Interview with Ali Keles in Elsevier
PRESS RELEASE
February 2022
Rotterdam – the Netherlands
Ron Kosterman
Interviewer Elsevier
Guido Benschop
Photographer Elsevier
Parts of the interview:
The Rotterdam based entrepreneur Ali Keles (38) brought a part of his art collection to the accommodation of Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen. He questions himself continuously. “What does the human Ali wishes?”
When I ever close my eyes, I would wish to feel that I have done something sensible.
Keles speaks calmly. He often thinks long.
The last thing I wanted was that the compartment would become an elite place. That is not who I am and what I represent. I wanted to justify myself, I was looking for legitimation. I also wanted to bring the space to life. Not just hanging up works and occasionally rotate. The legitimations is for that a young artist can work there.
The Lakeside Collection has more than eighty works by about fifty artists.
I really have a affective relationship with art. I fall in love and want have it close to me. It start with that. I often look at them. Sometimes I get moved and sometimes I have to laugh.
His investment firm is named Lakeside Capital Partners. Ask Keles what he is and he says: an enabler – or: someone who makes things possible.
I am a kind of architect, a puzzler. I bring ideas, people and resources together, and provide for a structure. We have no exit strategy. I am in it for the long term, to build companies, together with management.
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