Floris Kappelle
Interviewer Tableau Fine Arts Magazine

Tomáš Libertiny
Photographer

Parts of the interview:

Rotterdam entrepreneur Ali Keles (38) has an office on the banks of the Delftse Schie Villa Lakeside, also home to the Lakeside Collection. A collection of modern and contemporary works of art by both international and Dutch artists, which are partly housed in the Depot of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen.

I bought both business and private art. You hang that on the wall at the office or at home or put in the garden. I am not a curator, by the way, but an aficionada. The basis is the affective relationship you build with the artworks. I really felt an urgency to acquire art.

Gradually, Keles began to buy more art that others labeled him a collector.

I bought some art every now and then, without any hindrance. That’s how it developed. Limitless and in total freedom.

It is evident that Keles looks at art from a philosophical perspective.

What I find important is questioning yourself with existential questions, using the falsification theory, the search for knowledge and science to arrive at real truth. That doesn’t leave me as a person. When you see how artists are busy, it evokes critical thinking in you. Art wakes people up and makes them think.

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