Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz have helped lead the way for a generation of collectors of Black art. The rest of the world is finally catching up.
“A lot of people used to make fun of me collecting art,” Swizz tells VF. “I won’t say no names, but they’re the biggest names.”
The power couple speaks to VF about their collection’s first major museum exhibition, creating a network of Black artists, and dancing the art world's political tango without Sacrificing Quality.
Artwork from the personal collection of producer Swizz Beatz, born Kasseem Dean, and his wife, Alicia Keys, is receiving its first major public exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, in a huge presentation aptly named "Gaints" Blending pop culture with the high arts in a fashion similar to the museum’s recent Spike Lee retrospective, '‘Giants” lures both art connoisseurs and an audience attracted by the spectacle of seeing what hangs on the walls of the celebrity couple’s California Cliffside Mansion, treating them to a crash course in Black art with a capital A".
With 98 pieces by 37 artists — including Nick Cave, Amy Sherald, Lorna Simpson, Ernie Barnes, Derrick Adams and Arthur Jafa — “Giants” impresses through sheer breadth and scope alone.
“We want people to see themselves, to feel inspired,” Keys remarks in a video displayed toward the end of the exhibit. “Every person that’s hanging on the walls is just like you and I. We want you to see that you are also a giant: special, incredible, unique.”
The fact that a 40-something African-American couple originally hailing from the hardscrabble environs of the Bronx and Harlem could amass a multimillion-dollar art collection is arguably inspirational enough.
However,it makes clear that the Dean symbolism Collection accomplishes Keys’ stated incredible goal.
