text: Private museums band together at London's Art15 fair | The Art Newspaper
  20th May 2015 23:00 GMT
  Seven collectors from Shanghai, Dubai, Istanbul, Italy and Mexico, among others, established a formal association of international private museums at the Art15 fair in London yesterday, 20 May. A wider group of collectors and collecting couples has held a summit at the fair for the past three years; this year 23 took part. The founding members of the association, including Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Budi Tek, Wang Wei and Ramin Salsali plan to share exhibitions, exchange residency programmes, provide education and even co-commission works of art.
  Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, who has run a contemporary art foundation in Turin for the past 20 years, proposes the association co-commissions digital or video works because they are easy to share. "It's a good way to collect and the transportation is cheap, plus it gives artists the opportunity to make works," she says.
  The collectors also aim to team up with public institutions in the West, says Philip Dodd, the chairman of the London-based agency Made In China, who has organised the association. Last week the Giacometti Foundation and the Chinese-Indonesian collector Budi Tek announced that they will stage the biggest exhibition yet of Giacometti's work, from March next year in Tek's Yuz Museum in Shanghai.
  The number of galleries has come down from 180 last year to 134 in a bid "to maintain quality", Bryan says, adding that 30% of booths are solo presentations. In total, 42 countries are represented—the fair markets itself as "truly global" and likes to champion emerging artists. However, this means the quality of art on show can be hit and miss, but the bar has been raised this year.
  Among the highlights is a selection of works by M.F. Husain on the stand of London's Grosvenor Gallery, which was enticed to participate for the first time this year thanks to the change in date from February to May. Works on paper start at £600 (a snip for the coveted Indian Modernist), rising to more than £100,000 for the larger canvases.