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You might know Steve Wilson by his glasses. The art collector and entrepreneur dons bright red eyewear, a constant on his popular Instagram account, as he shares illuminating interviews with contemporary artists, including Bisa Butler and Hank Willis Thomas. Within each vignette, Wilson is in the artist’s studio, at an exhibition, or purchasing original art at fairs like Art Basel Miami. As a viewer, we come away with an understanding and appreciation for an artist and the meaning behind their work. What’s also evident is Wilson’s passion and curiosity for art. It’s infectious.
Wilson is now known as a prolific art collector, but that has come later in his life. Although he has always loved art, discouragement in his earlier years caused him to pursue other paths. Once he met his second wife, Laura Lee Brown, they started to collect art together. With a current collection of over 5,000 pieces, the massive assembly inspired them to develop 21c Museum Hotels. The first hotel of many was in Louisville, Kentucky, where Wilson lives. It features artwork everywhere within its walls—even down to the bathrooms. (21c Museum Hotels was recently sold to a hospitality brand, but Wilson still provides the artwork.)
No matter the project, Wilson wants to bring art to people who might be too intimidated to visit a museum. He wants to show that art is an important part of our lives and is for living with.
We chatted with Wilson and Edward Heavrin, who films and edits Wilson’s videos. Scroll down for My Modern Met’s exclusive interview.
Learn more about Steve Wilson, an art collector and entrepreneur who shares artist studio visits, art fairs, and more on his popular Instagram account.
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Your father said art was useless, so you sought to prove him wrong. How did that propel you to what you’re doing now?
You know, I didn’t set out to prove him wrong at that moment, but it’s funny how later on, I look back on my life and career. I was always a creative kid, and I was the oldest son of a farmer who didn’t know what to do with me, really. I went to Murray State University, which was local and close enough, my dad wanted me to come back home and work on the farm on the weekends. And so I enrolled as an art major, and then I had another experience that was discouraging. My drawing teacher tore my drawing up in class and told me I didn’t belong there. So that got me moved to psychology, but I was always interested in art. And as I grew older, I realized that art was really an outlet for me.
Life without art would be a pretty miserable existence. So art has really been a therapy for me, I would say. But my wife and I are both in our second marriages, and she was collecting art when we married, and so our love of art and travel drew us together, and that’s when our contemporary art collecting really got kicked off.
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What has been your favorite piece that you’ve collected, or one that’s the most memorable?
Well, I think the collection is over 5,000 pieces now.
That’s a lot of pieces to collect. How many pieces do you acquire in a year?
That’s hard to say as well. We have had a budget, and it depends on how much we travel. We love to travel. So we often go to the Venice Biennale, and we go to Basel, Switzerland. And I don’t think we missed a Basel Miami, one of us, at least, since it opened. So I would say Hank Willis Thomas is a favorite right now. Kehinde Wiley, I really love his work.
When I’m in Art Basel in Miami, I’m always pushing and shoving to be in the front. So people always ask me, why is that? But invariably, there’s something that I love right off the bat, and often it’s already sold, so I’m always anxious about that. But anyway, the Kehinde Wiley I saw a rush in, and it was right in the middle of the fair. It was the image of a Black man on a white horse, similar to Napoleon. And of course, it was sold, and it was purchased by the Brooklyn Museum, and it’s still in the lobby there. So that was my very first sight of the Kehinde Wiley. We have several of his works, and we have one of his first bronze sculptures, a female image with a large, elaborate hair arrangement. That was actually an image from one of his paintings, as well, when he moved into the series of women.
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Let’s talk about your Instagram. You have a lot of followers, and you have a lot of conversations with artists. How did that come about?
I have to say Edward [Heavrin] is a big part of that. Edward and I’ve been friends forever, and we did a lot of videos at the 21c Museum Hotels. He followed us while we developed Durham, and it included other snips and pieces from Cuba and other places. So Edward has a real ability to express me.
You feel like it’s important to compress things so that people get a message, but they lose their attention. I’ve been amazed at the success of Instagram and I think I have 355,000 followers now, but some of the Instagrams get millions of views.
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Going back to talk about 21c Museum Hotels, what was the inspiration for the first one?
The collection was getting too large to hang everything at home, and we do live with art at home. The idea of 21c grew out of the fact that we wanted to share our art, and we want people to understand that art is to be lived with and not just viewed behind the velvet rope. We’re very much dedicated to living artists, and we named the company 21c to represent the 21st century and try to help people understand that things that are contemporary and modern are different.
Most of the 21cs are restored older buildings that we’ve been giving a new life to. And they have lobbies to show the art, and we have art in the restaurants, and also the restrooms.
Some people come to the hotel expressly because they know the art is there. And other people check into the hotel and are surprised to see so much art. One man in Bentonville said he didn’t really understand it all, but he thought he was a better person for staying there.
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You’re making art more accessible through the hotels and by sharing artwork on your Instagram. Can you tell us more about that?
I think some people are intimidated by going to a museum. They think that they don’t know how to act. There’s a lot of work being done now about the “museum of the future,” and during COVID, especially, people stopped going to museums. I think they’ve struggled to get people back to the museum. And the ones that I know of personally have had, you know, a bunch of problems, and they’ve had to increase their ticket prices and reduce staff. I think they are thinking about new ways of making sure that art is a part of our lives, and that’s important to me.
Interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Steve Wilson: Website | Instagram
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