collecting – 12.01.2023
WHY DO YOU COLLECT ART, JULIA STOSCHEK?
"ART WANTS TO BE SEEN"
A collection forms the understanding of our past; it is "an archive of temporalities," as curator Daniel Birnbaum put it. This in turn determines the possibilities that we can imagine for the future. Art, literature, and film build worlds. As Beuys said, "We need to invent the future that we want. If we don’t, we'll get one that we don't want." I firmly believe that we shape the future by collecting art.
It is part and parcel of the conception of our collection to bring together different generations and periods of time-based media art, from its beginnings in the 1960s to the present day. Although the collection is already multi-faceted and diverse, it is important to me to add still other voices and perspectives.
Art wants to be seen. Video art in particular is an essentially democratic art form: it can be reproduced without any loss of quality. The art market is responsible for the seeming scarcity of works in this medium. What I would like to do is to enable anyone, no matter where they are in the world, to view the works in my collection at any time and without restriction. Making these works of art widely available has been a long-cherished wish of mine. This past year, we launched a project that will fullfil this wish.
Julia Stoschek owns one of the world's largest private collections of time-based art. Her main interest is the public presentation, promotion, conservation, and study of artistic practices in time-based media and performance.
In 2002, she founded the JULIA STOSCHEK COLLECTION with a focus on works in the areas of video, film, and digital art created by international artists since the 1960s. Since 2007, the collection has been made public through solo and group exhibitions in Düsseldorf. In 2016, a second exhibition center opened in Berlin Mitte.
In addition to her work as a collector, Julia Stoschek supports institutions, artists, and scholars in realizing projects in the field of time-based art. She is also involved in international art institutions. Stoschek is on the board of the KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, and she is a member of the Board of Trustees at MOCA, Los Angeles, a member of the purchasing committee of the Kunstsammlung NRW, Düsseldorf, and a member of the Performance Committee of the Whitney Museum of Modern Art, New York.