Kim Manocherean collects with the insight of a passing artist. Named after the heroine of A thousand and one nightshis Scheeherazade collection is as eclectic and expansive as its sequence. In addition to the largest private holding of the works of Ferist Artist Paula Regal, Manocherey houses pieces by Alice Neel, Jafnan Basson, María Berríy, Laurent Grasso and more.
“I’m interested in storytelling and storytelling, and my collection is my way of making a collage that tells my story,” she said late. Looking at the rooms feels like entering the tale itself: time and geography compress to bring down the fairy tale of drama, violence and atmosphere – with women artists and women’s stories at the center. As Scheeherizade puts in a thousand and one to take out the king, Manoferian’s approach accounts for something of the market-driven expectations of modern collecting.
Scheeherazade is an apt analogy for him in other ways as well. Although these stories reached English and French readers in the 18th century, they found them in a much older network, crossing human cultures, including Indian The Panchatantra and the Islamic golden age. Manocherean’s collection also meets a diverse cultural nexus and reference points, including his Iranian heritage.
“As an old man, and because Iranian culture is a very masculine culture, being seen has always been a problem for me,” says the thinker. “I feel I owe a lot to the artists I collect. They really helped me express myself.” The Persian singers are back again. Two prime examples include a farideh lashai segment that features rabbits as symbols of Iranian history and a wonderful video installation by Newsha Tavikolian that talks about restrictions on women in a woman’s world today.
For 46 years, Manocherean worked as CEO of New York Health and Racquet Club, founded by his father, Fraydun Manocherean, I was always in positions, ‘it shows. “But at some point I realized that I like what I like, and I’m confident.”
“I don’t want to buy anything where I’m looking at the dollar number on the wall. Over time you keep looking and asking questions, and it’s questions and that’s it.
This sense of curiosity in the works and in the artists behind them has inspired Manocherean to extend its support well beyond the traditional model. In addition to his contributions to the art center, Art21, Park Avenue Armory, Moma and Tate Britain, he also regularly hosts salon-style food shows that bring curators and artists. One recent one focuses on Natalie Frank’s paintings after Grimm’s fairy tales.
In recent years, the Manocherean has even gone so far as to have a kind of advertisement sitting in the Belvedere on his terrace. He developed the initiative first with Jessica Maffia, whom he met while inquiring about work by Anita Steckel at an art student exhibition in Midtown Manhattan. After Maffia, a former student of Steckel’s, helped collect the legacy of the late Artists, he was invited to use Manoferian’s additional space as an extended Studio. Current resident, former ballroom-manocherj-manocherean former ballroom dance teacher – trained as a musician in Bosnia and has returned to painting.
Manocherean is clear that his level of involvement with residents varies depending on the artist’s preferences, but he likes the opportunity to interact directly. He points to a private tour of Peggy Guggenheim’s home in Venice as highlighting his approach.
“I was moved by his passion and how he took care of artists and invested in them,” Manochereian said. “Because I, like everyone else, have been dismissed by collectors as just buying for value.”
He considers his relationship with Paula Redo – their symbolic work that deviates from grief, sorrow, sexuality and power – among his most constructive. Manocherean maintains a room dedicated to the artist’s work, including Girls (1987)which had to be brought into the apartment by crane. Based on the 1947 gen genet play about a real Mother and daughter who were killed by their daughters, the rego canvas suggests a kind of status in the register of historical painting, with Goya in its DNA. “Every day, Paula lived to paint,” Manochereian said. “But he thought a lot of art was bullshit, so he would always change the story. I loved that about him … he was an actor who had fun.”
Another passive in his collection is humor, which he sees as a natural companion to the tales of pain organized by some of his conventions. There are known winks from Maarten Baas, Uris Fischer and Nate Lowman, among others. BUST by Marcel Dzama, first referred to him as “the head of the king,” takes the neutrality of the context of his holding and its literary inspiration. Although the moral teaching of Scheeherazade transforms the king into a classical form, the image of manocherea through rego imagines an existential fate in which the heroine kills him instead.
Amidst the march of marquee names on its walls, he pulls out albums that emphasize his love of looks. We sprinkled ourselves with CepPerplate bird etchings by Stephanie Wilde, an Idaho-based artist who is an intricate drawing of fibers and acrylic paintings at the same time as ancient manuscripts. Manocherean recently donated a Wilde painting to the Met, the first artist to enter the collection. “As soon as I saw his work at the Art Fair, I thought, ‘this is for the one he met,'” she said. “There is a confirmation of this with me, I know I got it right.”
In the same room, he shares his children’s clothes, followed by an album of fabric collages by Louise Bourgeois. “It depends on how you collect and why, but I don’t believe you should spend a lot of money to collect,” he shares. “I have pieces from flea markets next to important works, and art for my grandkids and kids.” The wall on the side of the halls of the hall works by Chantal Jofse with Prints of its Parliament, a lawyer and a self-taught artist.
A sense of discovery continues to drive the Manoferian collection. In the usual season of annual viewings, he remembers his peak year, when some of the attendees thought he would chase the big names. He didn’t – and still doesn’t. “Now I’m not afraid of all of them because I like to discover artists I’ve never seen before. That’s very exciting,” he recounts. Above all, his intuition drives his acquisition strategy. “If I need to think about a piece, it’s not mine. It’s always that visceral feeling, the heart of needing to look at the work.”
Lately, in light of the relentless pace of the art cycle, he’s been thinking about reach and tempo. All of that is brilliantthe recent memoir of the past gallerist and disappointed ingolli Philbrick compatriot Orlando Whitfield, features and. “Orlando Whitfield talks about how much the right of the collector is to reach. Orlando really touched me because he says that the fairs actually give less access,” he said. “I think we need to go back to exhibitions, spend more time on art instead of feeling the rush to see it first.”
Taking a break, he adds, “Everything should be more about content and quality, less about price.”
Manoferian’s discovery is a testament to what happens when content aligns with quality. All the clips in the thread collected into a comprehensive story – one of the many Sches stories possible. The audience, in this case, is an unchanging cultural industry that can leave artists, collectors and a wider commitment to storytelling. Instead of the intense atmosphere of the thousand and one nights of the fairs, Manoferian’s collection asks us to slow down and stay.
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