[intro]Sometimes You’ve Just Got a Lot of Shit to Show Off [/intro]

The White Rabbit Collection isn’t the only Australian private museum opening soon. The Sydney Morning Herald tells us about a few more local potentates ready to open their own museums. In doing so, they’re following a trend in the United States that is growing despite the economic setback:

There is the Tasmanian gambler David Walsh, who is building a $70 million museum for his $100 million collection. There is the Melbourne architect Corbett Lyon, who plans to open his home collection to visitors. In Sydney, the Belgiorno-Nettis family has taken a different approach, buying large-scale installations and sculptures then displaying them in outdoor public spaces. […] 

Similar ideas inspired Luca Belgiorno-Nettis, when he and his wife, Anita, spent $440,000 on William Kentridge’s multimedia installation I Am Not Me, The Horse Is Not Mine, on free public display on Cockatoo Island. They also own Jimmie Durham’s Still Life with Stone and Car, which sits on a roundabout at Walsh Bay.

‘‘If you start getting involved with big pieces, you want them to be displayed, not just for you but for everybody,’’ Belgiorno-Nettis says. ‘‘They can’t exactly sit in our living room or backyard, but those pieces deserve an audience.’’

By their nature, private museums express the idiosyncratic tastes of their founders. Walsh makes no secret of the subjective nature of his Museum of Old and New Art, due to open late next year. ‘‘It just happens that I have got a lot of shit I want to show off,’’ he says.

What’s Mine Is Yours, Say Wealthy Collectors (Sydney Morning Herald)