Volume 18 Issue 1 » 47 and you don ’ t see a Black figure in a painting on the walls right now , it becomes normal to think that Black figure doesn ’ t belong .” And then he said , “ But we ’ re going to change that .” A few years later , his Invisible Man came for auction . I paid $ 54,000 for it , and a dealer phoned me and said people were laughing at me because it was a $ 20,000 painting . I said that the painting is foundational to the discussion . We weren ’ t doing it as investment . Everyone loves to talk about the dollars , but we did it because it addressed the topic .
Kerry James and I go for breakfast at Yolk Restaurant in Chicago , and no matter what his success is , he is just one of the most humble humans I know . I ’ ve had the benefit of no formal education , except the education of artists like Kerry James Marshall to take me through this journey . It ’ s never about my voice ; it ’ s raising artists . Even though I ’ m using my voice now , it ’ s about raising artists .
Are there any young Canadian or international emerging artists that you find particularly exciting today ?
Manuel Mathieu is a Montreal artist that we ’ ve brought into the collection . Probably one of the most important young artists that we have brought in the last couple of years is Tiona Nekkia McClodden from the US . She is an artist that ’ s dealing with many aspects of social challenges and diversity . I have a saying : Is it social jewelry or social justice ? It ’ s usually social jewelry . But Tiona deals with social diversity and justice . I think she has really elevated the topic in ways that no other artist has . We ’ re always looking for an artist whose signature you know , but without reading the signature .
Tell us about art as an investment or as an asset class . You follow and invest in artists over the long term and in depth .
We never want to own a moment ; we want to span an artist ’ s career . We have 40 or 45 artists where we have more than twenty of their works , but all from a different period . We tend to bring in something really tough , and then we go back as far as we can in history with the artist , and we move ahead very slowly . I have over 3,000 titled works in the collection , and 285 pieces represent over 80 % of the value . So , they don ’ t all make it across the finish line for value . But what is more important to me is that they make it across the finish line where their voice and context are there . I ’ ve been very fortunate that I picked a social injustice and diversity path in the late 80s and 90s that became very topical today . Now we ’ ve been doing a lot more with gender and artists dealing with trans issues .
Back to business . You ’ re in real estate , and you ’ ve gone through the highs and the lows . Where are we headed now , short term and long term ?
I adopted a saying from Daniel Monahan years ago that everybody is entitled to their own opinions , but not to their own facts , so we ' ve always been data-driven . Canada will have more deaths than births by 2032 to 2035 . BC , it ’ s sooner . We ’ re going to have to see immigration probably break 600,000 per year by 2026 or 2027 . Look at America at only 500,000 immigrants for all of America . Then I see 9,000-plus employees are going to come into our old post office called The Post into 1.1 million square feet . I look at the pressures
Social justice figures prominently in rennie collection . Background neon left to right : Lauren Halsey , Eastside Beeper , 2020 , ALL ABOUT THE FLAVA , 2020 , Naybahood Nip , 2020 , WAZ UP !, 2020 , Keepers of the Krown , 2020 ; Glenn Ligon , Warm Broad Glow ( Dark ), 2007 , outlining the words “ negro sunshine ” from a phrase in Gertrude Stein ’ s book , Three Lives .
in America . Are you going to keep 150,000 employees in any one American city , given the whims of civic government , and given the social outrage ? You look for safe places . Look at BC and the Lower Mainland . The things that we don ’ t like , the rest of the world covets . They only wish that they had our healthcare , our educational abilities , our weather , our water and our climate . You can work from anywhere in the world . And I see Amazon – my numbers could be off – but I think they ’ ve closed five major centres in America , yet they ’ re gung ho here in Vancouver . Would you rather come to Vancouver or Seattle ? You ' ll pick Vancouver .
As an astute real estate sage , what would you buy today ?
I think single-family homes will always be sought after . There are very few places in the world where it takes ten minutes to get home to a single-family house on a 50- or 60- or 75-foot lot , like we have here . I do think we ’ re way too Vancouver-centric . We have to start looking at the regions . Vancouver has 33 % of the jobs and 25 % of the population , so we commute . Anything on transit , I think should be sought after . If the Cascade line actually comes in from Seattle , wherever it lands in Surrey , you watch the growth out there . Mom and dad are moving out to the Valley so they can be closer to their children . Look for condominiums on transit .
How does Vancouver ’ s architecture stack up against some international cities that you ’ ve visited ?