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Thomas Andrae
Thomas Andrae is a gallery owner and collector who has been a Deutsche Guggenheim Club member from the very beginning. In an interview, he reminisces about a personal yet strange encounter with one of the world’s most famous artists: Bill Viola
Photo: David Oliveira
What role does art play in your life?
A very big one. Art has always motivated me to develop further and to explore new areas. I bought my first artwork when I was 19 years old, a painting called American Express by the American artist Raymond Hains. The title is ambiguous. The work shows an AMEX logo that is so distorted that it actually looks like an express train is racing by. It illustrates the effect of logos and brands, which we register and understand despite the speed and movement in our lives. I was enthusiastic about this painting. Whenever I walked past it, I saw something new and took something with me.
Were you particularly fascinated by the link to business?
Yes, but also by the cultural background. I grew up in Berlin and then studied and lived for a while in America. I come from an old merchant family. So I’m a born dealer, as it were, but at the same time I always wanted to do something in art. Initially, I studied computer science and business, and then, via collecting, which I began more than 20 years ago, art became my main profession. Around five years ago I started working on the concept of my gallery Cream, which opened three years ago and has been located in the Berlin-Mitte district for two years. The gallery’s program focuses on artists from East Germany who studied, for example, at the College for Graphics and Book Art in Leipzig, in Dresden, or at the Burg Giebichenstein in Halle. The program is clearly oriented to contemporary art, and we primarily present the work of young artists.
Why did you decide to concentrate on recent East German art?
Among other things, because my cousin studied at the College for Graphics and Book Art in Leipzig in the mid 1990s. I went with him occasionally and wandered through different studios. I met artists such as Neo Rauch and representatives of the so-called New Leipzig School very early on, before the big boom. As well as Judy Lybke, of course, and the whole entourage around him. It was all very unpretentious, casual and amusing. I experienced great things. Then I saw Neo’s first exhibition, in 1997, at the Museum of Fine Arts in Leipzig. That was when I bought my first work by him, and I continued to collect his work consistently because I was so fascinated by his visual world.
And subsequently you took the professional step from the world of finance to the world of art.
Let’s say, from a very digital world, primarily consisting of “0’s” and “1’s”, of ‘yes’ or ‘no’, to the art world, where I experienced that there are also things between ‘0’ and ‘1’. And where you find a comprehensive, deep definition of things, which are much more complex than the things we see and experience in day-to-day life. For me, art is a completely different kind of challenge. I derive great enjoyment from these emotional goods, from positioning art and, in the end, selling it. To be quite honest, ultimately it’s about the artists being able to live and pay their rent at home and in their studios.
You you’re a collector-cum-gallery owner.
That’s right. And I continue to collect because it’s an important part of the passion, but my main focus in the gallery. Of course, I have to be careful when I see a great work by one of our artists and think, “ah, I simply must have that…”
Let’s talk about the Deutsche Guggenheim Club. When did you join?
I think I was one of the very first people to join. I have a single-digit member number. I was an acquaintance of Svenja Gräfin von Reichenbach, who had just started her job as director of the Deutsche Guggenheim. We met often and discussed whether certain ideas pertaining to the club made sense, whether they were economical and practical, how they would be viewed by members. So I decided to join.
What’s the most important task of the club, in your view?
One of the club’s most important tasks is to bring people, particularly those who come via Deutsche Bank, closer to art. Deutsche Bank has a global collection that is present in bank buildings everywhere. It has a kind of funnel function, because it arouses an interest in art and then channels it more strongly through offers such as the Deutsche Guggenheim Club. It’s a question of understanding what truly constitutes art through the work of your circle of friends.
And by meeting the artists personally.
Yes. I went to almost every opening so I could meet the artists. I have a very good story about Bill Viola. In the middle of the ‘90s I worked near Checkpoint Charlie for the Philip Johnson House, the huge complex that was built on Friedrichstrasse. I worked directly for Ronald Lauder. He was one of the big investors in the project. I was responsible for the entire technical marketing and sales. This was at a time when I didn’t know much about art yet. One day Ronald Lauder stopped by with someone in tow who looked like a head janitor or technician. The man had a beard and wore blue overalls. He looked like someone who wanted to see what was going on at the construction site. So I took him on a tour of the whole building. He was very interested in perspectives in the building and wanted to know where the elevator shafts were and how people moved through the building. He continually talked about video. But I didn’t know what he was planning, and he didn’t tell me.
Didn’t it come out at some point that he was an artist?
No. We spent the whole day together, went out to dinner in the evening, and exchanged business cards when we parted. I still have his card today. It said something like: “Bill Viola, VIDEO, Sunset Boulevard…, Los Angeles, California”. A year later, after I had dealt with art much more intensively, I attended an exhibition at the Hamburger Bahnhof. There was a water faucet on the wall from which a drop of water oozed out every few minutes accompanied by a bang on a tambourine. The sound was electronically amplified and the trembling drop of water, which slowly fell from the faucet, was recorded on video and projected live in an enlarged form. I was impressed by the artistic quality of this combination and looked for the name of the artist on the wall sign. It was Bill Viola. Later, I met him again at the opening of his magnificent commissioned work Going Forth By Day at the Deutsche Guggenheim. He painted an amusing picture for me in the catalog and said he was very glad that I had been so casual towards him during the tour of the Philip Johnson House.
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