‘Collecting art can seem like the antithesis of what I previously did – playing professional football for teams like the Cincinnati Bengals, the New York Giants, and Buffalo Bills. However, in football, much like anything else, you acquire greatness through repetition. When I was an athlete I would go to schools and talk to kids about working hard, the usual spiel. Kids would look at me and say, “Well, you have this body that is conducive to being a professional athlete,” not realizing that it doesn’t really matter, that there were countless players I played with and against in the NFL who didn’t have that physical advantage. Everything is about repetition. I believe that if you are sufficiently tenacious about something, you can achieve whatever it is you want. Not that there is anything to achieve in collecting. For me though, the gold standard is what [the American chemist, educator, and collector] Alfred Barnes managed. His collection includes masterpieces you can’t begin to put a price on. I first learned about him through the documentary The Art of the Steal [2009], and while he’s no longer alive, he’s my mentor in a way. He has had a great impact on me, from the way I like to collect to the philanthropic endeavors I would like to pursue. For example, I would one day like to leverage my relationship with the NFL, so that museums might put on exhibitions in stadiums and bring art to new audiences.   

‘Growing up, visual art was never a huge part of my life beyond the usual school field trip. However, after my rookie year in the NFL, a friend who was an art history major took me to MoMA in New York where a Claes Oldenburg exhibit was on. She explained to me that conceptual art is not necessarily about the object, that the object can be a vehicle for an idea. Another friend was always encouraging me to collect, and after that trip I got curious, which led to my first acquisition – a pink Warhol electric chair print. It was art you didn’t have to explain – I knew that Warhol was a name that everyone knew and it must be safe. Now I no longer need that kind of armor. 

‘When I first went to Art Basel in Switzerland, in 2017, I felt like a neophyte. After leaving Basel for Venice with my advisor Lindsey and getting stuck in Paris, I knew I needed to become more intentional. I became distraught that I had spent so much time on something but was still a novice. I thought, “You wanted to be like Barnes? Start doing what it takes.” After the fair Lindsey had mentioned something to me called “eye mileage”, so I’ve challenged myself to apply the same kind of discipline I had in football to collecting. I travel to see as much art as I possibly can. I believe the eye is a muscle and grows like your other muscles – I like to work out! I actually moved to Paris for a year in 2019, to visit museums all over Europe and learn French. Mon français est très mal!

‘For me, art is limitless. I believe it can uplift you and change the way you think. There are so many different avenues. Artists give you a peek through the looking glass at all the things that they are able to really delve into with their work. The crux of my collection is conceptual – it includes artists who use text, such as Glenn Ligon, Barbara Kruger, and the younger, Chicago-based Tony Lewis. During the pandemic I installed some new works from the collection at home. I thought it would be great to have art that started conversations around what’s been going on in the world. In the dining room there’s John Edmonds’ photographic series “Hoods”, partly inspired by the shooting of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida, near the town Lake Mary, where I grew up. And there’s Wolfgang Tillmans’ photograph of a raised hand at a Black Lives Matter protest in 2014, as well as work by Jon Rafman, Walter Price, and Devin B. Johnson, a young artist from Nicodim Gallery. The living room includes work by Cyprien Gaillard that uses the Chief Wahoo logo of [baseball team] the Cleveland Indians and points at the paradox of US sports clubs’ adoption of American Indian team names and mascots, irrespective of the country’s destruction of its Indigenous peoples. There’s a Kruger that reads “You drive a hard bargain”, and a great young artist named Julia Phillips.

‘I support the Walker Art Center in Minnesota, the Hirshhorn Museum in D.C., CalArts, and the Hammer Museum – institutions at the forefront of contemporary art and that intersect with my some of my beliefs. During the past few years I’ve had the opportunity to get involved on a more significant level. With some of the institutions I get to be closely involved with the conversations that are happening, whether it’s trying to even out collections, or in the case of CalArts, how to get deserving students the resources they need to flourish.

‘I enjoy art the most when hanging out with artists. A good friend of mine is Piero Golia, who founded the artist-run Mountain School of Arts in Los Angeles with Eric Wesley. A great number of up-and-coming artists are alumni, such as Chase Hall and Jordan Wolfson. Recently I hosted the Mountain School and we were on Zoom with Pierre Huyghe and in person with Albert Oehlen, Andrew Bernardini, Lauren Mackler, and Samara Golden. I love going to museums and seeing how much of what I’ve studied has stuck – which painting is which. And it’s an opportunity for discovery, knowledge, new books to check out. I also love getting lost in a city, like wandering around Dusseldorf between flights and seeing what I can find, or visiting the Wade Guyton show at Museum Ludwig in Cologne. As Ai Weiwei says, “Life is art. Art is life. I never separate it.”’ 

Skye Sherwin is an art writer based in Rochester, UK. She contributes regularly to The Guardian and numerous art publications.

All photos by Damien Maloney for Art Basel.