Interview: Art Collector Kristian Roland

Let’s talk a bit about this subjective experience of art, tuning into your collection, which spans quite broadly, featuring both modern and contemporary art, abstract and figurative in a range of media. Can you tell us about the thoughts behind your collection and the way it has developed?
In the current collector climate, you see a prevailing tendency for the conceptual and minimalistic. In 2007, where my collection began taking shape, there was a turn towards figurative art, especially in painting. In this sense, one could argue that the collection represents different movements and style shifts in the history of art. The pieces in the collection stand as historical markers and carriers of a zeitgeist. Having said that, I believe that the best works in the collection keep having a certain energy and relevancy, which is often revealed after a certain timewise distance to their process of creation. Most of all, the collection reveals, of course, something about my personal relationship to art – paintings and photography have a special interest; they are the principal media in my collection. Photography is both immensely banal and part of pop culture and enormously elitist and advanced, and I definitely believe that it can be justified either way. Photography challenges our way of viewing and reproducing the world through the stories it tells.

This leads to my next question, which takes the following quote from you in a recent interview with Larry’s List as its point of departure: “On the whole, a story needs to be told”. you elaborate on this statement? In your view, what is a good story in an artwork?
A good story is always built around interesting, off-beat or challenging ideas and thoughts that the artist channels into the artwork and which in some way presents unknown territory to the spectator. In conceptual works, you have to get to know the artwork more than in the case of, say, a figurative work, where the components are easier to decode. I think that an artist such as Albert Mertz is interesting because his work tells us something fundamental about imagining and communication in a work. Another artist, John Knuth, puts the process in the center – as is the case with our artwork Brinch’s Security, which is built from fly-excrements, together creating a vibrant, almost hypnotic expression. In general, a good story can take many different shapes, which has a lot to do with the outlook of the spectator. We all read something different into art, and what is a good story for me might only be a decent story to you.

Speaking of how to look at art, I’ll turn to the former gallerist David Risley, who in an interview with Kunstkritikk said that people no longer look at art: “Everyone claims they do, but I can tell you who does and who doesn’t. And basically no one does. It’s an incredibly small amount of people who do”. As a young collector, how do you see this?
If, for example, the galleries want to have more visitors, it is important to make the gallery a space for experiences – with art as the pivotal point. David Risley is very aware of this and brilliant at doing it. There are, however, many galleries that both fail in their role as a mediator and, at the same time, have a very arrogant understanding of the art experience. You can still walk into a gallery in Denmark and meet the type of assistant, who sits behind a large desk and stares fixated on his or her MacBook without paying any attention to the visitor – that does not exactly create a basis from which to use the gallery as a space of experience. You can say that the evolution of the use of social media makes the art more accessible as a commercial and cultural phenomenon. Social media has an enormous potential for the galleries and is not exclusively an obstacle for having visitors, but the galleries also carry a responsibility to make their exhibitions attractive to a new audience. Sadly, there are probably also galleries that do not care a lot about numbers of visitors and communication.

In continuation of your thoughts about the art world ecosystem. What’s the biggest change you think we’ll see in the market in the next 5 years?
It is always difficult to predict the future, and there are many different players and positions influencing the development. However, I do think that the digital evolution will continue to have an influence and create changes in the way we view and access art. Both consumers of and contributors to the art market will most likely experience a more professionalized use of media in the future – as a way of experiencing, buying and selling art. A format such at the art fair is not a particularly sustainable construction in a world where the climate crisis is becoming more and more of a concern. So, perhaps we will have to rethink this format.

If we move from a macro to a micro level – how about the future of your personal collection?
Personally, I have begun looking back in time instead of chasing the next shooting star, which is, after all, a typical label and goal for the 21^st century art collector. I think that it is wonderful to be able to supplement my collection of young artists with works by an older generation of artists that began creating art fifty years ago that still holds up to this day. The interplay of past and present adds a unique nerve to my collection.