Art & Object Fall Fair 2024

FEATURE

THE COLLECTOR’S VIEW When does a buyer become a collector? This is a question best answered by gal lerists and art dealers who often medi ate such transitions, or by collectors themselves, who are notoriously pri vate about their acquisitions. Mark Waskow Brooklyn-born Mark Waskow, a col lector and founder of the fledgling non profit Northern New England Muse um of Contemporary Art (NNEMoCA),

I was afraid to paint.” Obviously, that fear has been overcome. Since 1988, Aho’s paintings have been featured nationally and interna tionally in over 50 solo exhibitions, as well as in group shows too numerous to mention. His list of accolades and awards is equally long and includes a Fulbright Fellowship, a MacDowell Fellowship, a Pollock-Krasner Founda tion Grant, a Vermont Arts Council and National Endowment for the Arts Fin landia Foundation Grant, among oth ers. His paintings are in the collections of many major institutions, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Den ver Art Museum, the Fine Arts Muse ums of San Francisco, the National College of Art in Oslo, Norway, and the Oulu City Art Museum in Finland. As a Finnish-American, Aho has first hand knowledge of the culture of this northern nation. Now, Aho has reached the enviable position of being able to paint all day in his Saxtons River, Vermont studio with out having to supplement his income with teaching or gig work. He gives a generous amount of credit to his gal lery, DC Moore in New York’s Chelsea. “DC Moore understands my position. They don’t dictate what I paint. [Galler ist] Bridget Moore told me, ‘Don’t worry about your audience, let me worry about your audience. You just do what you do.’ Hearing this was such a relief.” The landscape provides a path for painting as Aho works his way through formal issues. He talks about “the mus cularity of the paint” and works exclu sively in oil. In the beginning he paint ed in plein air. Later, he says, “I taught myself about the exchange between indoors and outdoors.” His work is a delicate balance between the specific and the universal, providing the view er with an overwhelming sense of place. He is currently preparing a new body of work titled “Wild Meadow” for his bien nial exhibition at DC Moore. “Hones ty is the key component,” he says. “It isn’t about truth to nature or even, as in Cézanne, truth to sensation. In the end, the object on the wall is the truth.”

a buyer’s interest deepens, it is often accompanied by a desire to know more about the artist behind the work. Many collectors depend on gallerists and deal ers to educate them and to guide their buying habits based on their goals. Is this an investment, a prestige object, or a reflection of their discerning eye and individual taste? Mark Waskow chose another path. “I prefer to deal direct ly with artists. I’m a verbal kind of guy and I like to talk to people before they’re dead. I also go to art fairs and galleries all over the country—Miami, New York.” Waskow has an appreciation for geo

Mark Waskow

COURTESY OF MARK WASKOW

“My intent is not to buy art as investment. I want to provide income to artists… This is my calling.” MARK WASKOW

has amassed over 15,000 works of art and an estimated 35,000 books, cata logues and ephemera during his life as an avid connoisseur. Waskow did not study art but credits his mother, who was a commercial artist, for cultivating his aesthetic eye. “I grew up in Brooklyn, and she and I could visit all these free museums. She also painted murals on the walls of our apartment.” Waskow explains, “I was a conserva tive businessman. My collecting start ed in 1982 when I bought a huge house; then I needed to buy art to put up on the walls.” A common trigger for many collectors is the impulse to decorate. As

metric abstraction, although stylis tically the collection reflects his idio syncratic, non-hierarchical approach. Janie Cohen, former director of the Fleming Museum of Art at the Univer sity of Vermont, became aware of Was kow’s mindset that “the process of col lecting art is a creative act ” and invited him to participate in a 1993 show titled Selections From My Collection. Waskow explains how his vision about collect ing has matured. “Although I purchase things that appeal to me visually, now I ask myself how this new piece will con tinue the dialogue with other works already in the collection, and will it

12

Art&Object | Fall 2024