by iwban
The hotel owner and investor Petter Stordalen has spent 400 million Norwegian kroner on art for his hotels. He didn’t care for the art industry before, but after becoming rich, he started investing in different types of art. He himself has stated that he doesn’t have much knowledge about art, but still has an interest in it.
This matter causes the art industry to appear more commercialized, and can make the worth of the art itself appear less valuable. When knowing that Stordalen buys art without having knowledge about it, it seems that he does not buy the art for its artistic value and quality, but rather for potential profit. Although having an interest in something and having knowledge about something may be seen at as two different things, it still gives some doubt whether he has interest in the actual art or what he makes of buying it – both in money and in a better image. Stordalen also uses the art for image building. This can cause cultural ramification, and people in the art industry may respond negatively to the artistic value the investors may take away when buying and investing in art when they have a commercial vision.
On the other side, Stordalen has an employee who has expertise on the subject, who also used to be director at the National Museum, Sune Nordgren. His job is to buy art. I would interpret this as a reason to believe that they buy art with some kind of artistic value, but on the other hand, there is still Stordalen who owns, and then in a way represent the art, and he is the one who represent the art that is bought, and with knowing he has no familiarity towards the art industry, it can give the opposite impression too.
In addition, Stordalen have no plans to sell the art he buys, and this can give the impression that he doesn’t just buy art for the profit of it.
There is a growing phenomenon that more and more people get interested in the art marked because of the investment potential, and not necessarily for the arts value in itself. I would think that some hotels might buy art to their buildings to appear more exclusive, and maybe not for the actual interest in the cultural life and art industry, and I find it hard to believe that all hotels with a lot of art only buy it for the actual appreciation of it. There has to be some kind of commercial meaning behind it, or another type of way they can get some type of profit when investing in art.
Making sense of art and design industries 