Episode 34 / VOICES ON ART – The VAN HORN Gallery Podcast / Florian Peters-Messer, Collector of Contemporary Art, Viersen, Germany
Recorded May 9, 2021, 42 min, Language: EnglishA talk with Florian Peters-Messer, passionate collector of contemporary art. Florian co-curated the exhibitions „Fuck Your Fear“ at VAN HORN in 2019 and „Empört Euch!/Time For Outrage“ with Linda Peitz at Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf in 2020, where he also serves as member of the boards of the friends of the museum. Florian is the author of two books and runs a family business with seat in Viersen, Germany. He talks about how his art teacher at school ignited the deep and lasting interest for contemporary art in him, how meeting artist Thomas Hirschhorn in the 1990’s changed his whole outlook on art and that he feels more and more drawn to political, social and psychological art. He talks about his process of collecting, citing examples like „Rotterdam Rostock“ by artist Erik van Lieshout and talks about feeling a certain kind of responsibility to collect and preserve these more complicated works of art for the public. We talk in depth about how anger can be a destructive force and a danger for democracy, as well as a source of creativity when expressed in works of art, like in the installations by artist Henrike Naumann. Florian reminds us that art plays a inportant role in understanding and reflecting society and the human condition and that preserving our environment and having real human contact are what we need just now.