"You don't have to be a Rockefeller to collect art."

Sarindar Dhaliwal was visiting me recently and talking about some art topics she will be bringing up in her classes at OCAD this fall. She had just watched a documentary on The Vogels. Tomorrow I will present a couple of interesting books she suggests for understanding the contemporary art scene. ak

"On the odd chance that you don’t know who the Vogels are, they built an extraordinary collection of minimalist and conceptual art while working as a librarian and postman. It took three months and five 40ft lorries to pack up and remove more than 2,500 pieces from their tiny apartment: priceless work by Sol LeWitt, Donald Judd, Carl Andre, Richard Long, Julian Schnabel, Jeff Koons, and Richard Tuttle, among others. Only three works remained in situ, because they were site specific or too fragile to move (the National Gallery has since been back to collect one of these, a piece made out of yoghurt).

Herb and Dorothy Vogel "You would never think of it but they are one of the famous art collectors in New York."

http://www.artmarketmonitor.com/2009/10/13/the-vogels-documentary-airs/

"I have never in my 40 years of museum work met anyone with the kind of income level the Vogels had, putting together a collection of that dimension and that comprehensiveness and of that quality. "