Professional Artists and the Art They Keep

Artists barter with each other and often show off their own stuff when they’re away from their galleries

By Jane Lerner
Work by Naoto Nakagawa

Like the meal that a chef prepares at home or the music that a conductor listens to in the car, the art that artists hang on their own walls can be revealing and inspiring. We spoke with a number of artists, in different disciplines, and asked them to consider the work they live with. Whose artworks are worthy? Do you display your own work? Does the art you own affect the art you make?

Most artists love to trade work—the bartering of objects is key to our age-old economies, and for creative people whose currency is their artistic output, “art for art” is a satisfying transaction. Other artists buy art to support their colleagues and their industry. Or maybe they’re in it for the thrill of the hunt, and use art collecting as a way to learn about other artists, styles and cultures.

Professional artists understand that the art on their own walls is far more than decor and that each piece is imbued with a story and personal connection. From far-flung artifacts to of-the-moment pieces traded with pals, the work that artists show in their own homes offers insight into the creative process.

Naoto Nakagawa

Naoto Nakagawa, 73, is a Japanese painter who has been living in New York City since 1962. Known for photorealistic, surreal still-lifes from the 1970s and ’80s, his work is included in many public and private collections in the U.S., Europe and Japan, including MoMA, MIT and the National Museums of Modern Art in Osaka and Kyoto.

On buying art:
“A painting that is very special to me is a painting by Jake Berthot, who was a dear friend of mine. We both were at OK Harris Gallery, with Ivan Karp—we often talked about Karp being the greatest art dealer we ever had. Jake became ill, so I decided to buy this painting. And I don't buy paintings, I'm not a collector! It took me a whole year to pay the dealer, I’d never done that before.”

“Jake was a pure abstract painter and that's how he became well known. The painting is very subtle. But if you look very carefully, everything is in there: The trees are there, mountains are there, skies are there, and it's a very beautiful painting. I know why he painted like this, and it has a real meaning because of our friendship and the respect that I have for him.”

On rediscoveries:
“There’s a painting I did in 1978, a still-life painting that has coyotes, pheasants, a vacuum cleaner and drill machines, and it's behind this beautiful landscape. But when I painted this painting, I didn't think it was good. I was afraid Ivan Karp was going to say, ‘Why did you paint this painting?’ In fact I was so convinced that the painting wasn't good that I put it in a storage space and forgot about it. Then maybe 10 years ago I was in the storage space and my wife said, ‘What's this?’ So I look at it and I look at it, and guess what? It's a terrific painting. I now have it hanging on my wall in the studio, and it is not for sale.”

Jennifer Rochlin

Jennifer Rochlin is a Los Angeles-based visual artist who works with ceramic tiles, paintings and site-specific installations. She is currently in a group show at Stems gallery in Brussels, will be featured by the Los Angeles gallery the Pit at NADA Miami in December, and is attending the Lefebvre & Fils residency in Versailles, France, in 2018.

On artist trades:
“Every artist I know, with the exception of very few, are totally down with trading. If they're a fan of your work and you're a fan of theirs, it doesn't matter if their paintings sell for $200,000 and yours for $200. I think it's really exciting, and it's one of my favorite things about being an artist! At one point we had Mark Grotjahn, Henry Taylor, Brian Calvin, Anne Collier—this amazing collection.”

On juxtapositions:
“I love going to friends' houses and seeing my artwork hanging up, things that I've traded. At my friend Michelle's house, I was right next to a Mary Weatherford painting with a seashell on it—she does these abstract paintings that have neon strips on them. They're beautiful. So I'm right under her painting, two little works that look so good together.”

On gaining space:
What's fun about my new house is I've never had big walls before—now I have three of my own rose paintings that are five-by-seven feet. I've never had that much up before—I was limited by space!

On family heirlooms:
“My uncle lived in London and he was a film distributor who traveled a lot and acquired some really cool art. He recently started sending me stuff, so now I have these amazing Japanese woodblock prints of Samurai from the early 1900s—they’re in my sons’ room. He sent me a bunch of Indian miniature paintings and I have those in the bathroom and on my salon wall in the den. Art is just everywhere.”

Charles Lindsay

Charles Lindsay, 56, is a multidisciplinary artist and the SETI Institute’s artists-in-residence program director. Based in Manhattan and upstate New York, he recently partnered with Chinese artist Shaoyu Su to realize WIND TUNNEL: the Hongshan Experiment, which debuted at the Today Art Museum in Beijing. His FIELD STATION project was shown at MASS MoCA and is currently at the Akron Art Museum in Ohio.

On collecting:
“The term collector terrifies me, which probably means yes, I am one. At times I have become moderately obsessed. Collecting creates an opportunity to educate oneself in esoteric niches. Previously I traveled to the great bazaars of the world—now those rabbit holes open up on eBay.”

“The zoomorphic doors I currently live with are located in positions receiving lots of direct light. They are three dimensional, changing with the time of day, reminding me of the years I lived with a stone age tribe in Indonesia and of how brief humanity’s entire time on Earth really is. Those doors provide powerful symbols of alternative ways to perceive reality, which I constantly want to be reminded of.

“The main thing I’ve collected is aerospace salvage, which I convert into art and solid-wood doors with zoomorphic symbols. These doors came from remote animistic societies. They were carved from single slabs of old-growth trees in the early 20th century or earlier. The best ones were collected in eastern Indonesia.”

On combining old and new:
“My recent FIELD STATION installation at the Akron Art Museum includes a spectacular, strange old door from the Swat Valley in Pakistan. It was acquired specifically to modify and show. It is probably from a remote Himalayan mosque. This is the first time I’ve brought a major antique into my work. The door is suspended from the ceiling and has been modified with a real-time surveillance camera, repurposed biologic synthesizer and countdown clock. It merges something like magic realism with a homemade bomb maker's aesthetic.”