Pearl Lam: Hello, I’m in Paris. This is Pearl Lam Podcast. Today, what a pleasure that I have Doctor Amin Jaffer with me. I’ve known Amin, my God, nearly 20 years. Oh my God, I sound old, old. And I’m so, so happy that Amin is now sitting here.
Amin Jaffer: First of all, it’s a pleasure to be here and a real honour to be doing this podcast with you, which you know, I’m a big fan of yours, as you know, besides being a friend for many years. But yes, I’m presently director of the Al-Thani Collection, which is a private holding of works of art more than 5000 in quantity. That starts with Neolithic art and goes down to contemporary art with a museum space in Paris in the Place de la Concorde no less. So really in the heart of the French cultural world. But my origins are really very different from that. I was born into a business family, an Indian business family in, in Africa that’s been there for a few generations in a very small town, Kigali, which is the capital of Rwanda. And so I’m, I work in the art world, in the academic art world, let’s say, in spite of my background.
Pearl Lam: OK, so let’s start, dear Amin, first. You are one of the most popular director, museum director all and everybody knows you and, and you’re special. As this very special person, you’re born in Africa, so how this art comes along? I mean, I went to Africa, I mean Rwanda, where is, are there museums there now?
Amin Jaffer: Well, of course, there was no museum and no library and no great historic monuments. But I think in many ways, although it was a challenge when I was growing up, this gap or this absence made me more curious. And I grew up with many cultural influences because my family is from Kachchh, Gujarat, from Western India, but we’ve been many generations in Africa. So we had an Indian-African heritage. Rwanda was part of the Belgian Congo. My mother’s from Kenya, which was part of the British Empire. So I had a Francophone element from my father’s family. I had an very English element from my mother’s family, and I grew up in the 70s and the 80s when the world was very much dominated by America.
Pearl Lam: Yes. Of course.
Amin Jaffer: And I was very lucky to, to travel a lot. My father was a gypsy in spirit, like me. I’ve inherited that. And so we had lots of travels since we were small children. And my mother would always take me to the museum. And so a lot of my art formation started here in Paris because when I was 6 I went to the Louvre for the first time.
Pearl Lam: Six years old going to Louvre?
Amin Jaffer: It was the first museum I went to and my mother bought me a camera. It was my first camera before we went into the museum. So I can still remember now the things that I saw in that first visit, because they’re captured, of course, the Raft of the Medusa, The Coronation of Napoleon, the Winged Victory, all of the classics of the Louvre, and a high, high percentage of black basalt Egyptian sculpture. I don’t know why this fascinated me. Little boys love ancient Egypt, as you know. And that was the beginning of a whole because.
Pearl Lam: Six years old. Six years old. You’re completely enticed. I was by this.
Amin Jaffer: I was captivated by the idea of public art because I think I came from a place that had no public art. And after that, whenever we had holidays, my mother would take me to the museum, and she would always buy me the catalogue.
Pearl Lam: Because many children, if they ask, if they’re forced to go to a museum, they stamp their feet. They didn’t want to go. They put on a face and you wanted to go.
Amin Jaffer: Well, you know, I was, I was the opposite. I didn’t want to go to the football match or eat the ice cream. But I wanted to go to museum when I was small. And so I was lucky to go to the British Museum, to the Viande, to the Prado, to the Doge’s Palace, the Bargello, all of these museums when I was a small boy.
Pearl Lam: Well, and but visiting, hobby is one thing. OK, you’re from an, I mean from an Indian family, business is very important, especially I mean, you just told me you’re the only son your father would have loved you to inherit and and build the legacy. What happened if you I mean, when you told your father you want to study art, well, it was an art history.
Amin Jaffer: Well, it was, I knew when I was quite young, by the time I was 11 or 12, I knew that I could never be a businessman. You know, I didn’t have the interest, I didn’t have the instincts. And when I went to university, nevertheless I studied economics. I started and in the in the first semester break, my mother came to visit me and we were having lunch. And I said to her, you know, I really would like to study history of art. That’s where my passion is. And my mother was a very sympathetic a lady said, you know, your father’s in Africa, he’s so far away. How does he know what you’re doing over here if you just study history of art? And when you’re finished, you tell him that you did history of art degree and what could he do?
Pearl Lam: What did you do?
Amin Jaffer: And that’s exactly what I did.
Pearl Lam: But excuse me, it’s not a bachelor’s degree. You did a PhD. And how and how did you manage to persuade your father?
Amin Jaffer: Well, he’s a sympathetic man. He was a very sympathetic man. He understood that was where my passion was. He was very encouraged by my mother. And he did. He did the typical thing. Once my degree was completed, once my PhD was completed, he thought I would come back and work with him in Africa. And at that point I said to him that I had a job in the Victorian Albert Museum as a young curator. I can tell you it was a salary of £12,000 a year. It was £800 a month after taxes. Yeah. So my father said, well, that’s your chosen destiny. So, from now on you have to live in your £800 a month.
Pearl Lam: No subsidies?
Amin Jaffer: No subsidies. And so he watched me over a few years as I became independent. And I think actually it was once that my exhibitions and books started to be featured in the FT because he was a regular reader of the FT, that he began to realise that I was doing something that was important. And then he reconciled himself to me and to my choices. But it wasn’t easy.
Pearl Lam: It wasn’t easy and and was he proud enough to tell his friends is usually my son is very special. Look at him?
Amin Jaffer: I think, you know, it was a classic father son case and it’s not only in an Indian family or not only in the art world where the father sometimes doesn’t tell directly the son how proud he is.
Pearl Lam: But he start telling?
Amin Jaffer: But I knew that he was talking to his friends, particularly when I had books and I was sending him every time I produced a book. He would, he was not a reader. He would look at it. My mother is a reader, so she would read the book. But yes, of of course he would show it off to his friends and.
Pearl Lam: I love it. But, but I think since you were studying in England and America, so you must have started to be curious about or looking into or researching how Europe sees Asia and how Asia see and see you. I see you as a bridge.
Amin Jaffer: You know, I think my whole childhood was about in cultural encounter. Yeah. And I had, I can honestly say, many questions about my identity as I was growing up. I think my parents and grandparents came for a generation where everything was oriented towards the West without any, without any questions. I came from a generation where I found my family was so westernised that I was interested in India and I was interested in my roots. And when I went to India, finally I felt.
Pearl Lam: When at what age do you?
Amin Jaffer: Go to I was 23 the first time.
Pearl Lam: So your parents never went to India at all during the 23 years?
Amin Jaffer: They would go for holidays, sometimes themselves.
Pearl Lam: They never bought you.
Amin Jaffer: No, they never took us. And what was very interesting is their approach to India because although they’re ethnically Indian, although they spoke the languages, they didn’t feel India was their home. For me, from a young age, I had a big attraction to India. I had also a big attraction to the West and my doctoral thesis was about a subject that’s really relevant.
Pearl Lam: To the the post-colonial.
Amin Jaffer: To all of us.
Pearl Lam: Furniture. The Indian.
Amin Jaffer: Which is the question of how Indians or how Asiatic people who traditionally sat on textiles on the ground begin to use chairs?
Pearl Lam: Chairs.
Amin Jaffer: And the status symbol of Western furniture and what it begins to mean in terms of architecture and lifestyle. Because in the traditional Indian interior there was no division for a dining room or living room. Everything was divided according to gender, masculine.
Pearl Lam: Space, feminine space. It’s like a Muslim, it’s like Islamic.
Amin Jaffer: But even in Hindu households, you had a division between the masculine and the feminine.
Pearl Lam: Yeah, yeah.
Amin Jaffer: And the fact is there was very little fixed furniture. The idea is that you live mainly on textiles on the ground and that the little furnishings you had were moved around according to the climate and according to the season. With the arrival of Europeans, we begin to see Indian elites and then it begins to trickle down using western chairs. But can you imagine if you’ve spent all your all of your life cross legged on the ground, all of a sudden to have your feet dangling over changes your.
Pearl Lam: Posture.
Amin Jaffer: And then of course, you need a table to eat or to write. And it this, these changes lead to a complete transformation in the way Indians live. It’s a transformation in body culture. And while I wrote on on the furniture aspect of this change, many writers have addressed the question of, of fashion, clothes, you know, the genders mixing, all of these changes happening as a result of the European presence in South Asia. So the result was a thesis all on the subject not just of how Indians started to Westernise, but also how Westerners in India started to Indianize.
Pearl Lam: Yes, because.
Amin Jaffer: We have.
Pearl Lam: A yes, what was I mean, I think one of the books I was reading is about the Westerners, the Europeans, especially French and British, they were coming in and and in India, the sanitary, I mean, they are they don’t bath. They don’t they have this sanitary was really a big problem when they arrive in India, they learn they learn how to clean themselves. They have a.
Amin Jaffer: Well, it’s this. The whole subject of this question of perception was the basis of an exhibition I did with my colleague Anna Jackson called Encounters: The Meeting of Asia and Europe. And in this exhibition, for example, we showed Japanese, Chinese and Indian paintings, miniatures, etcetera of Westerners and you see how Asiatic people regarded them. And in Japan in particular, the scent of European was a very, let’s say, notable aspect of the European presence. So in Japanese woodblock prints, where you see an erotic print, where you see a European making love, often you have incense burning in the corner to mask the scent of the European. Or he’s often shown, you know, with long fingernails or a little bit unclean, a little bit unwashed. Of course, throughout Japan you have such a rich culture of bathing.
Pearl Lam: Yes.
Amin Jaffer: That contrasted with the European culture of of bathing. Of course, South Asia and the Islamic world, because of the culture of both Hinduism and Islam, there’s constant ablutions, you’re constantly washing yourself. But this relates to many things. It relates to climate as well. It relates to textiles. The fact is that in South Asia you had from an early age sophisticated culture of cotton which could be washed and dried easily, whereas in Europe you.
Pearl Lam: Very heavy.
Amin Jaffer: are relying on wool and living. And, you know, so all of these big shifts and these big movements that result as a that, that are the result of the meeting of people and the exchange of goods from a young age fascinated me.
Pearl Lam: I mean, what a pity missed that that exhibition that you curated.
Amin Jaffer: Encounters. I’ll give you the catalogue.
Pearl Lam: Yeah, Please, Please, please. So continue. You were saying that?
Amin Jaffer: So I became very fascinated by this question of transformation as a result of meeting of civilizations. And you know, we can speak of many transformations, a culinary one, for example, with the Spanish and Portuguese discoveries of parts of the world. We have the tomato coming to Europe. We cannot imagine Italian food without the tomato, yes, but it arrives quite late. Or Indian food without the green chilli, but that’s also brought by the Portuguese to India. It’s not indigenous. Whether it’s through botany and seeds, whether it’s through textiles, whether it’s through trade goods that changed the way we live. All of these aspects really fascinated me as a as a young curator And at the VNA, I grabbed a hold of this question of furniture because for me this Anglo Indian furniture was a reflection of myself. I remember when I first saw a piece, it was an ivory chair based on a Robert Adam design, so late 18th century in the Vienna Museum. And when I went to see the head of the furniture department to ask about the chair, he said to me, well, it’s an Indian chair. We don’t know anything about it. And when I went to the head of the Indian department, Debbie Swallow, she said to me, well, it’s made in India, but it’s a chair. It’s not an Indian thing. It’s Western. So this object was lost in translation.
Pearl Lam: Completely lost in translation.
Amin Jaffer: Yes, you can say it belonged to neither East nor West, and at the same time, it’s the product of the meeting of East and West. So when I was 21 and 22 and 23 and, you know, quite lost in the world, I felt that these objects were like a reflection of myself because I was the product of these different cultures. But I was not wholly in one culture, you know? And it was as a result of this research that I started to go to India. And in a way, I began to find myself and find my identity and.
Pearl Lam: Wow, it’s only at the age of 23 you start going to into into India so it must be fascinating.
Amin Jaffer: Well, it was interesting because it was the first time in my life that I was in an environment where I was the same colour as
Pearl Lam: As yeah.
Amin Jaffer: around me so I could disappear, you know, before that I could, I could never disappear. And it was also the first time in my life where I heard the languages we speak at home, Kachchhi and Gujarati heard all around me in shops and restaurants, etcetera. So I knew that I was at home. So this was a, you know, a moment of big recognition. But the theme of encounter is something that’s marked my entire academic and curatorial career. So, you know, after the furniture, I became interested in China, Japan, India and the West and, and Edward Said’s book Orientalism. Yes. And so Anna Jackson and I did this exhibition called Encounters, which tried to show how different Asiatic people looked at the West. So, you know, we think a lot about Shinwazuri. We think a.
Pearl Lam: Lot about Shinwazuri.
Amin Jaffer: We all love Shinwazuri. I love. But we have to remember that at the same time, in India and in China, there was a similar fascination for the buildings of the of the West. The Summer Summer Palace complex is the Baroque Pleasure Garden.
Pearl Lam: And not this, the old summer palace, the one, the one being burned down completely Baroque. Well, we can only see some drawings, painting. Can you imagine if it is? I mean, if it would have survived. But it was fascinating.
Amin Jaffer: Fascinating. What’s interesting, though, is that of course the Yongzheng Emperor and the Qianlong Emperor were fascinated by European painting techniques and perspective, by European astronomy, by glassmaking, by many European technologies, whether it was lenses or mirrors or clocks. The fascination for clocks and what this exhibition tried to do is to break down some of the cultural stereotypes we have, because we’re always raised to think that China has never been interested in the West.
Pearl Lam: Oh no, not at all. The Qianlong was the height.
Amin Jaffer: Was the height of Western…
Pearl Lam: Was the height, yeah.
Amin Jaffer: And absorbing Western technologies such as glass technology.
Pearl Lam: Yeah, the Beijing glass
Amin Jaffer: Produce objects that are very Chinese. So this exhibition dealt with this whole question, not just trade goods and luxury goods, but we also looked at religion, we looked at the transformation of Japan with Christianity, we looked at Christian art at the Mughal court, for example. And then after that, I became fascinated by a subject that that really marked my work for 10 or 15 years, which is Indian Princes’. And the fact that Indian Princes’ over time become more and more westernised. And although they maintain the same spectacle in the same parade over time, they do, they express their power through western goods. So the elephant is replaced by Rolls Royce, the traditional jewellery is replaced by Cartier, and all of the regalia is changed and westernised. The throne chair, instead of sitting on the floor, they’re sitting on a chair of silver. But this whole question of production of luxury in the West for consumption in the East is something that fascinated me because when I was growing up, we had such a strong obsession with the superiority of anything from the West.
Pearl Lam: I can understand, you know, absolutely, absolutely. I mean, I mean, and even China when it first opened and what they want is they want to be America. So the roads are big, big supermarket, everything is big, big, big.
Amin Jaffer: Yes, everything is big and western.
Pearl Lam: Yeah, Western. Yeah.
Amin Jaffer: And so I grew up with that mentality. I didn’t always accept it, but I grew up with it. And the maharajas and the Indian Princes’ of the late 19th and 20th century give up gradually the traditional palaces with floor based living. And they create Western style palaces, even if superficially. Even if superficially they look Indian, in fact, in, in technology and structure, they’re completely western. They have a billiard room, they have a swimming pool. They have all the western elite objects, all the western elite functions. And this became the basis of a book that I did called Made for Maharajas, which became, you know, translated in all the languages. And it’s thanks to that book that I I had a really lucky meeting with a great collector, which is His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Abdul Al Thani. We met in Voltaire a few weeks ago.
Pearl Lam: Few weeks ago, Voltaire and Turkey.
Amin Jaffer: In Turkey and then we did with all your girlfriends and then we did that great trip together in Baku.
Pearl Lam: Yeah, Baku. Yes. My God, Baku is another world. That’s more than 10 years ago.
Amin Jaffer: Yeah, that was 2000.
Pearl Lam: You were still a Christie’s boy.
Amin Jaffer: I was a Christie’s.
Pearl Lam: Boy, your life is, I mean, completely like a paradox academic. All of a sudden you are in the most extreme, not even the gallery, but an auction house. You have to sell. A director of Asian art. Art. How did I mean? Did you enjoy it?
Amin Jaffer: Yes, in the beginning I really loved Christie’s. I had a great time. You know what happened to me is I always liked at the same time as working hard. I always like people and I always like to go out. And so when I started to produce books at the Vienna Museum, I wanted to make sure they were very serious books because I wanted people to understand that I could go out at the same time as produce. And after a few years of doing that and doing exhibitions, I wanted to change. And I was very lucky after launching Made for Maharajas and that I was offered like that a job with one of the auction houses. And in the beginning, I was very reluctant, but very quickly I began to realise that this could be an exciting new chapter, you know?
Pearl Lam: And they pay much, much time that’s.
Amin Jaffer: But aside from that, it was the moment at which every week in the newspapers, it was about India opening up to the world, the new Indian billionaires, the new Indian museums that were going to happen. And so the auction houses looked at someone like me and thought, you know, I mean, he’s the right person to help us open this market. And for me, I was also very gung-ho and very, very, you know, full of beans, as you say, and full of beans to do things.
Pearl Lam: You were excited.
Amin Jaffer: I was excited and it was great fun because all of a sudden I was, you know, flying London, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, LA, Dubai, Baku, you know, leading this very exciting life, working with people like David Linley as he was Snowden today with fantastic colleagues like William Robinson, opening up markets, doing events, you know, going to Dubai with a team, setting up the auction room, selling the paintings, achieving record prices as soon as it’s over, going to Geneva for the jewellery sale. You know, it was a very, very dynamic and exciting life.
Pearl Lam: But from curating show, writing book to selling well, I mean, most of these academics whom I know, they can’t sell. You’re pretty amazing. You know you’re all rounded.
Amin Jaffer: No, it was the it was the Kachchhi Gujarati trading genes, you know, that were revealing themselves. But when I, when I signed my agreement with Christie’s, I made it. I made a deal in my contract that I could continue to do museum exhibitions because the big Maharaja show I did at the VNA with Anna Jackson was 2009. So it was after I joined Christie’s and I continued to participate in museum projects. And then of course, with Sheikh Hamad, we did while I was still at Christie’s exhibitions in the Met, in the VNA, in the Grand Palais, in the Palazzo du Calais. And you know, these were all projects that happened while I was still wearing my Christie’s hat. Christie’s also allows you the chance to find objects and to research them. Every week in the sale rooms, there are new things that you learn about. And it allowed me to really broaden my, my, my depth of understanding because I joined mid career, I had already a big address book. And what I found happening to me was that I was beginning to work with families. And the husband may be collecting Indian art, but the wife likes diamonds and the son likes design. And the daughter’s interested in 19th century painting. And it’s this sort of scenario. And although you cannot be an expert in all of these things, you can begin to understand the market.
Pearl Lam: Yes, absolutely.
Amin Jaffer: So you begin to see the market rise for Arab and Iranian art. You begin to see what’s happening, you know, in the Indian art sales, which Indians in the world are buying the paintings, where are they being shipped? Where. And so this was very fascinating from a market perspective. In between all of that, we had the economic crash, 2008, we had various things happening, Brexit, you know, so we, we saw big political shifts, but it was a moment at which we saw definitely the rise of India.
Pearl Lam: Absolutely.
Amin Jaffer: And working with Christie’s meant that I was part of a team that started auctions in India.
Pearl Lam: Oh do you? Do you have auctions in India?
Amin Jaffer: We had Christie’s auctions in Mumbai, so we would show the paintings around India and around the world. Then we would fly them all to Mumbai. We would do events, talks, lectures, dinners and then we would have the auction, and you know, so this was very exciting to be part.
Pearl Lam: Of course it is it especially, especially you developed the market.
Amin Jaffer: That you I was part of a group that developed the market with modern and contemporary Indian art, which was not normally my area of interest, but but I learned about it and I enjoyed it a great deal. But after a few years of Christie’s, to be honest, I was missing public art. I was missing the aspect of doing things for public good and for education.
Pearl Lam: I mean, those exhibitions are very important because it is popular. It’s not that it’s just for the elite, but people who’s curious about civilization, about culture, they enjoy it.
Amin Jaffer: For me, I was maybe not ever intelligent enough to understand jargon and art historical jargon. I always disliked it. For me, quality writing is writing that is accessible to everybody and that you don’t need to be formed in art history to read a good explanation of a painting. So that has always been the backbone of the books that I’ve done. And I’ve always believed that the importance of a great work of art or the power of art or artistic movements is that it touches us on a human level. And we, we are all humans. We, we have the same emotions. We all feel love, pain, jealousy, anger, you know, joy. And so, what I tried to do in the exhibitions that I’ve curated, it’s continued with the Al-Thani collection is often to show the meeting of civilizations and the meeting of cultures.
Pearl Lam: Now the last, last question I want to ask you, Chinese, Indians, Arabs, I mean, what is the common, what is the common thread? Do you think there’s a common thread? Because we’re all Asians, we know that, we know that there’s certain common points like like we have, you know, parents, they don’t want you to study art. They want to create a legacy, you know, all these sort of things, things. So expert.
Amin Jaffer: Well, you know, I’m art historian and historian and I was recently in Singapore. And if you go to the Asian Civilizations Museum and you see at the heart of the the museum a very interesting thing. It’s an Arab constructed boat that sinks off the Malay Peninsula and it’s full of Chinese ceramics.
Pearl Lam: Oh, I know that one. Yes, yes, it.
Amin Jaffer: And it has examples of Chinese gold and silver, let alone all the things that have disappeared, which must have been silks and cottons, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. It’s a boat of, I think, the 9th century.
Pearl Lam: 19th century.
Amin Jaffer: Yeah. And it shows the extent to which the Abbasid and the Tang empires communicated the sophisticated objects that were made in one part of the world for the other. When we think of the Islamic world, India and China, we we think about these very sophisticated trade routes. We think of the Silk Route, but we think also of the maritime trade all around the Indian Ocean into the into Southeast Asia, into the Pacific. The fact is that it’s a part of the world that’s geographically very tight one region to the other. And I think that this is exemplified perhaps by the story of the Mongols, because the Mongols come out of Central Asia, but within a few generations, their descendants are the Yuan emperors, the Mughal emperors and much of West Asia. And they have a common ethnic ethnic source. They have a common culture. They have a common civilization. It’s it’s it’s this this dialogue between East Asia, South Asia and West Asia is an ongoing one and.
Pearl Lam: But the trading is ongoing so and so the knowledge and everything is ongoing is is exchanging.
Amin Jaffer: Absolutely, absolutely. And, and, and what is so fascinating is to see works of art that reflect very much the taste and the technology of these different regions that are in constant dialogue. We think a lot of blue and white porcelain. Of course, it’s the cobalt that’s coming from the Islamic world into East Asia that makes possible this porcelain that has then shipped throughout the entire world.
Pearl Lam: Actually China during the during the Yuan dynasty, the Mongolians, they have, they have a lot of exchanges from Persia.
Amin Jaffer: Yes, you had huge exchange and you had very big communities. It’s very interesting because because of the visit to Singapore, I started to read a lot about the Tang Dynasty.
Pearl Lam: The Tang Dynasty is the beginning. The 800, yes.
Amin Jaffer: Yeah. And what’s interesting is that in the Tang port towns you had already very established communities of Indians, of Arabs, and we have quite a lot of information about them and how they trade.
Pearl Lam: You look at some, some porcelain, some of the patterns. Those are Persian patterns, absolutely.
Amin Jaffer: Yeah.
Pearl Lam: Those are the interesting.
Amin Jaffer: The fact is that in the 16, well, you know, the 16th century, you start to have European forms used,
Pearl Lam: Yes.
Amin Jaffer: But 16th, 17th and 18th century, you see such a wide range of Islamic culture forms being made not just in porcelain, but in Canton enamel, for example. And you only to read the inventories of the Mughal court or to go to Topkapi today to see in Topkapi Palace all the great collections of celadon, all of the great collection of blue and white. And you know, we know to what extent Chinese porcelain was prized. In the Al-Thani collection we have an important dish which is called a.
Pearl Lam: Blue and white or celadon?
Amin Jaffer: Blue and White called the Mahin Banu Dish because it has the inscription on the back of a Safavid Princess and the Mughal emperor. And it shows you how this dish which is painted in blue and white with grapes, hanging grape vines, the extent to which these Chinese products were were valued in different parts of the Islamic world. So I would say that that, you know, this ongoing dialogue over hundreds and hundreds of years really binds East Asia to South Asia and West Asia.
Pearl Lam: So when you start with the Al-Thani Collection, so did they give you a mission or you create the mission?
Amin Jaffer: Well, I, I have to start a little bit from the beginning. Yeah. In 2006 I launched this book called Made for Maharajas, and on the cover of the book I had a painting by Boutet de Monvel, French painter of the Maharaja of Indore. So he’s a westernised Indian Prince seated in Indian style, wearing 2 magnificent diamonds called The Indore Pairs. And the book launched everywhere. And just after I joined Christie’s, I received from a colleague a message saying that there was a collector, a gentleman from Qatar who wanted to, to talk to me. And I spoke to this gentleman over the phone and he said that he owned one of the paintings that related to the one on the cover of the book. And could I, could I see him in, in the. So I went to see him and I discovered that with this young collector that we had many, many interests in common in terms of avenues of collecting. In particular at the time he was very interested in 17th and 18th century France. Which has always been a big passion of mine. So we became acquainted, we gradually became friends, we got to know each other, We started to visit museums.
Pearl Lam: Of course, share the common interest.
Amin Jaffer: And over time, I began to work with him professionally from a Christie’s perspective. And of course, I’m speaking about His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Abdul Al-Thani. And over years I worked with him in many, many ways as a functionary. He’s a man of great taste and vision. And I, I, I brought to the friendship or the relationship, professional relationship, my museum expertise. And we started to do academic projects based on the collection that he formed first with the Met and the VNA, and we produced books of his collection. So I brought to that relationship my love of.
Pearl Lam: Because he because he won’t understand, or he won’t even be aware that this this can be put in a museum context.
Amin Jaffer: Well, I think as a great collector he was acquiring works of art for his.
Pearl Lam: For his own love.
Amin Jaffer: For him, for himself, satisfy his own passion and interests. And it was when museum directors and curators came to know him and came to see the quality of the collections that he understood that actually what he was collecting was museum worthy and should be in the public domain. And I think in the beginning His Highness was quite modest. And, you know, was, was, was perhaps, how can I say it? You know, to put yourself in the public domain in that way, you know, requires a certain state of mind. And I think that it, it took him a little bit of consideration, but it was very.
Pearl Lam: This is too high profile as well.
Amin Jaffer: Well, it means that you’re exposing yourself. You’re putting yourself in the public domain.
Pearl Lam: Yeah.
Amin Jaffer: Exactly. But I think that once Sheikh Hamad’s collection was more seen and known and people began to comment on its importance, and Sheikh Hamad began himself to realise that what he was assembling to satisfy himself his own interest was really a world class collection, that he began to feel that indeed, you know, we should be showing these pieces in museums. Sometimes they were short term loans for exhibitions, sometimes they were long term loans and sometimes they were entire exhibitions from the Al-Thani collection. And when these exhibition happened, I was the curator and we reached a stage where Sheikh Hamad said to me, I mean we’re doing so many exhibitions now. I think you should really leave Christie’s and come and work for me. And I was also, to be very honest, having a very hard time to stay abreast of doing 3 exhibitions a year or two exhibitions there as well as my Christie’s job and I was beginning to feel very, very stretched. I felt I was doing neither job as well as I would like to. So with that in mind, I left Christie’s very happily and we started to work on academic projects. And Sheikh Hamad said to me that, you know, after having shown the collection in so many places, what we really need is a permanent home. We need to have a space.
Pearl Lam: Isn’t it great because when he first collected she he was a shopaholic. He has been a shopaholic. He didn’t even think that he was going to have have a museum and it’s just naturally evolved.
Amin Jaffer: I think it was a natural progression.
Pearl Lam: It’s it’s great.
Amin Jaffer: I think it’s a result of the public interest in the collection that there was a feeling that we should have a space for this great collection. And we began to think about which cities would be the right cities. And we began to think about how we go about this idea of a public space and how do we, how do we work on this. And just by chance, around that time, in 2018, Sheikh Hamad received a letter from Prince Amyn Aga Khan telling him about a great project in Paris to bring back to life a building on the Place de Concorde called called the Hotel de la Marine, which was built in the mid 18th century as the royal, the kings of France kept their art collections. And eventually, after months of discussions, His Highness reached an accord with an agency of the Ministry of Culture of France to to show the collection in a 500 square metre space in the building. And so this of course led to another phase of my life, which was when Sheikh Hamad said to me, you know, if we do this project, it means you must go to Paris and, and.
Pearl Lam: And be there.
Amin Jaffer: Be there. And so it was a moment at which we began to think very, very seriously about what it is to make a new museum. And it’s one thing to make a new museum in fresh setting such as wonderful museums that you know as as they exist, but it’s another project entirely to make a museum in, let’s say, the most densely populated cultural zone in the world. Opposite from the Musee des Arts Decoratifs, opposite from the Louvre. You know, 10 minutes from the Centre Pompidou, 5-10 minute walk from the Grand Palais. You know, with all of these, all of these great institutions around us in a city which I would say is home to the most sophisticated government backed museum environment. Because one thing I understood both then and which I know now, having the pleasure of working for some time in, in this, in this, in this world, is the extent to which France as a government, as a state, backs and supports its cultural projects. The importance of the institutions, the cultural institutions, the museums, the projects, the exhibition programme and how these also reflect very important social movements, political movements.
Pearl Lam: Of course, of course. That’s what art is about, yeah.
Amin Jaffer: That’s what it’s about. And at the same time, we have to remember that we were also entering a world where there are many private presences, whether it’s the Foundation of Vito, whether it was Mr Pino’s books, whether it’s the Foundation of Cartier. You know, there are many also private enterprises that play a big role in culture in France. So this was, you know, a brave and very courageous undertaking to think that we could realise a new museum in the art of Paris.
Pearl Lam: But it’s very successful. I mean, people, every time when anyone visited the Al Thani Collection, they rave about it. I mean, I remember Scott calling me after visiting with you. What how beautiful it is. It’s So what is So what is your future plan for that?
Amin Jaffer: Well, I’ll tell I have to tell you a little bit about how the project.
Pearl Lam: Came about, yes.
Amin Jaffer: Please, I would say that when I came to Paris, I was asked two questions consistently. One question was, you know, do you really think Paris needs another museum? You know, don’t we have enough museums? And then the second question is what can you achieve in such a small space?
Pearl Lam: Yeah, 500 square metres is not big.
Amin Jaffer: And the and the resulting project which has been very successful as you say, is very much the reflection of the vision of Sheikh Hamad, who against all odds when everybody was expecting that the space would be in a Louis 16th taste because if it’s the hotel in Marine. Sheikh Hamad understood that what we needed was a contemporary avant-garde architect, stenographer and he chose a young Japanese architect called Shoshitane who was proposed by Sugimoto, the artist who is Japanese working in Paris. So he was able to bring the East and the West together. He also understood that what we must do is we must make a jewel box experience.
Pearl Lam: Yes.
Amin Jaffer: So we closed all the windows, we closed all the windows to control the light and we studied very carefully the offering of the great national museums around us. When you go to the Louvre, where you go to the Musee des Arts Decoratifs, say, etcetera, etcetera, what you see is works of art full of context. And what Sheikh Hamad understood is what we must do in the Al Thani collection is the opposite, which is to isolate and separate works of art so people can really immerse themselves into the physical properties of objects and to begin to develop connoisseurship.
Pearl Lam: Yeah.
Amin Jaffer: And he also felt that what would be exciting and interesting is for us to break some of the classic museum rules and to show works of art from different civilizations side by side. So this was a completely fresh approach because we were mixing, let’s say, poor materials like terracotta next to rich materials like lapis. We were mixing, you know, ancient Africa with ancient China with ancient Egypt and so.
Pearl Lam: This is the interesting part.
Amin Jaffer: So it was very fascinating.
Pearl Lam: Yeah.
Amin Jaffer: Because it’s it made for visually very thrilling experience.
Pearl Lam: And that it’s like a cultural dialogue.
Amin Jaffer: and it was curated so that there were various conversations in each of the galleries, various themes and the public responded very, very, very well and very positively to this. In addition to which we started to develop an exhibition programme and we have two exhibitions every year. The exhibitions always have a very strong message. We always show superlative works of art. The visit is normally 30 minutes or so, 40 minutes or so, but the idea is that you immerse yourself completely in the aesthetics of a different civilization or the aesthetics of a different world. I think that’s very, very important that it’s not just to come and look at beautiful things, but to look at these beautiful things, understanding that they can teach us something new or they will allow us to look at the world in a different way.
Pearl Lam: What is? Is the Al Thani Collection going to have an to build another outpost or increase the area?
Amin Jaffer: I think at this point, you know, as we’re very much the collection is, is completely a reflection of the vision of Sheikh Hamad and his his plan and his mission. I would say that the plan for present is really to perfect the offering in Paris before doing anything else. The most important thing is to consolidate and to grow our public to make sure that we’re delivering high quality exhibitions consistently and that we make our place in what is the most visited city in the world, where we have a very privileged location in the centre of the city.
Pearl Lam: Yes.
Amin Jaffer: Working with an agency of the Ministry of Culture of France, we are involved in lending constantly, yes, of course. And we are involved in in sending our exhibitions abroad to other institutions, for example, to lead onto another subject. I am appointed as presently appointed as Artistic Director of the forthcoming Islamic Art Biennale. In 2025 and I can’t tell you too much about it in terms of the next edition and what will it have, but I can I can tell you a summary is.
Pearl Lam: Is this going to be in Riyadh?
Amin Jaffer: No, the Islamic Art Biennale takes place in Jeddah, in a very special location. It takes place in the Hajj Terminal complex, which was built by the Americans in the 70s. It’s a wonderful tented ground with permanent buildings, which was designed to accommodate the millions of pilgrims who come to Jeddah in order to go to Mecca and Medina. And when I was a small boy, I remember reading about this complex in National Geographic magazine, and little did I know that one day I would be making a project there with my colleagues. But the idea of the Biennale is very revolutionary. It’s very interesting. It’s to show historic Islamic works of art with contemporary commissions and contemporary projects in dialogue.
Pearl Lam: Wow, that’s very.
Amin Jaffer: So we will take themes that come out of Islamic culture, Islamic ritual, prayer and belief, and to put them side by side with contemporary commissions by artists from around the world.
Pearl Lam: Congratulations, that’s so such a great thing.
Amin Jaffer: Well, I’m I’m really happy to work in the project with our really superlative team in an extraordinary setting.
Pearl Lam: When is it in 2025?
Amin Jaffer: So we’ll open at the end of January 25, So I hope you’ll come.
Pearl Lam: Very soon.
Amin Jaffer: It’s around the corner.
Pearl Lam: Wow, around the corner. Really around the corner.
Amin Jaffer: So now we’re working intensively on the graphics, on the catalogue, on.
Pearl Lam: How exciting.
Amin Jaffer: And, and the thing that’s very exciting is the number of visitors. Last year, I think the Biennale received more than 600,000 visitors. So it receives a very big public. And I would say a large number of those visitors are not necessarily normal or you know, repeat Biennale visitors. They’re often pilgrims. They’re people who live in Jeddah, they’re people who live in the region who come to see the spectacle to to understand something new. And so it’s a very important public.
Pearl Lam: How wonderful, you know, thank you so much Amin. Thank you, thank you. And then I think this is a great session and people knows more about Asia and knows more about what what you have been contributing.
Amin Jaffer: Thank you very much. You’re really generous.
