Tag: Marc and Josee Gensollen

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Collecting the uncollectable

Agnieszka Gratza

A version of this essay appeared in the current issue of Frieze Week magazine: ‘Ownership is the most intimate relationship that one can have to objects. Not that they come alive in [the collector]; it is he who lives in them’, wrote Walter Benjamin in his 1931 essay titled ‘Unpacking My Library – A Talk on Collecting’. Speaking at an event dedicated to ‘collecting performance’ hosted by the London non-profit Delfina Foundation, Marseille-based psychiatrists and collectors Marc and Josée Gensollen related Benjamin’s claim concerning books to their own experience of collecting live art. For them, ‘the most intimate relationship to … Continue reading Collecting the uncollectable

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Twin Passions: the Gensollens and La Fabrique

Agnieszka Gratza

This portrait of the Gensollens and their collection appeared in the FT: A marble plaque on the outside of La Fabrique – a converted textile mill in Marseille that houses one of the most rarefied private collections of contemporary art in France – commemorates a “conspiracy” between the Swiss artist-activist Gianni Motti and the collector couple Josée and Marc Gensollen, which took place behind its walls on November 15 2013. The exact nature of this act, apparently directed against the contemporary art market, is a secret the Gensollens will not divulge.   To conspire, from the Latin conspirare, literally means … Continue reading Twin Passions: the Gensollens and La Fabrique