Kenny Goss is George Michael’s partner in life and in the Goss-Michael Foundation which became an active participant in this past weekend’s Dallas Art Fair. The Star-Telegram did a feature on the Goss-Michael Foundation for the occasion where Goss admitted that the cost of owning a Damien Hirst formaldehyde work isn’t just paying for it at the gallery:
“It’s like a wedding where the bills just keep coming in,” Goss says.
But he has no regrets. The purchase of Saint Sebastian changed his life, he says. Goss, who used to be in cheerleading-supply sales, and Michael, the sex-drugs-and-rock-‘n’-roller with an arrest record to substantiate the first two and sales to attest to the third, had been collecting art for some time when they opened a commercial gallery in Oak Lawn in 2005. Initially it seemed more a vanity project, but the subsequent shows proved otherwise — Tracey Emin’s confessional diary entries written in neon, Damien Hirst’s dead animals, Michael Craig-Martin’s wordplay and computerized moving portraits, and Marc Quinn’s self-portrait made from his own frozen blood. These are the artists who carry the reputation of contemporary British art, and the exhibits in the small Oak Lawn gallery were some of the best gallery shows in Dallas.
On the strength of their reception, Goss made his move into the international big leagues in 2007.
The gallery was moved to a much larger space, and the commercial aspects were jettisoned in favor of setting up as a nonprofit. Goss and Michael began rotating displays of their personal collection of close to 500 works by British artists, as well as mounting temporary shows of the artists they collect.
[…] The Goss-Michael Foundation has been extremely supportive of the Dallas Art Fair since its 2009 inception, and each year, more and more of the British galleries make the trek.
Goss is not a buyer, though.
“I told the dealers what I thought would sell here. I was lucky — they brought work that sold. And to be perfectly honest, what I buy is so focused, they’re not likely to bring a million-pound piece here. It’s a risk for them to ship pieces from London, so I’m more like a host now.”
Goss-Michael Foundation Creates British Art Empire (Star-Telegram)
