<p>‘A good art patron is someone who supports an institution and new artistic production unconditionally’</p>

As told to Skye Sherwin

Modern Patrons: Martin Hatebur, President, Kunsthalle Basel

<p>‘I grew up in Basel, a city with around 40 museums. It’s a lot for a little town and people really support culture here. Famously, in 1967, its young citizens demonstrated to keep two <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/6746/Pablo-Picasso" target="_blank">Picassos</a> in the Kunstmuseum Basel when the family that owned the paintings threatened to sell them. Thanks to this protest, the works were purchased with state funding. Art Basel was created here by three gallerists, not long after that in 1970. My parents didn’t collect – they only had old Dutch paintings on the wall – but we went to the museums.</p>
<p>‘I began visiting Kunsthalle Basel when I was a young attorney-at-law in the 1990s. It has a restaurant where we went to drink beer in the evening. I discovered its exhibition space and a completely different world from that of my profession. It was thanks to Peter Pakesch, who was director from 1996 to 2002, that I became interested in contemporary art. I became a member of the Kunsthalle, saw all its exhibitions, and went with Pakesch on patrons’ trips to private collections and artists’ studios in Brussels, Antwerp, Warsaw, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and more. I saw shows by German artists he’d worked with when he was a gallerist in Vienna, like <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/53663/Martin-Kippenberger" target="_blank">Martin Kippenberger</a> and <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/7393/Albert-Oehlen" target="_blank">Albert Oehlen</a>, who weren’t so well known then, as well as <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/8049/Christopher-Wool" target="_blank">Christopher Wool</a> and <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/8181/Michel-Majerus" target="_blank">Michel Majerus</a>. When my father died in 1997 and I inherited some money, I began supporting one exhibition per year. Then in 2008, I became president of Kunsthalle Basel. It’s a pro bono role and I have since dedicated about 30% of my time to the Kunsthalle. I’m also president of the new St. Moritz Art Film Festival, and I’m on the boards of Lafayette Anticipations in Paris, the Swiss Association of Art Collectors, the Foundation for Art and Design in Basel, and the Giancarlo e Danna Olgiati Foundation.</p>

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<p>‘For me, a good art patron is someone who supports an institution and new production of art for its exhibitions unconditionally and does not interfere. I’m not involved in the program at all. I learn about it with everybody else on the board. I would say the most important task of the Kunsthalle president is to choose the right director. It’s the director who ensures the quality of the program and the institution. Once the director is in place, my main role is to find financial supporters and sponsors for our exhibitions, to deal with our different partners, and to make sure that we do not make any losses. </p>
<p>‘When Adam Szymczyk, who was the Kunsthalle’s director from 2003 to 2014, left to be artistic director of Documenta 14, I put together a finding commission of five artists and curators to help choose his successor. When she was appointed, Elena Filipovic had previously worked with Adam curating the Berlin Biennale, but she has a very different position and vision. Her program embraces all media, techniques, and artists of very diverse backgrounds. This year’s exhibitions included <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/11617/Lu-Yang" target="_blank">LuYang</a>, a colorful Chinese artist working in the cultures of anime, digital technology, and gaming. At the same time, we showed Iris Touliatou, a Greek conceptual artist, as well as <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/18001/Ketuta-Alexi-Meskhishvili" target="_blank">Ketuta Alexi-Meskhishvili</a>, a Georgian photographer, on our back wall.&nbsp;We will open a show in May with Tiona Nekkia McClodden, an artist living in Philadelphia, who often works with leather and readymade objects, and in early June with P. Staff, a British artist and maker of haunting films.</p>


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<p>‘The pleasure of being an art patron is that I meet artists and some, like <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/11656/Nairy-Baghramian" target="_blank">Nairy Baghramian</a>, <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/7089/Danh-Vo" target="_blank">Danh Vo</a>, <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/18304/Shahryar-Nashat" target="_blank">Shahryar Nashat</a>, Adam Linder, and <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/7888/Goshka-Macuga" target="_blank">Goshka Macuga</a>, have become close friends whom I see all the time.
It’s a completely different world from the art market that we know today,
which deals mainly with investment and buying and selling. You meet an artist at the beginning of their career and can follow their work and artistic evolution. </p>
<p>‘I began collecting in 1997. The first work I bought was by Christopher Wool, <em>Untitled</em> (1994), which Peter Pakesch showed in the exhibition at Kunsthalle Basel. I still have it and it hangs on my wall in Paris. There is no particular direction to what I’ve bought since then; it includes figurative and abstract art, sculpture and paintings. I always buy what I like – that is the advice that I give to all collectors. Don’t buy what everybody tells you to or hope that something will go up in value, there is no guarantee.</p>
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<p>‘I have over 300 works in my collection now. I live with a lot of these at my homes in Paris, Basel, Stromboli, and in the mountains in St. Moritz. I don’t work with a curator; my partner and I look at many artworks and then take decisions together. The bigger works I leave on the walls, like <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/6768/Gilbert-George" target="_blank">Gilbert & George</a>’s <em>All</em> (1989) and Christopher Wool’s <em>Untitled</em>
(1994) and <em>Untitled</em> (1990). The smaller works are exchanged from time to time. I buy a lot in connection with the Kunsthalle, of course. Current favorites include <em>Pander To A Prodigy</em> (2016), a painting by <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/8644/Lynette-Yiadom-Boakye" target="_blank">Lynette Yiadom-Boakye</a> which I live with in Basel; a beautiful sculpture from 2007 by <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/11322/Monika-Sosnowska" target="_blank">Monika Sosnowska</a> in Stromboli; and <em>Identity Shirt (Second Generation)</em> (1969), a work by <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/21294/Ana-Lupas" target="_blank">Ana Lupaș</a> in St. Moritz. In Paris, I have <em>Homecoming</em> (2021), a new Michael Armitage painting that I love – but my favorite is still the first Christopher Wool.</p>
<p>‘Of course, I have to keep a lot in storage. If you don’t have any more space, you think twice. I love art, but being an art patron is mainly about supporting artists and art institutions, not possession.’</p>
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<p>Skye Sherwin is an art writer based in Rochester, UK. She contributes regularly to <em>The Guardian</em> and numerous art publications.</p>
<p>Published on May 22, 2023.<br></p>

<p>Caption for full-bleed images, from top to bottom: 1. Installation view of&nbsp;Ketuta Alexi-Meskhishvili’s exhibition&nbsp;‘Verkleidung’, Kunsthalle Basel, Basel, 2022.&nbsp;Photograph by&nbsp;Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle Basel.&nbsp;2. Installation view of&nbsp;LuYang’s exhibition ‘LuYang Vibratory Field’,&nbsp;Kunsthalle Basel, Basel, 2023. Photograph by Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle Basel.&nbsp;3.&nbsp;Installation view of Inka ter Haar’s artwork <em>Haha! ter Haar</em>, 2022,<em>&nbsp;</em>during Regionale 23 (‘We are so many here’),&nbsp;2022,&nbsp;Kunsthalle Basel (Restaurant Kunsthalle), Basel, 2022. Photograph by Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle Basel.</p>

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