Don't Buy the Art

Art Around Town

By ERICA ORDEN
January 25, 2008

The painting and sculpture on display in a new exhibition space opening in Chelsea this weekend may boast some of the most collectible names in contemporary art — including Damien Hirst, Ed Ruscha, and Ellsworth Kelly — but the sales prices aren't sky-high. In fact, they're nonexistent.

The FLAG Art Foundation, a space for contemporary art founded by collector Glenn Fuhrman, who is co-managing partner and co-founder of Michael Dell's investment firm, MSD Capital, will open its inaugural show tomorrow at its 7,600-square-foot space in two floors of the $19.5 million Chelsea Arts Tower. Mr. Fuhrman, a former managing director at Goldman Sachs, is the chairman of the American acquisitions committee of the Tate Museum and the vice-chairman of the contemporary arts council of the Museum of Modern Art. ARTNews magazine named Mr. Fuhrman one of the world's top 200 collectors in 2005.

While the foundation will function much like a gallery, mounting curated shows and lending work to museums and various arts foundations, the space will display works only from personal collections — creating, in effect, a small, private museum. While the space will be open primarily by appointment only, the foundation will host at least one public viewing period each month.

The foundation's inaugural show, "Attention to Detail," is curated by artist Chuck Close, and features works by around 50 prominent contemporary artists, including Olafur Eliasson, Lisa Yuskavage, and Cindy Sherman. Mr. Fuhrman is a collector of Mr. Close's work.

Others scheduled to curate shows at FLAG include the founder and lead singer of the theatrical rock band the Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black, Kembra Pfahler, who has previously curated shows at Deitch Projects; a former deputy director at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, Susan Cahan, and the director of FLAG, Stephanie Roach.

The list of institutions to which the foundation will lend works reaches far and high. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Tate Modern, the Walker Art Center, and the Whitney Museum of Art are just a few of the notable names on the list.

The foundation bears strong similarities to that of the Broad Art Foundation, the contemporary art collection founded by the Los Angeles philanthropist Eli Broad. Mr. Broad's foundation, started in 1984 and located in Santa Monica, maintains exhibition and lending programs of the same nature as the FLAG foundation. But while Mr. Broad has been a public face of his foundation, Mr. Fuhrman appears to maintain a lower profile. As far as Mr. Fuhrman's participation in the project, Ms. Roach downplayed his role in an e-mail message. "Glenn was the founder of the foundation," Ms. Roach said. "He has no day-to-day role."