ARTnews Celebrates Launch of Redesigned Top 200 Collectors Issue -ARTnews

Artist Kehinde Wiley (left) and Swizz Beatz (right).

CASEY KELBAUGH FOR ARTNEWS

On Thursday night, ARTnews celebrated the launch of its redesigned Top 200 Collectors issue with Kasseem “Swizz Beatz” Dean and Alicia Keys at the World of McIntosh townhouse in lower Manhattan, along with sponsors HUB International, Collect Wisely, SRI Fine Art Services, and AXA ART.

Dean and Keys are new additions to the Top 200 list, and they are known for collecting contemporary work, with a focus on artists of color. In a profile of them in the Fall 2019 issue of ARTnews, Dean tells critic Antwaun Sargent of collecting black art, “These artists should get recognition,” adding that he and Keys “have to be the energy that we want.” Together, they own the largest collection of photographs by Gordon Parks in private hands, as well as key works by Cy Gavin, Toyin Ojih Odutola, and Paul Anthony Smith. They are the first black collectors of work by Arthur Jafa, whose films have appeared around the world, in venues such as the 2019 Venice Biennale.

Among many others present for the cocktail hour, intimate dinner, and afterparty were Jay Penske, founder of ARTnews parent company, Penske Media; collectors Adam Lindemann and Dan Loeb; artists Derrick Adams and Henry Taylor (both have works in Dean and Keys’s collection); collector and basketball player Amar’e Stoudemire; and rapper Biz Markie.

Those attending the event enjoyed mezcal by Mal Mezcal and previewed the menu for Paradise Hospitality’s forthcoming New York restaurant Pretty Ricky’s.