More than Zero

Bloomberg‘s Catherine Hickey gets together with the Lenzes in Berlin to talk about their collection of 600 works by 50 artists–talk about collecting in depth–from which Sotheby’s has chosen 49 works to sell in London in February:

“My wife and I are of an age where we must think about our estate,” Lenz said over cups of tea and coffee at Berlin’s Temporary Art Museum, where the works were shown before the auction. “We can’t burden our sons with our lives — they have their own life plans, so we are creating a bit of space.”

The Lenz Schoenberg collection is entirely comprised of works by 50 artists from across Europe who belonged to the “Zero” group […] “We couldn’t choose anything” to sell, Lenz said. The selection for the auction fell to Bastienne Leuthe, a deputy director in Sotheby’s contemporary-art division. […]

The couple has exhibited the collection in 12 shows over the past 25 years, including in Madrid, Moscow, Warsaw and Salzburg. They live in South Tyrol, surrounded by the pictures. “You can’t keep art in a private space in the long term, especially not when the collection has hugely outgrown the private sphere,” said Lenz, who was a management consultant. “As a collector, you never gain ownership of the art, you have temporary possession that gives you the responsibility to manage and protect it. The pictures belong on public view.”

Klein, Fontana Collectors Lenz to Auction $19.5 Million of Art (Bloomberg)