“Getting on the board of a museum is one of the most unquestionable ways to establish someone’s name beyond business activities,” said Sergey Skaterschikov, the founder of Skate’s Art Market Research.
Guggenheim Museum
Russian oligarch Vladimir Potanin joined the board of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 2002. The museum has two other international trustees: Finland’s Carl Gustaf Ehrnrooth, elected in 2008, and Dimitris Daskalopoulos, president of the Hellenic Federation of Enterprises in Greece, elected in 2009.
Potanin is the CEO of OAO GMK Norilsk Nickel, the world’s largest nickel producer. With a net worth of $14.5 billion, he ranks 59th on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. In 2005, his charity fund sponsored the museum’s blockbuster exhibition “Russia!” which drew 405,780 visitors.
Dasha Zhukova, the partner of Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, opened the Garage Center for Contemporary Culture in Moscow in 2008. The following year, Zhukova was elected to the board of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
For Russian collectors, joining American boards offers social prestige, connections and a tantalizing opportunity to shape the future.
“If you are on a museum board in the West, you are actively engaged in creating art history,” said Maria Baibakova, who is a member of the Russian and Eastern-European art acquisition committee for the Tate in London.
Most Russian museums are governed and funded by the state. “They are not buying art, they are not accepting gifts, they are stagnant,” she said.
Los Angeles
The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles has at least four international trustees, including Ukrainian billionaire Victor Pinchuk, who joined in 2009, and Eugenio Lopez, heir to the fruit-juice fortune of Mexico’s Jumex Group, who joined in 2005.