About two years after formulating the purpose of his now huge collection of contemporary art, Ohio entrepreneur Pete Scantland decided to give a large part of it away.
Earlier this summer, Scantland, founder of outdoor advertising company Orange Barrel Media (OBM), and his family – which includes parents Alan and Peggy, their three children and spouses – made an initial donation of 27 works to the Columbus Museum of. known Art (CMA) in Ohio and a $ 2 million foundation to fund the newly appointed Assistant Director of Learning, Experience and Engagement for the Scantland Family.
The gift is “transformative” for this medium-sized museum in the middle of Ohio because it not only confirms the path of a future-oriented institution, but “explodes,” says Nannette Maciejunes, CMA director.
The gift comes from the entire Scantland family, including Pete’s twin brother Matt, who with her father founded the Columbus-based software company CoverMyMeds. None of the other family members collect, but Pete lends them works to display in their homes, and they have all developed an appreciation for art.
Pete Scantland started buying art while he was a college student – and has been on the CMA board of directors since 2008 – but it wasn’t until four years ago that he purposely began to raise a cohesive body representing “Artists I See as My Generation,” says Scantlandland. After clearing his focus, he had done a lot of research and was able to move quickly.
Julie Curtiss, Cool Off, 2020, oil and acrylic on canvas. Oil and acrylic on canvas
Courtesy of the artist and the Anton Kern Gallery, New York, NY
“My goal is to build one of the best art collections of the time,” he says.
Two years after Scantland began collecting in earnest, he began working with CMA on the gift. The artists who created the 27 works in the original donation are between 20 and 50 years old, he says. Sixteen are by female artists and 11 by colored artists, according to the museum. Scantland, who estimates he owns around 500 works, plans to donate to the museum each year “through my career as a collector”.
The aim is to bring art into the museum that is “interesting and relevant for more people and for people from different backgrounds”. The idea is to show art that a wider section of the community can connect to, “by artists who live in the same world as them,” he says.
Some of the first works Scantland bought after this move were by Derrick Adams, Hank Willis Thomas and Bisa Butler. Other artists represented in the works submitted to CMA are Julie Curtiss, Jadé Fadojutimi and Aaron Gilbert. The artists are also global and represent a range of cultures and communities.
While the work uses a variety of materials and includes sculptures and paintings, much of it is stylistically figurative. “Many of the artists are interested in notions of representation and how they can be portrayed in an art world that has long excluded them,” says Scantland.
When looking for art to collect, it is not uncommon to come across art that “feels important and interesting” and that seems to belong in a museum – where it can be seen from afar – rather than in a private collection. Also, he sometimes comes across works that he loves and thinks are museum pieces that just don’t fit in his home or office.
An example in the current gift is a sculpture by Lauren Halsey titled The National Council of Negro Women Inc., 2020, made of acrylic, mirrors, sand, and objects on foam and wood. The sculpture references “everything from Donald Judd’s fabricated boxes to Andy Warhol’s pop-art Brillo boxes that show signs and logos of places in South Central Los Angeles, some of which exist and some of which no longer exist,” he says . “It’s enormous!” Although he could never fit it in his house, Scantland says it “felt like something I was supposed to collect”.
Derek Fordjour, STORAGE ROOM Ezekiel, 2019, mixed media
Courtesy of the artist and the Night Gallery, Los Angeles, California.
Similarly, a mixed media work that includes “real dirt” by Derek Fordjour, STOCKROOM Ezekiel, 2019, requires a viewer to enter. For this, CMA had to build a custom-made room, says Scantland.
“We were on this trip to diversify the collection,” says Maciejunes. “Having a collector who is committed to you and goes on this journey with you – especially for medium-sized museums – these relationships are critical to moving forward.”
The Scantland family gift also fits well into an early modern institution from Ferdinand Howald’s collection that has grown through donations, including the Philip and Suzanne Schiller Collection of American Social Commentary Art, donated in 2005.
The works in the Schiller Collection range from 1930 to 1970 and include artists dealing with social issues of the period, including Romare Bearden and Barkley Hendricks.
Phil Schiller’s “interests were artists who dealt with social issues, who questioned and reflected on how one sees the world, especially with regard to social awareness,” says Maciejunes. “The Scantland Collection takes up similar themes, but from a 21st century perspective.”
By being given a position focused on education and engagement, the gift also enables the museum to build on its co-creation and partnering work with others in the community, she adds.
The family knows, “If you have great art that no one understands or no one comes to see or talk about, what’s the point?” Says Maciejunes. “Museums are about this conversation. For them it is about learning to start a conversation with people where they are in their own life. ”
Scantland has direct experience of art as a collaborative effort, sometimes with a direct social purpose, through its company that has displayed art on their billboards in cities across the country. Last October, OBM launched a non-partisan “Art for Action” project aimed at achieving coordination with original works of art by Jenny Holzer, Carrie Mae Weems, Jeffrey Gibson and Tomashi Jackson and others. The campaign was shown on more than 350 digital screens in 16 cities, including battlefield states.
As Scantland says, the museum audience is not more diverse because people don’t see art automatically, but grow up with it.
“Our role is to go to communities, schools and workplaces and meet people where they are, rather than just expecting them to just show up,” says Scantland. “I hope that the lives of many more people will be enriched through art, just like mine was.”
