What I’m Buying and Why: Collector Dean Valentine on Where He Shops for Art, and Having a ‘Basement Full’ of Duds

A version of this story
originally appeared in the fall 2019 artnet Intelligence Report.

Dean Valentine, former TV executive and co-founder of the Los
Angeles-based Felix Art Fair, reveals
the ins and outs of his art collecting habits.

What was your first acquisition?

A piece by a Russian
émigré artist, Yuri Kuper, that looked as if Cy
Twombly found a blackboard in the trash and decided to scrawl on
it. It was about $6,500, which seemed like an absolutely ridiculous
amount of money at the time. 

What was your most recent acquisition?

A painting by a young African
American artist named
Brandon Landers. It’s a tribute to [murdered Compton rapper and
entrepreneur] Nipsey Hussle. I’m not necessarily a Nipsey Hussle
fan, but I am a Brandon Landers fan.

Where do you buy art most frequently? 

In Los Angeles. It’s hard to
think of contemporary art in the past 20 to 30 years without
putting L.A. at the forefront. I feel very lucky that I’ve been
here during all this. 

Is there a work you regret purchasing? 

I’ve got a basement full of
them. 

Do you have any artwork in your bathroom?

In the guest bathroom, there’s a
beautiful Surrealist drawing from the 1970s by E’wao Kagoshima. It
had to be out of the light, and it’s a dark bathroom, so it’s
perfect. 

What is the most impractical work of art you
own? 

A four-walled room—seven feet
high, five feet wide, and eight feet long—by German artist Gregor
Schneider. It’s bigger than my bathroom.

What work do you wish you had bought when you had the
chance?

A Warhol Marilyn gold tondo painting. I was just a medium-level
employee at a [Hollywood] studio, and I couldn’t afford
it.  

If you could steal one work of art without getting caught,
what would it be?

The
Raft of the Medusa
by [Théodore] Géricault.

A version of this story originally appeared in the fall
2019 artnet Intelligence
Report. To download the full report, which has juicy details on
the most bankable artists, a look at how the art market has changed
over the past 30 years, and a deep dive into the shrinking business
of auction guarantees, click here.

The post What I’m Buying and Why: Collector Dean Valentine
on Where He Shops for Art, and Having a ‘Basement Full’ of Duds
appeared first on artnet News.