“Intelligent collecting begins with the discovery or deepening awareness of core values through their reflection in objects that are found attractive; it expands from the confirmation of what we know and like into the enjoyment of otherness and different ways of understanding life. As William Davies King observes in Collections of Nothing, ‘Collecting, like art, is a way of coming to terms with the strangeness of the world. It is a form of wanderlust.’”

The quote above is taken from John Hutchinson’s Pairidaeza, published by the Gallery last year, which focuses on the theme of Paradise, as well as the psychology of collecting. The latter is rarely considered in contemporary art theory, despite its undeniable influence on the workings of the art world. The essay also considers how collecting can be seen as a sort of ‘curating’; a way of creating order and cohesion out of the chaos of everyday life.