You’ve been a serious collector for many years, primarily of Minimal Art. You probably attended Art Basel – did you have enjoyable art experiences? 

Yes, I did, and there’s also a personal reason: My wife lives near Basel and invites art aficionados for dinner or breakfast during the fair. It’s an intensive and happy time for us, which already begins the weekend prior to the event. 

Do you follow specific trade-fair rituals?

Based on the previews, I put a little plan together in advance to get a clear sense of what I definitely want to see. There are galleries I’ll always visit – Sprüth Magers or David Zwirner, for instance. I bought two works this year, by the way. 

Might I know what it is? 

One is a “shaped canvas” by Ted Stamm, an artist from the New York scene of the 70s and 80s who’s not so well known in Germany yet, and whose works are attributed to Minimalism and Concept Art. He’s just being discovered over here right now, but I’ve been following him for some time and already had acquired two larger works of his. That’s one of my guiding principles: Once I’ve settled on an artistic perspective, I really want to explore it in depth. Not by wading in broadly, like a stamp collector who has a little bit of everything. Rather, I immerse myself by delving into differing groups of related works, so as to make the evolutionary stages over time perceptible.  

A master pupil of Ólafur Elíasson – he seems to have nothing to do with Minimalism.

Yes, but for 40 years now – ever since my studies of law and philosophy at university – I’ve been thinking about sustainability and the moral obligations towards coming generations that arise. So my main collecting focus on Minimal Art is supplemented by works by the likes of Ólafur Elíasson, Thomás Saraceno, Julian Charrière, and Jeppe Hein. I bought a “vending machine” by Julian Charrière when he was shown at the Museum Tinguely in Basel. It’s a dispenser of the sort you find in train stations, except that its metal spirals hold ammonites. A built-in infinity mirror creates the illusion of an endless supply of these geological objects. There’s a lot going on here: This idea of unlimited availability; the logic of capitalism, which says that you can acquire such resources for money. And what’s more, this neon-lit vending machine features – as do all the works I collect – a certain minimalist aesthetic.  

You’ve remained true to clear forms. You once saw a work by Richard Serra at Documenta 7 when you were young.  Was the experience a sort of initiation? 

Interesting that you should see this as a triggering event; that hadn’t been clear to me until now. My first acquisitions came a few years later and had little to do with Minimal Art at first, since they were by the Neue Wilde group of Berlin artists. My first purchases of Minimal Art, in 1992, were woodcut prints by Donald Judd, directly followed by works on paper by Imi Knoebel, whom I still collect very actively to this day. Since then, I’ve been collecting practically nothing other than minimal or conceptual objects: some 650 works in total by now, mainly from Europe, the United States, and Japan. 

How important is it to you to get to know the artists whom you collect? 

Very important. And there are artists whom I’ve already known for a long time, such as Imi Knoebel and his wife Carmen. Another person who’s influenced me greatly is Frank Gerritz from Hamburg.  We are the same age and often found ourselves in the same place at the time, such as New York during the 1980s and 90s.  Many collectors say – and rightly so – that finding common ground is especially easy with one’s contemporaries. He and I have a shared understanding in our many deep discussions about art, even though we’ve lived completely different lives. For example, he was interested in punk and heavy metal music, while I was more into New Wave and electronic music. It was also important for me to speak with Julian Charrière, or with Ólafur Elíasson, in order to see how authentic their approaches to their subjects are.