through creating an institutional machine for empowerment, visibility, and representation.
(2) The systemic conditions of cultural production, which encourage opportunism and competition between cultural workers, and whose result is the destruction of collective forms of organisation, resistance, and struggle. Collection Collective responds to the urgency of articulating sustainable models of collective legitimation and representation where collectivity is based on politics of friendship, mutual respect, and recognition.
(3) The humanitarian, ecological, and political crises to which a culture based on private patronage is incapable of responding. Collection Collective does not only question whether collecting is possible beyond the whims, tastes, and likes of the private collector; it also represents an attempt to rethink the functions, roles, and purposes of collecting as a collective practice recording and shaping our contemporary condition.
Members of Collection Collective:
Alena Kunicová, Alenka Gregorič, Alexandra Pirici, Alicja Rogalska, Anca Benera & Arnold Estefan, András Cséfalvay, Andrei Gavril, Anetta Mona Chișa & Lucia Tkáčová, Anna Dasović, Bureau of Melodramatic Research (Irina Gheorghe & Alina Popa),
Chicks on Speed (Melissa E. Logan & A.L. Steiner), Ciprian Mureșan, Claudiu Cobilanschi, Dan Mihaltianu, Decebal Scriba,Dora García, Eliška Mazalanová, Ferenc Gróf, Fokus Grupa, Igor & Ivan Buharov, Ilona Németh, Inga Chuprova, Iuliana Dumitru, Ivan Moudov, Jana Kapelová, Jozef Mrva jr., Judit Angel, Lia Perjovschi, Lucia Nimcová, Magda Stanová, Martin Piaček, Martina Růžičková & Max Lysáček, Martinka Bobriková & Oscar de Carmen, Mira Keratová, Nika Autor, Nora Ružičková (with Marianna Mlynárčiková), Oto Hudec, Pavel Brăila, Peter Lényi, Péter Szabó, Petra Balíková, Raluca Popa, Raluca Voinea, Roland Schefferski, Roman Biček, Sándor Bartha, Szilárd Miklós, Valentina Vetturi, Vlad Basalici, Vlad Morariu, Zbyněk Baladrán