Displaying a Taste for the Moderns in Greenwich, CT

There is an undeniable passion in Peter M. Brant that sets him apart from other art collectors. He is, at the most basic level, a fan, having bought his first artwork when he was 19. Today, at 62, he is still on the lookout for works to add to his 1,000-piece-plus collection of modern and contemporary art, which includes artists like Jeff Koons, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Francesco Clemente, Donald Baechler and John Currin. He also owns and oversees, among other publications, Art in America, the art magazine.

His latest venture is somewhat more community-minded — a 9,800-square-foot gallery and nonprofit study center in a converted stone barn on the edge of a field in Greenwich, Conn. The barn was built in 1902 to store fruit from local orchards. The gallery that occupies it now is an inviting space, with an expansive skylight filtering natural light over the wooden trusses and into three showroom galleries. There is also a video viewing room and library, filled with furniture by 20th-century designers.

I met Mr. Brant in the library on a recent visit. In a brief conversation, he said he intended to present long-term annual exhibitions organized primarily from the collection, as well as promote appreciation of contemporary art and design by making his works available to institutions and individuals for scholarly study and examination.
The center is by no means a museum. There is no admission charge, and it is open to the public only by appointment. Mr. Brant said he hoped the center would play an educational role in the wider community. School and university groups are welcome, as is anyone interested in seeing the collection for purposes of study.

Although the center is underwritten by Mr. Brant, a newsprint magnate with investments in real estate and other areas, it is a collaborative effort involving several of his nine children. His daughter Allison is the director of the Brant Foundation Art Study Center, and other children serve on the board of the Brant Foundation, established in 1996, which oversees the center’s day-to-day operations. The Brant Foundation owns some of the artworks in the collection, while others remain family property.

The inaugural show comprises 94 works by more than 25 artists from the collection. It is a tribute to an influential exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1969 organized by Henry Geldzahler. Mr. Brant acknowledged that the Geldzahler show had been formative in shaping his own thinking about contemporary art. A past exhibition is not a promising theme for a group show, but individually the works are interesting. It also gives you a sense of Mr. Brant’s overall taste as a collector, which tends to run from Cindy Sherman and David Salle to Julian Schnabel, Richard Prince, Mike Kelley and Keith Haring.

Those artists share an inspiration in pop art, which is another way of saying that their art is not weighed down with social and political messages. Mr. Brant has pretty much continued to collect art in this vein, notably paintings by Mr. Currin and Elizabeth Peyton, a pair of young, modish contemporary portraitists who combine perversity with old masterish figuration. Mr. Currin in particular is known for his oil paintings of women with enormous breasts.

Themes of sex and violence (in photographs by Larry Clark and Mr. Prince, sculptures by Paul McCarthy and paintings by Mr. Salle) run throughout the show, but they are balanced by a wonderful sense of humor. Visitors entering the center are confronted with the sculptor Maurizio Cattelan’s “Andreas y Mattia” (1996), a life-size, huddled figure resembling a drunken vagrant collapsed on the floor — an effective visual trick that sets the tone for what follows.

Two artists, Mr. Koons and Andy Warhol, united thematically by a love of kitsch, dominate the large downstairs gallery. The pairing celebrates variety and individuality yet also marks the importance of the threads that link the two artists. This is my favorite room, for here you get to see organizational intelligence at work. Without that, a show is just a group of pictures on a wall.

Beyond the quality and variety of individual works, which are impressive, the collection is also remarkable for the depth in which many of the artists are represented. There are close to a dozen works by Mr. Koons, ranging from the earliest years of his career to the present. Several of them are now classics of contemporary art, like “New Hoover Celebrity” (1981-1986).

Upstairs is a mezzanine gallery devoted to signature works by 1980s painters, and beyond that is the library with a display of paintings by Karen Kilimnik, another market-friendly youngster. Beyond the library is a new stone and mahogany terrace that wraps the building and integrates it nicely into the grassy landscape. Serious outdoor sculptures have also been installed around the site, including Mr. Koons’s “Balloon Dog” (1994-2000), Mr. McCarthy’s “Santa” (2002) and Richard Serra’s “Ali-Frazier” (2001).

The artist Urs Fischer and others assisted Mr. Brant with the hanging and placement of the works, which was done with deft professionalism and a good sense of staging. Most important, the inaugural display does what all good shows do: it leaves us wanting more.

“Remembering Henry’s Show: Selected Works 1978-2008,” through February 2010 at the Brant Foundation Art Study Center, 941 North Street, Greenwich, Conn. Open Tuesday through Saturday by appointment, which can be scheduled by e-mailing thebrantfoundation@gmail.com.
By BENJAMIN GENOCCHIO NYTIMES MAY2009