This book offers insight into the private contemporary art and design collection of Swiss art collector and philanthropist Maja Hoffmann, portrayed by photographer François Halard and art director Beda Achermann. To complete the volume,Rirkrit Tiravanija has dispersed the British nursery rhyme “This is the House that Jack Built,” using a custom-designed font, among the photos.
A pharmaceutical heiress with a boho streak, the Swiss-born Hoffmann is often described as a collector, but she considers herself an “enabler,” “I don’t really want to own things. That’s not my focus. I want to make things happen.”
Known for her spot-on intuition, she has supported the careers of Fischli and Weiss, Fischer, Aitken, Philippe Parreno, and Douglas Gordon, among many others, and she’s plainly happiest when she’s in their company. Loyal to the artists she adores, she occasionally buys directly from their studios or simply funds their work and, unlike many a collector, has rarely put pieces up for sale. “She’s definitely chosen a community—it’s not the whole art world—and they are mavericks, all of them,” says New Museum director Lisa Phillips, who credits Hoffmann with putting her institution in closer contact with that milieu. “She likes people who think differently and aren’t afraid to express themselves in unconventional ways.”