Other People’s Collections VII

Intuit offered another virtual collector tour this month – this time of Chicago collector Patric McCoy. He estimates he has over 13,000 works – mostly but not exclusively by contemporary Black artists. In my post “Horror Vacui” I quoted William Swislow who wrote that horror vacui or the fear of empty spaces was a “defining characteristic of many Chicago collectors”. Patric McCoy is certainly one of them. His art covers every wall in his apartment from floor to ceiling.

In that post I also wondered what the word is for people who want to put all the like things together. Whatever that is Patric McCoy’s collection embodies that too. One of his bathrooms hosts paintings of flowers, the other paintings of faces and hands (“dedicated to mothers who always say to wash your face and hands”), his bedroom is filled with nudes and landscapes (“the landscapes make it sensual rather than sexual”), and the front hall with paintings that feature eyes.

He also arranges his artwork by themes including “The Problems of Black Men”. Facing that is another section that celebrates the accomplishments of Black men.

After the virtual tour people had the opportunity to ask questions and in answer to one McCoy said he usually doesn’t think about themes when he’s buying artwork. He buys art that he likes and then when he gets home he figures out where it goes. And while I still don’t have a word for a collector who wants to put all the like things together I did learn a new word and concept from an interview of Patric McCoy at news-uchicago.edu. When asked what he does when he brings home a new piece (wondering I’m sure how on earth he finds room for it) he says, “I shuffle things around…there is a math field called topology. You can have a particular orientation of things and it looks like it’s full, and all of a sudden, boom: you’ve got all this space.” Topology – the reason a collector will never have too much!