David Altman on Clubhouse

Bio

I’ve always believed that being from Africa has given me different and unique perspectives on life, and continues to do so. These multiple and different perspectives have proven crucial in my developing a better understanding of the multiple challenges facing the continent – allowing me to confront these challenging situations in resourceful, innovative, and productive ways. Living between New York, Los Angels and Cape Town; visiting galleries, meeting artists, and engaging in the African art scene – I am vividly reminded of the energy and spirit of experimentation in New York in the 70’s. Acquiring my first works in Cairo and Nairobi in the 80’s sparked my ever-increasing passion for collecting art – eventually leading me to the decision that I wanted to support the creativity wherever I could in Africa. As an African and someone invested in the future of the continent, I made the decision to base my collecting on a new resilience model. A model focused on supporting the artists and their communities – ultimately nourishing their creatives to bring a positive impact to these communities. I call it a socio-environmental responsive model of pro-active collecting. To me, this means personally getting to know each artist I choose to collect, and to understand their environment and personal needs. While this resembles old school patronage, in the African context this assumes a very different dimension to that of the Western patronage relationship. Some artists need help in building their own homes and studios and sustaining farm projects. Others need materials shipped in across tricky borders, with runners disappearing for weeks at a time. And yet, it is exactly this kind of support that these artists need to produce the work that, I believe, is making an important contribution to art history. Mostly I’m loving what I do and feel blessed to be hands on with so many amazing talented artists