The buoyant world of private art museums, which highlights the spending firepower of individual collectors, will be a central theme of the Art14 programme of events in London, with Citi Private Bank as lead sponsor for the second year running.

The buoyant world of private art museums, which highlights the spending firepower of individual collectors, will be a central theme of the Art14 programme of events in London, with Citi Private Bank as lead sponsor for the second year running.

Citi’s private bank is looking forward to the event, which kicks off in London on 28 February, held at Olympia Grand Hall, concluding on 2 February.  

One of the highlights of A14 is the “Private Museum Summit”, aimed at contemporary art museum owners to set up a network that will share exhibitions, expertise and funding strategies.

Sharing such ideas is central to what Art14 is all about, Citi Private Bank’s global head of art advisory and finance, Suzanne Gyorgy, told this publication recently in an interview.

After having created last year’s inaugural event – Art13 – the bank, having learned the experience of the logistics, is able to focus more fully on the private museum summit side of the event, she said. Private museums are part of an established trend in the US; they are not quite so established in other regions. The summit is an opportunity for people to swap ideas on how to run, pay for and supervise such places, Gyorgy continued. “Once you have built your private museum you need to grow and sustain it,” she said.

Examples of private museums are legion, such as Neue Galerie, New York; MALBA, Buenos Aires, Argentina / The Costantini Foundation; Hess Collection, Napa, California; Beyeler Museum / Foundation Beyeler, Switzerland; Goss-Michael Foundation, Dallas, Texas; Rachofsky House, Dallas, Texas; Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing; Crystal Bridges, Bentonville, Alaska (Alice Walton); Rubell Family Collection, Miami; Francois Pinault Foundation; DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Art; Depont Museum of Contemporary Art, China; Glenstone Museum, Potomic, Maryland, US; The Dairy Art Centre, London; Zabludowicz, London; Soumaya Museum, Mexico and the Yuz Foundation, (Budi Tek) Indonesia.

The trend has been around for some time, but the visibility has grown. A report in the Wall Street Journal in 2008 noted how Alice Walton, the heiress to the Wal-Mart fortune, spent $150 million to build Crystal Bridges, a museum of American art in Bentonville, Arkanas.

With such a variety of museums operating around the world – and some of them in emerging market countries – the need to share ideas on best practice is strong, Citi’s Gyorgy said.

More broadly, Art14 is a chance to showcase outstanding talent from around the world, including countries that don’t always get the prominence they deserve, Gyorgy said. “There is a unique opportunity to see art created from more developing regions,” she said of the art going on display at this year’s event.