David Salle: belief

Transcript context

…Just “a prominent collector of high renown” would be fine. There are so many self-delusions that are involved in being an artist, in the life of an artist, I think probably most of which are necessary, especially when you’re a young artist. And you have no right to think these things or feel these things or presume any of these things, but sometimes you’re encouraged by the people around you — dealers or collectors or other artists — that these delusions maybe are legitimate. I remember making a painting in the very early ’80s that I just thought was a winner. My dealer at the time was basically just told, or she thought I wanted to hear, “This is a painting which we’re reserving for a museum.” In artist parlance it’s “museum only.” She even made a list of which museums would be likely. No museum was interested in this painting. No major collector was interested in this painting. I can’t remember what happened to the painting. The painting went to some collector, then it went to auction, then went to some other collector, went another auction. I don’t even know where it is today. I’ll be happy not to know where it is, but this was a painting that, at the time, I thought, “This is museum only.” The artist might be the last to know. There have been a few happy stories. The happy stories are usually a result of a personal relationship with a collector or with a curator — someone who has followed what you’ve been trying to do and has been sympathetic with what you’ve been trying to do, and therefore is more attuned. Their antenna is more attuned to when something is an opportunity. There was one painting — actually the painting that you were looking at in the book earlier this morning — that was purchased by a very, very good collector on the West Coast, who is a very good friend of mine and someone who is very generous with other museums and with other artists. The collector opened his collection to a curator from MoMA, basically saying, “Take whatever you want.” We thought sure that the curator was going to take this painting, which we had all agreed at the time had reached that level. But guess what, the curator didn’t take that painting, took a much lesser painting. We were baffled. But anyway, it was the curator’s choice. Then the painting, let’s say the A painting — I’ll use this horrible expression — kicked around for a while. It was in some other collection. It was shown in London a few times and then finally ended up in a very good collection in New York. This is the vagaries of commerce and taste that paintings are subjected to or are somehow intimately tied up with. If you think of the really great collectors — Herb and Dorothy Vogel, the Meyerhoffs, Eli Broad — opinions may differ, but what is it to you that they have in common as a class?…

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