Bold Commissions, Financial Times - Life and Arts

Francesca von Habsburg prefers relationships with artists to ‘brand-names’, says Bettina von Hase

Keeping the edge: Olafur Eliasson's light installation 'Your black horizon' on display in Lopud

Francesca Habsburg is definitely a chip off the old block. Daughter of the legendary late art collector Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza. She is the fourth generation Thyssen committed to the arts. But this collector prefers to engage with contemporary artists in her own way. For Von Habsburg is a bold commissioner of art. She is not interested in simply acquiring "brand name” artists, preferring instead to forge relationships with the artists themselves.

So von Habsburg, 49, pursues a collector strategy which departs from the tried-and-tested method buying at galleries, auctions and fairs and then building a showcase private museum. She nurtures temporary art projects, of which she has about four green-lit and many in planning at any given time. Current ones include Maurizio Cattelan, who is doing a piece for the attic of von Hapsburg's Viennese home; Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller's "The Murder of Crows" for the Sydney Biennale in 2008; also scheduled for next year are Cerith Wyn Evans' "Collaboration with the Berlin Staatsoper" which explores the dialogue between art and performance. and Catherine Sullivan's examination of sexual duality in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.

“I do not want to allow something that is inherently private and fluid to freeze into a structure that can only be institutionalised and/or nationalised," she writes in Lasting Impermanence, the mission statement for her latest project. In other words, she prefers to remain free and flexible in her approach to art, rather than create an institution or museum like many other collectors do. Instead, she wants to facilitate artists' dreams and expand their horizons.

Her current project is on the island of Lopud, off the Dalmatian Coast, where she spends time each summer. Here von Habsburg has erected a pavilion which is an artwork collaboration between the Danish-lcelandic artist Olafur Eliasson and the architect David Adjaye. It was commissioned by Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary (T-BA21), von Habsburg’s private foundation for contemporary art which is based in Vienna.

The pavilion could not be more different from the Franciscan monastery that Von Habsburg has already spent five years restoring on the island. She took a lease on the Renaissance gem shortly after her arrival and here, once it is completed, she plans to base herself during her visits. The pavilion, by contrast, is a sleek, windowless box, which is protected by a facade of wooden slats that break up the sunlight. On display in the Lopud pavilion is a specific work entitled "Your black horizon". a light installation by Eliasson. Adjaye designed a series of ramps leading up into a black space where a thin horizontal line of light at eye level runs around the room.

It is uninterrupted by doorways. changes colour in a 15-minute pattern, the colours compressed from a video depicting a single day at Lopud from sunrise to sunset.

This results in an ever-changing palette of vivid yellow. orange. white. lavender, purple and blue. The work, both pavilion and installation, had its debut at the 51st Venice Biennale two years ago. was subsequently stored in Vienna and then shipped to Lopud. all 54 tonnes of it. for its launch last month.

The goal in Lopud was to explore the notion of temporality and the display of art in remote and unusual places. I’ve always been a pioneer, and I thought, biennales take place in large cities, wouldn't it be interesting to explore something else," says von Habsburg.

Eliasson encouraged her to "keep the edge" and was rewarded by an installation he considers more successful than the pilot; it will remain in Lopud until November.

"In Venice the pavilion was like a love affair, in Lopud it's more like a marriage,” says Eliasson.

Indeed. from the pavilion's conception. both Adjaye and Eliasson considered art and architecture as one.

"There was a fusion that revealed the process between the two," Adjaye says. '"We discovered that there is a new category of art that requires highly specific  architectural curation.”

Adjaye will also bring this specificity to bear on another pavilion by New York-based artist Matthew Ritchie. with a working title “Timeline”; it is to be presented to the public in London next spring

Ritchie is taking the concept even further, “to a point where the artwork becomes the architecture rather than being contained by it,” von Habsburg says.

His design, presented in June at a one-day symposium organised by T-BA21 and attended by international artists and architects in Dubrovnik, revealed a structure not unlike a gigantic sculptural line drawing which people can step in and out of. Musicians and scientists will take part in what von Habsburg calls a "multi-disciplinary discourse" with plans for a world tour of the pavilion in autumn 2008.

“It’s very easy to talk about this discourse but I am actually doing it," she says. "I say to artists: 'Stop walking around the pool, jump into the water. I'm there, I can save you.' If you can afford art. you can also afford to send the artist on a journey.”

Driving forces behind new art

Francesca von Habsburg is not alone in preferring to collect art she has herself commissioned and supported. The following five contemporary art collectors also work with artists, either commissioning or committing financially to works in advance to ensure they can be realised.

Dr Harald Falckenberg is a German collector based in Hamburg. who owns about 1,700 pieces, including an extraordinary room collaboration between Paul McCarthy and Jason Rhoades. Recent projects are Christoph Schlingensief's "Animatograph", a giant multimedia installation that von Habsburg also collaborated on; and a large room installation by Mike Kelley. He is opening a 65,000sq ft (6,000 - 7,000sq m) space in Hamburg next year.

Ingvild Goetz is another German based in Munich. whose eponymous collection (3,500 pieces to date) is displayed in a Herzog and De Meuron designed glass box, the inspiration for Tate Modern. Goetz's most recent project, which finished this month, was a joint exhibition of Polish artist Paulina Olowska and Scottish artist Lucy McKenzie. called "Noel sur le balcon/HOLD THE COLOR" (www.sammlung-goetz.de). It was the first time that Goetz gave her entire space over to the artists, who curated the show and made several new pieces for it.

Dakis Joannou is of the influential contemporary art collectors in the world, who started the Deste Foundation in Athens, which supports Greek artists. He has his international collection of 300 pieces, and is friends with many of the artists he collects, like Tim Noble & Sue Webster, and Jeff Koons. who is currently working on a colour project for Dakis’ yacht.

David Roberts is a property tycoon from Greenock. near Glasgow, who has about 2,000 pieces by 400 artists. and is opening a large space in Camden soon. Currently operating out of 111 Great Titchfield Street, Roberts supported artist Doug Foster to make a three-dimensional video piece called ‘Breather’, and then agreed to buy two sister pieces for it before production, covering the costs. He recently bought painter Greg Rook’s entire show, and a room installation by Tracey Snelling.

Anita and Polu Zabludovicz are a London-based art couple. She is the driving force behind a new space called 176 in Chalk Farm that opens in September. It will house their collection of more than 1,000 works, and three site-specific exhibitions per year. The opening show ‘An Archaeology’ will include a new commission by Indian artist Rina Banerjee, based on a 176 residency.