Manager Update - Q3 2018

02.10.2018

Firelei Baez, Ciguapa Oantera (To All the Goods and Pleasures of This World), 2015, at Garage Museum. 

Dear Readers,

Hope you enjoyed a relaxing summer and are now back in full swing. Summer kept me busy juggling an intense artist residency for three incredible painters from Zimbabwe, numerous work trips, integrating new team members, organizing loans to institutional shows, artwork consignments, finalizing and presenting our new fund offering, preparing and giving multiple talks as well as spending quality time with family.

In my last newsletter I mentioned a new $250 million art fund that was reportedly being put together by UTA and Peter Brandt. The latest news in the grapevine is that this idea is no longer going ahead. On the other hand, as I write this I am in the Hamptons combining high holidays with family and trips into NYC pitching Tiroche Contemporary Fund II, which has also launched a small website

Nirit Takele during her Residency in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Summer 2018. 

Sadikou Oukpedjo "Palimpsest" at the Gallery For African Studies in Tel-Aviv, July 20, 2018 - October 15, 2018. 

Gresham Nyaude, Wycliffe Mundopa and Helen Teede at Africa First studio in South Tel-Aviv, August 2018.

The thinking behind Africa First has slowly evolved. Over the past quarter I have come to realize that despite a lot of interest by third parties to co-invest in African contemporary art, it makes more sense to build this as a long-term private collection with no definite maturity date and without the constraints of a fund structure. Hence the residency program we run in Israel has been focused on hosting African artists that I pick for the collection and whom I wish to collect in-depth and support more directly. Here too we launched a new website.

On the Tiroche DeLeon Collection front I was proud to post the below on my Instagram @sergetiroche a few days ago:

"To mark my 1000th post and treat my 2500 Insta followers here is a selection of works from the #tirochedeleoncollection either currently or shortly coming up on institutional loans. Most rewarding is to see works we collected years ago, by sometimes very young artists, making it to top museums all over the world, a testament to the ‘eye’ and a really rewarding experience to know we delivered on our promise to spot and nurture talent and to share our collection with the public."

Clockwise from left: Shilpa Gupta at ZKM Karlsruhe and last year at Documenta in Kassel; two works by Rina Banerjee that will travel to 5 museums across the US over the next 2 years - Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art; San Jose Museum of Art; Fowler Museum in LA; Frist Art Museum in Nashville and finally the Nasher Museum in Durham; Firelei Baez at the Garage Museum in Moscow; Guan XIAO at the Contemporary Art Museum of Saint Louis (another edition); and Liu Xiaodong at Kunsthalle Dusseldorf. Additional works from the collection recently on view have been Marina Abramovic’s ‘Rhythm 0’ (other edition) in “The Cleaner×´ exhibition at Moderna Museet in Sweden, Louisiana Museum in Denmark and Bundes Kunsthalle in Germany as well as the long-standing presentation at the TATE in London; and Ai Weiwei’s ‘Forever’ at the De Pont Museum in Holland; as well as Sheba Chhachhi's "Neelkanth: Poison/Nectar" (another edition) at the Kiran Nadar Museum in India. 

Further news on the Tiroche DeLeon front is that we have agreed on several auction consignments over the summer, particularly for the African auctions taking place in October at both Sotheby’s and Bonhams. Additional consignments are still under negotiation for Asian works this fall and Latin American works next year. A couple of private sales are also being discussed, some with institutions. Ariel and I also traveled to Gibraltar in July to hold Board meetings and progress with the preparations for Tiroche Contemporary Fund II.

Last but not least, I continue to give talks in various forums. I gave a Ted-style talk for Epoch Times in early July in Israel, a talk for French radio channel KAN in Israel in August and a particularly good podcast in September for Philip Stein & Co. which I highly recommend listening to for those interested in better understanding my grander mission. In mid-October, I will be part of a family panel about "Art Dynasties" at Art Market Budapest.

My next stop will be in London for Frieze and 1-54, followed by Budapest and possibly Paris for a glimpse of FIAC and ASIA Now. Please stay in touch.

Best regards, Serge