What does being a collector mean for to you?  

For me, being a collector is a concept based on discovering and it is also a family tradition at the same time. It is an endeavour that necessitates serious effort and energy. Being a collector requires constant reading and keeping pace with the changes. Forming a collection does not only consist of collecting works of art; but it also brings the facilitates making new friendships formed during the process collection and It is essential to preserve preserving the work of art as required necessary and share it with the public when the time comes. when if needed be, together with it

What kind of values does the collector create for the society according to you; and what is their his mission? 

The mission of the collector is to develop himself and the collection and his/herself  and also reflect the vision that the art has made them gain, to masses by share it with the society by while supporting the artists. When appropriate, Art reflects the state that the society is living lives in, contains the current contemporary, honours the past and shapes the future.  Within this context, the collector is provides a means for the transfer of these values. 

What is would you say are the social responsibilities of aspect of being a collector?  How should the artworks be preserved maintained? 

Instead of preserving keeping all the works of art in one place, we make several attempts to make them meet share them with the audience. The best example for this is Our art hotel called Casa dell'Arte would provide the best example for the latter. This is where we exhibit the artworks in our collection by constantly updating them on a continual basis. Also We also exhibit works in the common grounds rooms, rooms and corridors halls of our companies and factories. We have an arts space, where all our employees can visit exhibitions and attend the creative process every now and again; here is our artistic, creative and social area.
We have rather an organized space to preserve the artworks and a team to manage the collection.

Your father Yunus Büyükkuşoğlu is known as a collector who supports the artists.  Did he have any impact on your decision to become a collector? 

My mother and father have started our collection Our collection was initiated by my mother and father. We can say that we have inherited collecting was their inheritance to us from them. The artwork that has started marked the initiation of the collection for us and define its future tone, was the painting, that my father had seen in a framing shop in Fındıklı when he was 16 years old. This was years before he started doing this professionally; at that young age, he had saved up his money for six months to be able to purchase that work. This was the painting of a ship in a storm and it carried the signature of an artist by the name of Servet. A child that age, being impressed from by an artwork as such and saving all his money for months just to watch observe that picture, has impressed us a lot a big impact on all of us. 
Just like in the example of my father, when I am making my choices, I care to choose works, which carry traces from my dreams and character as well as works that leave traces on me.

When did you start buying for the collection?  What does this collection mean to you?

The first work I have acquired for the collection was I have bought bought from the Marlborough Gallery and it was a Sarah Pilkington. work from Marlborough Gallery for the collection. The second one I bought is was a Botero.

Nowadays the works I like the most are installations and sculptures, which combines technology, material and art. Also I am also interested in 3D printing applications in art and I believe that these last works reflect my character more rather than as compared to the first works I had purchased.

Our collection reflects the history of a family and in fact serves as a mirror. When we see how the works of art differ as time goes by, we can it gives us a chance to realize what we have lived have gone through as a family, how our tastes have changed and this gives us a different type of pleasure. 

You are second-generation collector. Do you think your daughters are going to continue the collection with the same passion? 

I have three daughters and the eldest one is 14. It is quite early to say anything; but they spend all their childhoods in surrounded by art with and artists. They grew up in Casa dell' Arte. The first thing we do when we go on a vacation is to visit museums and galleries whenever we go on a vacation. In our home, we always give priority to the works they like and they are the ones to choose the art works for their rooms. I think this all these rather effects their world-view have an affect on their stand in life. Only time will show if they are infected with the desire for collecting was passed on to them or not.

You don't present a stereotypical collector profile; you don't have a concern to be known as a collector. We see that you are rather trying to support artists in various different ways.  Would you like to share your thought about it with us?

To be honest, I am quite a little bored of this side of being a collector. Always the same people meeting in the same exhibitions and fairs do not satisfy me personally. First it was very attractive and I had even opened an art gallery; but then I understood that it was not something for me. Instead, it makes me happy to be with the creative people, who do good work and be both a spectator and a support in their adventure. This also improves me. After all, these are the people, who are going to define our value as collectors in the future. Therefore, I prefer to devote my means and time to them.

You had experience in various fields in the world of art. Keeping aside the cultural and artistic dimension, you have also been active on a commercial platform even if it was for a short period of time. of times rather then the cultural and artistic dimension. What would you say about the place and importance that the and the place of being a gallerist according to you? galleries have in the sector?

As I have mentioned, I had once opened an art gallery in Mısır Apartment also called again Casa dell' Arte.  In collaboration with my partner, we realised so many projects that had not been done until then in the world of art until then, with my partner. but Nevertheless, I have understood that the art business does not really go with for the spirit of  entrepreneurship spirit that I possess. 

" The procedure is predetermined in the artworld of art; you can not go out of it!" Going in the frame didn't really fit me, as I am a person, who has done everything in life out of a frame. As a person who has always lived outside the box, it did not agree with me to go inside it.  With this in mind, I told to myself decided to leave this business and concentrate on the part I liked, which is to incubate art. I also believe that the traditional gallery concept will change remarkably in the upcoming that this classical gallerist concept is going to change shape a lot in the up coming period. The world is changing at a considerable speed and I don't think that these kinds of institutions are going to will still exist in 10 years time. Now you can reach everything on-line. The artist can now run his own business. The museums change shape and they will even are more likely to have more active roles in the near future. Technology is going to transform art as it does most other things – so much will change in this field.

Cultural and artistic dimensions have always been more essential for you as compared with is on the foreground more than the commercial dimension. The Art Hotel concept in Turkey came into existence with Casa Dell'Arte Art Hotel, that you have founded in Bodrum.  You presented art as a life style by sharing the Büyükkuşoğlu Collection with the guests in the residence section of your hotel; you have placed consigned artworks for sale that can be sold on consignment in the holiday village section.   Also an art gallery, art workshops for children, gallery and musical feasts have all been added up to these sharings.  Your precious mother Mrs Fatoş, who has deceased in a young age, have made big contributions in the construction and the management level of this hotel.   In a way, this hotel is a reflection of your family culture and you are sharing this with friends. What are your thoughts on the hotel?

The Casa Dell'Arte idea simply came out of our wish "to share art". My father was a person collector, that ran after followed this hobby of his and thus we grew up in surrounded by art. My sister is an artist anyway. Initially, we wanted to create a space where we could hosting art. We wanted people to wake to art everyday and start the night with art. So we established the fist art hotel of Turkey in Bodrum, Torba in year 2007. We decorated each and every corner of it with works from important names of Turkish artists. This kind of boutique hotel was a first for Turkey and it had really good reflections both in Turkey and in the world; we had some very good feedbacks. Our hotel was chosen to be the "Best newly opened Boutique Hotel of Europe.” 2007 by British newspaper, The Guardian. We have hosted many guests from different parts of the world and we always received positive responses, which gave us encouraged us.  This space having a worldwide appreciation makes us very happy as a family, who has set their heart to art for more than twenty years. Our aim was exactly this when we first came up with the hotel idea. "To create a zestful space, where we can share art with art lovers and friends from all around the world, and to introduce present to the world, the Turkish art and Turkey to the world in the way it deserves to be presented."

Now, in addition to the tasks undertaken in the hotel, we also holding exhibitions in our gallery and we also have offer an artist residency programmes in addition to what we do in the hotel: each year, we host plenty of many young artists and curators in certain periods in our hotel and we crown their collaborative work with an exhibition.

You are a pioneer in finance, plastic industry, management, entrepreneurship and many other areas. You also guide and support female women entrepreneurship.  Yet, they are all related again to art in the end.  What would you like to share with us upon this topic?

I was invited to make a presentation in the Paris Art Fair at the end of last year.  Only two organizations were invited from Turkey to do presentations: Borusan and Farplas. The subject of the presentation was  “Art and Enterprise”. Owners of big cooperations and collectors, who have way bigger collections than us, told how art has contributed to their entrepreneurship and their companies.

My emphasis in my presentation focused was on "What art did for us" rather than "What we did for art". As we are a family involved in arts for the past 3 generations, the reflections of it in can be seen openly on every business we undertake make can be apparently seen, since we are family, who has been in the art for the last three generations. Via art, you can see the places, where you could have never seen otherwise, due to art and meet with people, who you could have never met, and learn a feat deal innumerable things from the artists. We might not be artists ourselves; and yet, with the inspiration we get from art and artists, we can create our own individual works of art in the business world by observing art and artists.

Your 'Art Residency' programmes, done in company with realised with the contribution of curators and with the collaboration of art critics, are giving provide different visions for the artists a different vision. What do you think about these programmes?

Our programmes are going on in a pleasant way very entertaining and each one of them forms a learning period for us as well. We invite a lot of international artists to Casa dell’Arte Art Residency programme every year. The programme lasts for 4 weeks and formed out of is realized with artists and a curator.

Robert Montgomery is  was one the artists, who made to do a single residency with us. The video work of Pakistani artist Bashir Mahmud, who attended the group residency programme, was accepted to Palais de Tokyo in France.

As to the caractheristics of each programme, we invite and gather artists together with local and international experts; organize workshops and conversation sessions with them during the programme.

We continue to do a follow up the carriers of on all the artists attending our residency programme even after they finish the programme and sometimes we make purchases from the acquire some of their works of these artists to for our collection.   

Which one these various roles that you have undertaken in the world of art, do you feel closer to appeals to you most?

The two facts are important for me: to be the one making the discovery and the one to make it possible.

What are your motivational factors the factors that motivate you as a collector?  How would you define ‘being a successful curator’?

The thing that What actually motivates me is in fact the art itself. The fact that it is in status of constant change and to see constant changes new formations always excites me. Being a collector requires to follow art closely and also to keep the pace with it. A good collector reads a lot; travels a lot; sees and is curious.

When did you feel you are a collector?  Did you feel that your taste and appreciation has changed during your adventure journey as a collector?

To be honest, I can't say I have completely felt it yet. It is possible to observe that our collection is out of does not offer a monotonous structure. On the contrary, it is quite variable. It has a very variable structure. When you see the difference of between an artwork that was bought 3 years ago and one from the one that was bought 3 years later; you realize how your taste and appreciation evolved in time within the frame of accordance with the situation and environment you find yourself in.

I think there is period of when every collector - as in life- when they reaches their his maturity and knows what he really wants.  I feel like that I am very close to this period. But, feeling is not enough: one has to both re-arrange the past collection acquired in the past in accordance with the one recently acquired and also it is necessary to spare a lot of time for it to be as good as you wish it to be.  I cannot spare the time this work deserves due to my other duties; therefore I sometimes have to postpone the things I want to do.

In your collection you also have artworks of art from foreign artists as well. How did you start purchasing these artworks?

We started 7-8 years ago; I was the one to buy the first foreign artworks of this collection anyway. As I said before, we started with Botero and Sarah Pilkington. Then we continued with artists such as Robert Montgomery, Markus Lüpertz, Herman Nitsch, Peter Zimmerman, Claudia Rogue, Matthew Collishaw, Malineh Afnan, Alan Feltus from various disciplines.

What do you think about the necessity of art and its contribution to life today? 

Art nourishes the soul; it is an investment suggests a value for your investment and a life style. Art is an investment that brings up a person and widens that person's perspective; being a collector offers other gains such as creating a value, sharing and supporting cultural production..

Is there any platform for collectors to share the artworks from their collection?

A lot of organizations like Saha, Spot have been formed lately to gather collectors around themselves. I quite like the organizations that Istanbul Modern, Sabancı and Elgiz museums realize for this purpose. 

Do you follow the foreign fairs and biennials?

The venues that these events are being organized, do become the centers attracting artists, critics and collectors as well as being centres, where a lot of works are exhibited together and the art world meets. It is a different experience to visit Paris during FIAC, Madrid during ARCO and Venice during the Biennial. Apart from all these, I try to go to big and rooted fairs such as Art Basel and Frieze as much as I can. It is quite worth to visiting independent fairs such as 'Just Mad' in Spain or 'Artissima' in Italy.