Collecting art can be a life-enhancing experience, especially when you surround yourself with it at home. This is also demonstrated by the exhibition ‘Home is where the Art is’. At the Kunsthal, the collectors Johan Poort and Manon Visser will be inviting the public to step into their home, as it were – the place where they live amidst their joint art collection. Poort and Visser started collecting art five years ago. Different movements, periods, and both ‘high’ and ‘low’ art all meet and interact with each other in this diverse and intuitively shaped collection. Abstract works by Bram Bogart and Rotterdam-based artist Ton van Os alternate with vibrant, figurative art by people like Marlene Dumas, Yoshitomo Nara, Sungi Mlengeya, Pat Andrea, and Diederick Kraaijeveld. In an intimate, homely setting the public will be able to discover associative, unexpected connections between a wide variety of artworks that clearly show Poort and Visser's love of collecting.
Recurring themes in the exhibition are how to collect art, how to bring an art collecting to life, and how art is able to transform a house into a home. Johan Poort (1959) studied architecture and – as the son of Johan Poort, an expert on the Dutch painter Mesdag – grew up surrounded by art. Manon Visser (1973) is an art historian and goldsmith. The public is given a rare insight into their relatively young collection that initially was not intended to be displayed in a museum setting. Presenting the works in unusual combinations leads to new associations and narratives. ‘Home is where the Art is’ takes the visitors along in the train of thought of the collectors and shows what an art collection can mean on a personal level. How can you develop your own taste? How can you give art a new, personal layer of meaning?
Love at first sight
Works produced in edition and commercial packaging are also part of the collection and demonstrate that the monetary value of art does not have to be the guiding principle for collecting. For the collectors it is all about the personal relationship they have with the work. To them, that is what makes the items valuable and worthy of being displayed. Love at first sight is what shaped the Poort-Visser Collection into what it is today.
