Karl Lagerfeld Chanel Mobile Art Lands in New York Living Lagerfeld Quel Panache Superstars and Superheroes Museums For Sale? Critics Take Art World To Task Art in the Bag

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By that, Phil, a friend and mentor who died in May at age 74, meant that readers relate to a magazine not just through its content but through the voice in which that content is delivered. All successful magazines have a singular voice—or a harmonic chorus of them—that informs and enlivens every page. Even this page, dashed off at the last minute at the end of a particularly long and hectic day, manages to convey a viewpoint: It tells you why it will be worth your while to linger with us for a bit. It tells you what’s on my mind and why it should be on yours. It lets you know somebody’s at home—even if that deadline-defying somebody is actually still at the office hours after everyone else has gone home.

Home, after all, is where the art is. It’s certainly where we’ve focused our attention with this, our second annual special issue devoted to collectors who live with paintings, sculpture and design objects of the highest order. We’ve set out to show you how (and how come) these people surround themselves with pieces of beauty, brilliance and remarkable breadth.

Gathered on these pages is quite an assortment of subjects, including Anupam Poddar, of New Delhi, who is India’s foremost collector of contemporary art and a strong advocate for the homegrown artists emerging in his country; and Chanel’s Karl Lagerfeld, in Paris, who has been setting aesthetic trends for more than three decades, both on the runway and in his constantly evolving decorative tastes. It’s hard to keep up with Kaiser Karl, but Jean Bond Rafferty managed to snare him and get the mercurial genius to open up about his approach to buying and enjoying art.

In addition, an international cadre of art dealers welcomed us into their private sanctuaries in which the work they sell dramatically cohabits with the exemplary design objects they collect as a personal passion. The New York dealer Stellan Holm sums up the appeal of design this way: “Collecting great furniture is fun and rewarding, and it’s relaxing, frankly, because it’s not my job.”

Domesticity is increasingly appealing, what with soaring gas prices, the headaches of international air travel and, for Americans, the ever-shrinking value of the dollar abroad. What ramifications will the “locavore” trend have for the art market, which has come to revolve around a moveable feast of fairs and events? Will New York collectors, for instance, still trek to Switzerland or London or even Miami to buy a painting that’s been lurking for months in a back room on West 22nd Street? Will galleries, particularly small ones and start-ups, still be willing to pay $40,000 or $50,000 for the privilege to pack up their booty and ship it, with their staff, halfway around the globe to a satellite fair that is competing with 20 other satellites for collectors’ attention? Larry Gagosian needs to sell just one painting to cover his expenses, but a lesser dealer (and who isn’t?) representing emerging artists would need to unload a fistful of works to break even. As we head into fair season—ShContemporary, Frieze, FIAC, Art Forum Berlin, Art Basel Miami Beach and so on—one wonders whether collectors will be more inclined to feather their nests with art without actually flying the coop.

Regardless of where their works were purchased, however, the subjects assembled here bring Phil Herrera’s dictum one step further: Not only is someone at home, but he or she knows that living there with flair makes all the difference.

"September 2008 From the Editor" originally appeared in the September 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's September 2008 Table of Contents.