Sacha Janke and Andrew McCormack’s Collecting Expedition

Phillip Edward Spradley How do you navigate collecting as a couple? Do you both tend to agree on acquisitions, or is there more of a negotiation when it comes to how and where to display works?

Sacha Janke I think we are usually aligned in terms of what to acquire, but when it comes to installing there is a bit more of a dance. Drew will have these awesome ideas that come to him in the shower! He’ll come out and say …

Andrew McCormack … ‘What if we just cover up the fireplace?’ Sometimes they don’t work out! You’ve also pulled me more towards appreciating abstraction and textile works.

SJ I think that’s true.

AM We have some awesome works by Sheila Hicks and Igshaan Adams that would not have been something I was immediately drawn to, but now that we live with them I appreciate them more and more each day.

SJ I sometimes I have to mull something over – I’m not as decisive as Drew.

AM I love Florian Krewer, Ding Shilun, Allison Katz, and, if we could afford his works, Walton Ford. This genre of fantastical paintings are the most appealing to me, but I do appreciate all these different types of work that we’re branching out into.

PES How has your approach to collecting evolved over the years? 

SJ Collecting in-depth is something that matters to us. There are artists that we have gotten to know and admire, like Caroline Walker. We love her as an artist and we like having different works by her. And it’s not always for ourselves, but also through supporting institutions acquiring her works or supporting exhibitions. 

I recently went to Scotland for the opening of a group show at Ingleby Gallery. I’d never been to Edinburgh, and this seemed like as good a reason as any to go. We love the gallery’s programme and collect a number of their artists. We had the chance to go to Caroline’s studio and now I feel more committed to her work than ever.

PES Knowing artists on a personal level certainly brings you closer to their work, allowing the ideas to transcend the space and invite you to step inside.

SJ Going to a studio is incredibly intimate and such a bonus. It’s one thing to live with the art, but to see where the art comes from – if the artist is willing to share that – has been incredible. The learning has been amazing and fun. 

AM I think that’s probably the guiding principle. We are having fun together and it’s only going to get more fun as time goes on. Also, since most of these artists are quite young, we hope that we’ll be able to continue doing this alongside them for a long time and see how things develop.

As is probably common, our desires moved into wanting more art than interior decoration. Andrew McCormack

PES What first sparked your passion for art? Was it an experience you had early on, perhaps through your family? 

SJ We both travelled a lot at a young age and we were surrounded by art in various forms. For me, it was my grandmother’s embroideries and paintings of the Lebanese landscape where my mom grew up. There were always things adorning the home with colour and stories that made a lasting impression on me. Then, when we relocated to New York City, we happened to live right around the corner from the Guggenheim, so I remember going there or to the Metropolitan Museum of Art or to the Museum of Modern Art as often as possible.

I have a powerful memory from when they were installing Matthew Barney’s ‘The Cremaster Cycle’ exhibition in 2003, and they had to do it at night because it was such a big production. That exhibition was absolutely wild.

AM We moved around a lot as a family when I was a child and my parents liked to collect things from the different places we lived, like rugs and paintings, so I grew up with these things in the home. My parents didn’t necessarily take us to museums or shows, but I think they had a keen aesthetic sense wherever they made homes, and I always appreciated that.

Going to a studio is incredibly intimate and such a bonus. Sacha Janke

SJ Drew and I are visually oriented and care about creating a home and spaces that we love to live in with our family and where we can host friends. We align very easily with our aesthetic. 

AM We got more into buying art because we moved out to Connecticut in 2018 and we had far more space with a lot of walls to fill. One of Sacha’s best friends from college grew up with Rachel Goulding from the advisory firm Ruth Catone Goulding. We met years back as young people in the city. Over time, we gradually began to talk about art more and more. As is probably common, our desires moved into a cycle of wanting more and more art rather than interior decoration. I read somewhere that the definition of a collector is someone who cannot not buy paintings or whatever kind of art they are into.

PES It becomes an obsession. What has been the most rewarding aspect of your experience? How has your involvement evolved over time and how important has building relationships with artists, gallerists and the community been in that process?

AM It snowballed into that for us. It gives us something beyond work and raising a family. It’s something that’s ours, that we’re building for ourselves to do for the rest of our lives. Being involved in this community and world is intellectually and viscerally satisfying for us both as a shared endeavour.

What’s most satisfying for us is learning about artists who are pretty early on in their careers and we get to see how things unfold. Then there’s a whole set of people we follow who are more established and have inspired the younger generation, like Charles Gaines and Milton Avery. We love to have their works side by side. You get to know gallerists, you get to know artists, they get to know you. They feel more comfortable with our point of view. I think the quality of works that we are able to look at has improved over time as people have gotten to know us, and our comfort in saying ‘yes’ has made it easier to be good collectors – be good partners – to that whole system, from artists to galleries to everyone else.

PES Art is a form of cultural diplomacy. As your collection grows, so does your understanding of history, context and the artists’ peers and their heroes. You connect with them in more personal settings and travel to different parts of the world to deepen your appreciation of their work …

AM … and we start falling in love with groups of people who influence each other. A contemporary group could be Doron Langberg, Louis Fratino and Salman Toor. But you can see how they live in a pretty small world socially and have a lot to do with each other’s way of thinking and way of working.

PES Are there any upcoming shows you’re particularly excited to see?

SJ It just so happens they’re both going to be at Grimm: Caroline Walker at the end of March, then Louise Giovanelli right after.

AM Also, the Guggenheim has a programme we’re helping to support called the ‘Collection in Focus’ series, where they are trying to make what’s in storage more available to the public and share more than just what can be shown in the rotunda. 

SJ The aim is to mine their collection: all the curators get to pick an artist and focus on his or her work. It’s awesome. As I was saying, we lived just around the corner from the Guggenheim when I moved to New York, and it’s home to some of my first encounters with art. It’s funny how things come full circle.

This article first appeared in Frieze Week with the title ‘It’s Only Going to Get More Fun’.

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^{Main image: commissioned for Frieze Week; photo: Ryan Lowry}