Larry: Thanks for taking the time to have a quick chat about everything you’re up to. I wanted to start off by going through the chronology of it and start with the origins of it. Can you tell us a little about how Avec Pleasure got started?
Anne: It’s kind of interconnected with my background in the sense I started out as an art conservator. I’m not originally from Australia; I was raised by British people in America so I have a strange accent. I did my first degree at the Art Institute of Chicago, which is a great Arts school still to this day and then through <(can’t really work out what she’s saying here)that came art conservation> which I pursued in Britain and in 1981 I was brought to Australia by the Government to set up a conservation program at the State Library. I’ve got an unusual background. For quite a while I did the side of art and liaised with various institutions to help them with their collections and exhibition management. I worked at the MGB for 10 years in 3 different positions: I was a conservator there. Then when we left I relocated to Perth with my husband for his medical training. I decided I’d had enough of institutional life because I started fairly young, and I thought I’d have a go at private conservation practice. Luckily I was in Perth at a very good time there were a lot of very wealthy people collecting extremely interesting art. For about 5 years I basically had 5 clients; Court, Kerry Stokes, , The Art Gallery WA, and also the University of WA has an art collection, which is actually where I had my studio. In that case I was doing hand and collection management as well as art consultancy in the sense that if someone wants to buy the work the curator would decide on what they wanted and I would say what condition it was in and how much money they would have to spend on top of what they had to buy it for and if I thought it was a good example. So I had this very broad background with lots of different fabulous experiences. When we relocated after the 5 year to Melbourne I decided I’d already had a long time working for the hand side and that’s when I decided to focus on just the art consultancy. Avec Pleasure grew out of a phone call with one of my Perth clients who rang me up and said “I want to go to the fantastic Hong Kong Art fair, will you come with me I don’t want to go on my own?” So initially it started out a bit by accident, we had a great time and I realised there was this niche for women in particular who had an interest in art and who were wanting to collect but were feeling a bit nervous to enter into it on their own and that’s how it started.
L: So the first trip you made was to Hong Kong
A: With one client and a private trip, yeah
L: So how did that grow then into what it is today?
A: When I came back to start doing the art consultancy, so no treatment of artwork just helping people buy artwork. I needed a new name and a new identity and it grew from people finding out I had taken this other client. I was telling them they should go not just to Hong Kong but some of the other fairs because it’s a way of educating your eye and learning a lot and quickly about things and also having a great holiday. It really kind of grew from its own nature. People decided that was a great thing to do and I helped them do it. This year is my 4th year. Every year I do definitely go to Hong Kong and I never take more than 10 people, this year I’ve got about 8. We hardly ever stay for more than a week because it’s very intense: we spend every day going to artist’s studios and evenings going to galleries and during the day trying to look at this enormous convention filled full of art. It’s quite demanding but also quite exciting if you get excited by art and a sense of adventure.
L: Certainly. Have you gotten to go to place that you hadn’t been to and may not have been to otherwise?
A: Yeah, this year I’ve tried to change the list a bit so I’m not just doing what I have been doing, but I’ve added a few new things to it, and one of those is going to a brand new art fair that’s happening in Istanbul. I’m really looking forward to that. I haven’t been to Istanbul for quite a while and I do know there is a lot of really interesting art and architecture and contemporary dialogue happening there. It won’t be as big as Hong Kong it will probably be on a slightly smaller scale, but there will still be lots of interesting things to discover and look at.
L: I imagine with your background, one of the advantages of travelling with someone like yourself is that when you go to these events you know a lot of the people there and can perhaps set up special viewings and things like that?
A: Yeah, exactly. I think the easiest way to look at it is I allow them to fast track the experience. So I go to these things and I know the people and I also know the art pretty well. I can help them fine tune in on a particular area and have a pretty amazing experiences that would probably be difficult for them do on their own. For example with Hong Kong now, I’ve been going for 4 years and every year we do the artist studio tours. Some of those artists were emerging and now they’re getting on the road to being successful and it’s really nice to go back and see them again and see what they’re working on and nice to see they’re flourishing and doing well. A lot of them start out basic and struggling. Immediately the clients that are with me kind of become a bit of a family and that’s nice, it’s a very nice way to introduce people to artists as opposed to it all just being about money and markets.
L: It’s a fascinating way to see the world I’m sure, Are you working in other areas of the art world now or is this pretty much taking up all your time?
A: I have quite a few clients in Melbourne who don’t necessarily want to go away but they still want to buy art. I also have always been really interested in sculpture even though I’ve never made it. Well in art school I made some sculpture but I would never consider myself as being a practising sculptor. That’s an interesting story too because last year I took a small group to Chicago to a theatre that has been re-designed. It had lost its oomph and kind of died so they were trying to resurrect it at the Contemporary Art show in Chicago. When I was there I met a very interesting woman who happened to be British but ran an American organization that was after sculpture in particular, called the ISC International Sculpture Centre. They do international composing and through meeting her at the fair, she said I should consider taking a group to an international fair we’ll be having in New Zealand because there are all these amazing world class sculpture gardens happening over there, which I have to say up until that point I knew absolutely nothing about. I thought she was either totally exaggerating or I need to know more about this. So when I went back to the hotel she gave me a card with the website and it was so amazing. It was like the best kept secret. Early this year, because of meeting her, I did take a small group. Basically there’s something in the water over for how well sculptors get supported and there are amazing things happening but somehow there so busy networking it in New Zealand it doesn’t seem to get across here. Individual artists yes, but not that’s it’s a huge movement. Anyhow the main instigator is a man called Allan Gibbs, whose New Zealand’s wealthiest citizen, and he has created this world class sculpture garden called Gibbs Farm. Until last year it was private but he’s started opening it up one day a month so we were really lucky to get in. We met him and he talked to us about his collection and took us around his amazing property for about 4 hours; it’s enormous. He commissions world class sculptures to come and make site specific work. The people who went with me on that weren’t fairly avid sculpture enthusiasts at the beginning but when they came out they were absolutely sold on sculpture. I think that’s what these tours do, it gets them excited. You know that expression ‘finding the artist within’? It gives them the confidence to believe in their own feelings about things. The average person not educated in art can go into galleries and feel quite intimidated and I’m more about getting people to become more articulate visually. I was so impressed with it that I’m definitely going to take another group back next year because it’s really quite amazing, all the different works and how people are collecting it and offering it to the public.
L: Well sounds like you live a fascinating life and what a fantastic way for people to experience that side of the art world. I really appreciate you taking the time the talk us through it today. Are there any other tours you’ve got coming up besides Hong Kong we should know about?
A: I would love to spend a moment talking about MONA in Hobart. Museum of Old and New Art is what MONA actually stands for. First of all there is no museum in the world anywhere like it, second it has put Hobart and Australia on the art map of the world. One of the curators I worked with in my 10 plus years at MGB is a woman called Jane Clark and we’re going to start doing VIP tours to MONA. People want to go or they’ve been on their own but they want to have a special introduction to it and Jane is the perfect person to do it because she helped create the museum. The next one I’m planning is in July and we’re going to have a behind-the-scenes tour of the newly renovated and reopened old collection in the centre of Hobart. We’re also going to have a special tour of MONA itself which is amazing. And then a couple of really nice dining experiences because somehow wherever there’s really interesting art happening the creative food scene follows. Tasmania has fabulous product. It’s really exciting that all these young chefs are setting up shop and doing really well and helping one another to make it a very special place. MONA does have a large permanent collection but the new travelling one will be open then too.
L: A little cold I imagine?
A: Yes, but you just rug up and have a whiskey.
L: Yes, any excuse will do.
A: That’s it. I don’t mind that it’s a little cold.
transcript by Kassia Byrnes. learn more about avec pleasure here: www.avecpleasure.com.au/
