Dallas-based mega-collector Howard Rachofsky, a former hedge fund manager and fixture of ARTnews’s Top 200 Collectors list, is teaming up with a collector some 40 years his junior, Thomas Hartland-Mackie, to start The Warehouse Dallas Art Foundation, a non-profit arts foundation at The Warehouse, an 18,000 square foot exhibition space in a former storage facility that Rachofsky opened in 2012.
The new foundation, which, according to a statement, has been formed to ensure an educational mission of both collections, will officially debut in February with an exhibition of works from both collections. Admission will be free.
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Rachofsky has long been a fixture of the Dallas art scene and a fan of collaboration. In 2005, he and his wife Cindy were one of several prominent collecting families in the city that pledged to donate their entire collections to the Dallas Museum of Art upon their death. (Rachofsky also promised the museum his home, designed by starchitect Richard Meier.) Rachosfky co-founded The Warehouse with fellow collector and DMA board member Vernon Faulconer; the space showed both of their collections until Faulconer’s death in 2015.
“There were a lot of ideas that I had that I couldn’t execute or wasn’t in a position to,” Rachofsky told ARTnews in a joint interview with Hartland Mackie. “And, being pragmatic, I just turned 80. That’s not old anymore, but it’s not young. The Warehouse and places like it—that really offer opportunities to meet artists, to meet curators, to explore ideas institutionally—is pretty difficult to do.”
Rachofsky’s collection, accumulated over decades, numbers some 1,200 artworks, primarily by American and European post-war artists. Hartland-Mackie, meanwhile, began collecting over ten years ago. Like Rachofsky, has served on the board of the DMA. As CEO of the Labora Global Ltd., he oversees his family’s investments and philanthropic activities; he collects art in collaboration with family members and has built the Hartland & Mackie/Labora Collection, which now consists in 300 contemporary artworks.
Under the umbrella of The Warehouse Dallas Art Foundation, Rachofsky and Hartland-Mackie will use the exhibition space to show works from both of their collections, as well as artworks borrowed artists and from other collections, and put on shows from outside curators.
“In our way we are helping to bring more of the art world to Dallas, which Howard has already been instrumental in doing,” Hartland-Mackie said.
The foundation had a soft opening during last week’s Two by Two auction, an event the Rachofskys have held in their home for the past 25 years that benefits both the Dallas Museum of Art and amfAR. (This year’s event, however, was the last, and it went out with a bang, with Alan Cumming as host and a performance by Chaka Khan.) Curators from the DMA organized an exhibition at The Warehouse celebrating 25 years of Two by Two, made up of works the museum has acquired with funds from the benefit auction over the years.
In February, The Warehouse Dallas Art Foundation will have its official debut, with an exhibition of works from Rachofsky and Hartland-Mackie’s collections that will include pieces by Anicka Yi, Wade Guyton, Cavin Marcus, Rashid Johnson, Dana Schutz, Philippe Parreno, Pierre Huyghe, Marguerite Humeau, Carrol Dunham, and Howardena Pindell, and will be curated by Hartland-Mackie’s art adviser Benjamin Godsill and Thomas Feulmer, The Warehouse’s in-house curator. There will also be, as Rachofsky put it, “a little influence from Thomas and I to put some seasoning on it.”
Hartland-Mackie said his passion for Dallas comes from living there during college and for some years afterwards. He has since moved to Costa Rica with his family, but his mother lives in Dallas. “It’s got a great group of people who are tremendously philanthropic in the arts,” he said. Two by Two, he added, was one of the things that inspired him to start an art collection. “It was a way for me to see amazing artwork and get to understand a little bit more about that world, and start to buy some art in a way that felt like, Okay, I’m supporting some great artists, but I’m also supporting great causes. Through that, I built a relationship with Howard and started to learn from him.”
Rachofsky and Hartland-Mackie went on to buy artworks together, which Rachofsky characterized as “usually installation-based, works that were difficult to house.” Hartland-Mackie said he is looking forward to using the Warehouse to show precisely those kinds of works.
“As stewards of these artworks, it makes me sad that we have so much work in storage and in some cases has sat there since I acquired it,” Hartland-Mackie said. “Things that are hard to show in domestic settings. I have this amazing Philippe Parreno Christmas tree that we can’t wait to install at some point.”
The collectors emphasized that education will be a big part of the foundation’s mission. Caitlin Overton, who oversees education for The Warehouse, will work for the foundation on community outreach as well as schools.
“The idea of the foundation is really to give [the collection] a long-term future, an indefinite future, if you will and not to just terminate when I’m terminated, so to speak.” Rachofsky said.
