Collecting Stories : The Arts Advocate

Founded with the principles of access and community, CURA Art utilizes a broad network and expertise to support collectors with all aspects of managing their passion and investment.

While many of the collectors we know and work with choose to remain private, several have generously allowed us to share their stories with you, to inspire others and encourage open discussion on the role of the collector in the 21st century.

The aim of the Collecting Stories series is to de-mystify the world of collecting, but also represent the many different approaches to acquiring and patronizing the arts. Collecting is so much more than amassing beautiful or interesting works of art and objects; collectors can invest in the future and document the past and present – through this series we hope to bring this to light.

CURA Art is passionate about encouraging collecting with purpose and providing guidance surrounding philanthropy, support of artists and the wider arts community. This story perfectly encompasses this sentiment.

We were thrilled to talk to CCH Pounder about her role as patron, collector, gallery owner and museum founder. While the award-winning actress is known for her major TV and movie roles including “Law & Order: SVU,” “The Shield,” and “Avatar: The Way of Water,” she has always been an arts advocate in a variety of ways. In 1992, CCH Pounder and her husband, the late Boubacar Koné, founded and built the Musée Boribana, the first privately owned contemporary museum in Dakar, Senegal, which they gifted to that nation in 2014. Now, her collection contains over 500 works of art focusing on Caribbean and African artists and artists of the African Diaspora, as well as traditional African sculptures. Most recently the exhibition, “Double ID” opened at The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit on April 26th featuring works from the CCH Pounder-Koné collection. The show examines W.E.B. Du Bois’ concept of “double consciousness” through contemporary artworks centering the inner self, identity, and evolving spirit of Black men.
Image: CCH Pounder. © Thom Bennett - Photographs.

CCH Pounder was originally born in Georgetown, Guyana and grew up in Versailles Estate, a small sugar cane town. After attending boarding school in Hastings, in the South of England, Pounder immigrated to the United States in the 70s and went to college in New York. She currently lives in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Image: Musée Boribana.

Pounder’s interest in collecting started from a young age and has continued to have a large impact on her life. Growing up, her father had a collection of Kenyan statues, she explained: “There was a statue with an African King's hat, which my thumb fit very nicely in; I used to take that as my good luck charm to auditions. The reason I bring that up is because I've always said that I insist on collecting functional art. So even that little, tiny head had the function of bringing me luck.”

***When did your interest in art begin and what inspired you to start collecting?***

I think when I was a kid I wanted to be a visual artist. I had a wonderful mentor who said, “Acting is for young people.” She said, “Art, as long as you have your hands and your eyes, you can do it.” So, in my innocence, I thought, well in the first half of my life, I'll be an actor. And then the second half I'll be a visual artist. Of course, it didn't quite work out that way.
What it [acting] did do is set up the stage for me to become an art appreciator. To really support my friends who were struggling along the way and to bring their work to the attention of people who might not have known them. I particularly hung in the black artists diaspora, so I introduced Caribbean artists, American artists, African artists, whatever community I was in at the time. There was always this wonderful conversation, I didn't realize that in a very small way, I was a connector. There was always exchange and support.
Image: CCH Pounder’s home gallery © Thom Bennett - Photographs.

Can you tell us a little bit more about the process of acquiring works? How do you discover new artists? What is your process like?

I discovered that I love the female image and I was kind of fascinated by female artists. My collection started off with many female images by both male and female artists; they were African, they were people of color, it just grew and grew. Before my husband died, he said “Who are all these women on the wall? I'm only married to one person. Who are all these people?” That was when I think I consciously started to collect body of works, beyond provenance, beyond a beautiful face, to create what your whole collection could look like in the end. […] Organizing it to become this body of work that tells the contemporary African story.

***Are you still actively acquiring?***
Well, I shouldn't be, I'll be very honest. What my collection does offer is from the 60s to present day, it has an interesting span, the majority of which is current. I would like to tell you that I've stopped collecting, but every now and again I'm ruined by some gallerist or friend who says, “I just saw something that calls your name!” I have something to offer particularly with artists who are now well known, you can see their growth through the different decades of their work, because many of the artists I have collected from the beginning of their careers. That's been a blessing; there's a story to tell.
At this point, it’s about making sure that what I do have is well maintained. I have housing that is temperature controlled [and all the monitoring equipment], it's really like supporting a growing child. If you’ve got a piece of art that you love, it's not enough to just hang it on the wall. You [have to care for it]. Since our museum was in Africa, we always had to check for insects and examine the back of each work, you must be diligent. My attitude didn't change with my collection in the United States.
Image: Firelei Baez, *Ciquapa Peluda*, 2016 from the exhibition “Queen.” © Ashley Lorraine Photography.

At CURA Art, we are always encouraging responsible collecting with legacy and care in mind, your answer perfectly encompasses this!

We understand that the opening of a new exhibition celebrating your collection opens this April, can you tell us about it?

Yes, I'm excited about this because it's a revisit to the Wright Museum in Detroit. I did an exhibition about four years ago called “Queen.” I had an extraordinary number of female images and it really went very well. And someone said, “Well, what about the men?” and it spurred me on to take a look at the male images I had, and maybe I was even collecting some with that show in mind, because I was finally at the place where you can fill in the holes, the different types of humanity, the different types of painting structures as well. I think it encouraged me to collect in a new and exciting way because I hadn't been looking for that before. “Double ID” has a lot to do with the face that we present, and the inner turmoil or calm that we're in, but particularly with black men who are often perceived as some other type of being. So, this kind of dual image of men of color I really wanted to portray.

**What advice do you have for fellow collectors?**
Take this with a grain of salt as it's only one person's opinion: If you can, develop your own love of the collecting process. One of the great ways to do that is learn a little bit more about the artists, where they're from, what made them come to the art world and what they're trying to depict. When I listen to an artist, I suddenly get to see yet another dimension of the work that I would not have considered and that makes it more interesting for me to take a closer look. I say that you will find great satisfaction in falling in love with a painting or a statue or a sculpture, a bass relief…I think that is still the most important part of collecting.
[One of my favorite pieces] is a mermaid caught in a net, and there are so many faces. And everybody says, “Oh, there are so many mermaids!” I say, “No, it's the same one.” It's her, it's her face struggling to escape. It’s a piece by Kiné AW, a Senegalese artist. I love the kind of energy that it gives out.
Image: Ebony G. Patterson, *Untitled (Disciple VII - from Gangstas for Life Series),* 2008 featured in the exhibition “Double ID” © Thom Bennett - Photographs.

At CURA Art, we think it’s important to think about the legacy of a collection. What do you envision or hope for with regards to your collection?

My biggest wish is that my collection does not wallow in a basement of someone who could afford to get it and then do nothing with it.

I've always wanted this collection and why I started so early, to be seen particularly by our youth, so that they can see that they're all manners of us, all kinds, we are stories to be seen and told, to be imagined, to be created. I wish that there was a way to get young people to museums in this country. That's difficult because art programs are not in every school, therefore, no buses bringing you to a museum like we did as kids. When we went to museums and concerts, this was all provided by the school, not only by our parents on a Saturday or a Sunday afternoon. There have been grown people, who had never been to a museum until I took them. For some it was the first-time seeing images of themselves. That look that comes over their face is amazing, and I think it's really empowering when one realizes that we're all part of society, all of us are, and we are represented everywhere.

Collecting Stories : The Arts Advocate

Collecting Stories: Christian Levett, Museum Man

Collecting Stories: The Wright Way