Ali Keles, together with Ritchy Drost and Cyanne Toebes Moe-Tjon, has been appointed as a member of the Supervisory Board of the Balie as of June 2023. After 8 years, Bercan Günel stepped down as a member of the Supervisory Board. The other current members of the Supervisory Board are Mirjam van Praag (chairman), Peter Mensing and Doreen Boonekamp.

Keles: “Being part of and contributing from the Supervisory Board to an institute like De Balie that is committed to art, culture and social debate is a great honor for me.”

During the general meeting of the Netherlands Association of Corporate Art Collections (VBCN) on May 10^th 2023, Ali Keles took office as the new chairman. He succeeds Anne Clement van Vugt, who has been chairman since 2020 and whose term of office expired this year.

Ali Keles (1983) is an investor and founder of Lakeside Capital Partners, a financial services and investment group based in the Netherlands. In addition, he collects contemporary art that is housed in the Lakeside Collection, and thus joined the VBCN in 2019. He has been a board member of the VBCN since 2021.

With Keles as the new chairman, the VBCN is committed to further professionalizing the services it provides to its members. In addition, an important spearhead will be intensifying cooperation with the Dutch cultural and museum sector, but also between the affiliated corporate collections.

Keles strongly cares about the long-term commitment of the corporate collections and wants to embed this by developing a widely supported Charter for Art & Culture. Increasing the sense of responsibility of companies and (semi) public institutions to invest in the Dutch art and culture sector is evident to him.

In his opening speech, Keles emphasized: “Companies and (semi) public institutions that have committed themselves to the VBCN and that have all built up treasures of art collections over the years are an important part of the Dutch art sector. This makes them a great support for the arts and their creators. Recent research by the UvA has shown that the VBCN members collectively conserve more than 100,000 works of art and account for almost a quarter of all art purchases in the Netherlands.”

The VBCN is very pleased with the appointment of Keles and at the same time thanks Anne Clement van Vugt – senior advisor and art coordinator at Erasmus University Rotterdam – for her chairmanship. Under her inspired leadership, the VBCN membership grew, the association's memory was recorded, the mission and vision updated, the anniversary publication VBCN VIEW was realized and the association presented the fourth edition of the VBCN OPEN curator's prize. About the VBCN The Dutch Association of Corporate Collections (VBCN) is an independent non-profit knowledge network for Dutch companies and (semi) public institutions with an art collection. The members bring a large and diverse audience into contact with art and create new connections between art and society. This makes the VBCN a distinctive player in the cultural field.

The winner, Monali Meher, of the NN Art Award 2023 was announced at Art Rotterdam. The other nominees were Kévin Bray, Laura Jatkowski and Salim Bayri.

“Monali Meher works in a multitude of disciplines: from video, installation and performance to photography and textiles. But it is performance art that occupies the most prominent place in her practice. The body plays a central role in this, alongside recurring themes such as time, a sense of belonging, migration, cultural cross-pollination, a hybrid and diaspora identity, gender, intimacy, decay, the climate, transformation and the reshaping of objects and memories — often in a social or political context. In fact, time, and the physical and spatial dimension of time, is such an essential part of her practice that it almost counts as a medium in itself. She compresses or stretches the concept of time. The artist is also interested in oppositions such as sadness and happiness, continuity and transience, birth and death. In addition to performances, Meher also creates work on paper. She enriches these works with food colouring, inks, pigments, face paint and sandalwood oil, which are then used as a means to soothe physical and mental pain. In combination with the images, this creates a number of almost ritual acts.

Meher graduated from the Sir J. J. School of Arts in Mumbai in 1998. In the same year, she travels to Vienna, where she is invited for a UNESCO-Aschberg residency. In 2000 she started a residency program at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam and remained in the Netherlands after that. In 2004 she briefly traveled back to India, where she participated in the Khoj residency project in New Delhi for two months. She currently lives and works in Ghent. Meher has shown her work at Tate Modern, the National Gallery of Modern Art in India, the Van Gogh Museum, the MAXXI museum in Rome and the Arezzo Biennale, where she won the Golden Chimera Award for innovation and originality. In the Netherlands, her work is included in the collections of the Centraal Museum and the AkzoNobel Art Foundation, among others.

The NN Art Award is presented annually by a professional jury panel. Their verdict is based on the originality and quality of the work. The jury is formed by a number of leading art professionals and for this year’s edition, the jury consist of: Marina de Vries, editor-in-chief of the Museum Magazine; Yolande Zola Zoli van der Heide, curator at the Van Abbemuseum; artist Inez de Brauw, who received the NN Art Award public prize 2022; Ali Keles, Founder of the Lakeside Collection and Founding Managing Partner of Lakeside Capital Partners; and Elisah van den Bergh, curator of the NN Art Collection.” (text by Art Rotterdam / NN)

Ellen Leijser
Interviewer Het Financieele Dagblad

Ramon van Flymen
Photographer

Parts of the interview:

Art collectors about their collection. It always starts with that one work of art that you fall head over heels for. Five art collectors talk about that love, which leaves you wanting more.

In my eyes, art was something for museums. The fact that you can also buy art was not something that lived with me. Until I came to the PAN for the first time around the age of nineteen and saw gallery owners, met artists. That’s how I started buying a piece of art every now and then.

A purchase always starts with my heart. A work of art does something to you, touches you, moves you, can inspire, raise questions, abrade, but it can also just be very beautiful. Aesthetics can be an important reason to acquire art.

To read the full interview:

PDF Version

The film DEPOT – Reflecting Boijmans by Sonia Herman Dolz premiered at International Film Festival Rotterdam IFFR 2023.

“While Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen had to close in 2019 due to large-scale renovation, a completely new building was created nearby that would open its doors to the public: the Depot – a shared dream of architect Winy Maas and Boijmans director Sjarel Ex. This documentary not only takes us through the creation of the world's first fully publicly accessible depot, but also draws beautiful parallels with the construction of the current museum building in the 1930s on the basis of archive material from Bouw Museum Boymans.

Maas and Ex guide the viewer with contagious pleasure through both the stripped down museum and the brand new depot and share their enthusiastic view of the past and present. The film, a monument to the future, unlocks the secrets of the museum between the acts and reveals details that are usually hidden from view. Both buildings reveal themselves, a vault with art treasures is opened. The result is a loving symphony for art and architecture.

DEPOT - Reflecting Boijmans is the latest film by filmmaker Sonia Herman Dolz, known for award-winning documentaries such as Romance de Valentia (1994) about the art of bullfighting and Lágrimas negras (1998), about an aging Cuban band. She also made the documentary Conducting Boijmans (2015).” (text by Christiaan Boesenach IFFR)

Trailer of the film DEPOT – Reflecting Boijmans.

Lakeside Capital Partners first New Year’s reception took place on January 12^th 2023 on the roof of Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen celebrating its 10^th year anniversary. A new yearly tradition at this venue on each 2^nd Thursday of every new year has born.

With this get together Lakeside Capital Partner’s management wishes to bring together its network of shareholders, partners, advisors and clients. Not merely for business but moreover to bring them together with the artist community which whom a connection in the heart is in place.

Lakeside Collection

A modern and contemporary art collection, founded in 2015 by Lakeside Capital Partners, with local presence exhibited at “Villa Lakeside”, affiliated locations and Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen.

Diversity and inclusion are valuable sources of inspiration for the Lakeside Collection, which consists of over 120 artworks created by local and international artists from 1946 until today.

Lakeside Collection believes in the power of art and conveys inspiration to its visitors. The collection exhibits many different art forms ranging from video art, sculptures, paintings, filmography, photography to print.

In 2019 Lakeside Collection became an official member of the Netherlands Association of Corporate Art Collections. For more information: www.vbcn.nl

Befriended by art, Hugo Borst and Ali Keles, attended on November 19^th 2022 NPO Radio 1 program “WNL In de Kantine” hosted by Fidan Ekiz and Wieger Hemmer. Ali Keles was asked for this radio program to talk about his love for art, connection with Hugo Borst, entrepreneurial spirit and Rotterdam.

“With “WNL In de Kantine” you slide into Saturday night, live every week from De Doelen in Rotterdam. Hostess Fidan Ekiz and host Wieger Hemmer welcome a variety of well-known and fascinating guests every Saturday to take them through the week. For political debates at the cutting edge, but also for sports, culture and humor, tune in to NPO Radio 1 on Saturday.

Radio to watch
Or come and visit in De Doelen. With a beer and a “bitterbal”, radio to watch! Entrance is free, the atmosphere is good, the doors (and the bar) open at 4 pm.

In the Kantine is a program produced by WNL. Every Saturday from 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM LIVE from De Doelen in Rotterdam with Wieger Hemmer and Fidan Ekiz.

De Doelen: Schouwburgplein 50, 3012 CL, Rotterdam.”

To listen to the full interview:

Source:
https://www.nporadio1.nl/uitzendingen/in-de-kantine/ec9c00d9-549a-4a10-b669-330b0cef1848/2022-11-19-wnl-in-de-kantine

Lakeside Collection together with Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen participated in a study on “Collaboration between private collectors and (semi)public cultural heritage institutions”, at the request of the Ministry of Culture in Flanders, carried out by Laura D’Hoore and Professor dr. Annick Schramme on behalf of the University of Antwerp.

“Flanders is known for its many private collectors and their impressive, diverse and unique art collections. Collecting and displaying the collection is a phenomenon that passes through time has undergone various evolutions. The private collector has been since its inception of the public museums at the beginning of the nineteenth century often a valuable one partner for those public institutions. Parallel that has to do with social evolutions partnership throughout history various forms adopted. From supportive as lender or donor as a driving force behind the establishment of a museum. Today, private collectors are taking worldwide increasingly the initiative to their own opening presentation spaces. Therefore they take in the public tone circuit a important position. Also in Belgium the number of private collectors who own a presentation space. The boundaries between public and private to fade. At the same time, rising prices, that sometimes reach astronomical heights, today's art market. Rice on the one hand the question of what impact that will have in the future will have on the public supply of cultural heritage organizations. On the other hand is there is a growing interest in more cooperation between such public and private actors.

The Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen is an innovative example of a public-private partnership collaboration. Depot space is leased to private art collectors and corporate collections through a long-term agreement (which legally differs from a loan agreement). 15 percent of the floor space intended for art has been reserved for this purpose. The tenants of the sub-funds can thus open their depots to the audience. Tenants within the depot receive the same service and professionalism upon request offered as the museum collection.

The corporate art collection of Lakeside Capital Partners, also known as the Lakeside Collection, has acquired its own place in the Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam. Ali Keles, Founding Managing Partner Partner of Lakeside Capital Partners and founder of the collection, signed together in 2021 with Boijmans director Sjarel Ex a long-term agreement for the accommodation of the Lakeside Collection. It now has its own compartment in the depot, containing an exhibition space, artist-in-residence program, storage space and boardroom, which together covers a total of 173 m². Again is a mutual trust between the museum and the collector one of the important driving factors in entering into such a partnership. In addition, the freedom that the collector experiences in the collection presentation is also considered a critical success factor.”

To read the summary of research report:  PDF version

To read the full research report: PDF version

Lakeside Capital Partners celebrated its 10^th year anniversary end of August 2022. In 2012 the firm was established as TransMatch Capital Partners by Floor Mouthaan and Ali Keles as a boutique financial services and investment group. At the end of 2019 the buy-out and continuation under the new flag and corporate identity Lakeside Capital Partners occurred. As Founding Managing Partner, Ali Keles, together with a team of (Advisory) Partners, (Advisory) Board Members, and supporting staff, leads the group with nearly 30 entities under investment in 6 different sectors. Alongside Lakeside Capital Partners’ corporate finance advisory continues to expand to various mainly family owned companies.

Lakeside Capital Partners is a Netherlands based, boutique financial services and investment group focusing on real estate advisory and corporate finance including M&A, restructuring, and asset management. Alongside its advisory services, the group acts as an equity partner through its investment company. The services of the firm include fund structuring where Lakeside Capital Partners acts as fund manager and also provides junior funding and arranges external senior debt. The client base consists of family offices, private investors, financial institutions, and asset managers in the real estate and private equity sectors.

Jiyan Düyü (Gerrit Rietveld Academy graduate) has been awarded the Lakeside Collection Award 2022. The selection was amongst 23 talented artists selected for the Best of Graduates 2022 by the Ron Mandos Young Blood Foundation.

Motivation by the jury (Hester Alberdingk Thijm, Tomáš Libertíny, Annemarie van der Hoeven and Ali Keles) of Lakeside Collection Award 2022:

“The jury was impressed by her film “Birds Fly Back” and her entire presentation. The chosen setting, the wide barren mountain landscape in Eastern Turkey in which a group of children play, is like composition more than an ideal background, it even evokes references to seventeenth century landscape paintings.

The group of children is sometimes carefully directed, then they stand on the shoulder laughing naughtily shoulder to shoulder and then again the videographer releases them completely and they happily tumble over each other to.

As one judge noted: Warhol's idea of ​​directing: let it happen! This changing composition, the chaos and order, tranquility and dynamics, gives the viewer a different perspective. Especially because in the installation, you have two spherical screens between which you stand, literally part of that world. You play along, as it were, and you inevitably go back to your own childhood. It is about connection and hope, an important universal humane theme, in which everyone can identify.

After long deliberation, the jury has unanimously chosen the winner Jiyan Düyü, who might not easily was expected to be working in a depot, but that is precisely why the jury would like to enter into this experiment and the director of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen has promised to support and make this possible wholeheartedly.

She will take the world through her lens; the jury finds her courage, her artistic quality and the fact that she makes her autobiographical story universal in this way is admirable and very powerful!

The other nominees of whom works have been acquired for the Lakeside Collection are: Ellis Holman, Pedro Kastelijns and Menno Pasveer.”

Jiyan Düyü (1995), ‘Birds fly back’ 2022 art work, video installation, became a part of the Lakeside Collection after winning the Lakeside Collection Award 2022

“Through my films and installations I approach my subjects with a cinematographic attitude. Suggesting realism by working with documentary aspects, characters seek to evoke recognition from the viewer. Using the perspective of a child, I look for tensions in the emotions we express as adults. The landscape seems to expose the characters to the load of their reality.

In the graduation work Birds fly back, the children of Hani and their mountains are the core. The children run and play through the Kurdish landscape. The starting point for this project was the loaded character of the mountains against the frivolous nature of children. An idea that arose from writing my thesis. The thesis questioned the role and influence of the mountains on Kurdish cinema. An extremely heavy image of the mountains was created by the analyzed films.

In the search of releasing the landscape of the loaded connotations, children seemed for me the most effective. They seem to share the lead role together, explain each other and can be seen as complementary and in harmony.”