Collecting as History: Who Decides What Gets Remembered?
Who decides what gets remembered?
More often than not, it’s the collector.
Collecting is often framed in terms of value: provenance, price, rarity. In the public imagination, it’s about auctions and access - a world of discreet advisors and silent bidding paddles. But that idea barely scratches the surface.
A closer look suggests something more powerful: collecting shapes what gets remembered. Memory becomes history. And history, in turn, helps define culture.
Behind every collection is a series of choices - what to preserve, what to elevate and what to leave behind. Those choices tell us what mattered to a society. They tell future generations what this moment stood for.
In that sense, collecting isn’t just about taste or investment.
It’s about authorship.
What We Keep, What We Lose
Museums and archives often feel permanent. But they’re built on decisions - often subjective, and/or political - about what should be remembered. What gets included is only half the story, but what gets excluded matters just as much.
Consider the tradition of European oil painting. From the 15th to 19th century, oil painting thrived as much for its symbolism as its technique. It became a tool of cultural power -celebrating ownership, lineage, and authority. Artists used it to glorify their patrons: tables heavy with fruit, silks draped over chairs, hunting dogs bred for prestige. Even religious or mythological scenes carried a quiet emphasis on possession.
Still life, with objects of fruit, silver and a knife, Pieter van Roestraten
Jan van Eyck, Portrait of Giovanni(?) Arnolfini and his Wife, 1434
These works didn’t just depict wealth.
They performed it.
Collectors commissioned art not just to reflect their lives, but to shape how their status and values would be remembered. They were part of a wider visual economy - one that told you who mattered, and why.
The Dutch Golden Age offers another perspective. Artists trained in Rome were schooled in heroic styles - saints, emperors, grand allegories. But back home, those subjects no longer held cultural or financial weight.
This shift was no accident. In the absence of monarchy or church dominance, it was the merchant class who commissioned art. And they commissioned what reflected their world: trade, home life, prosperity and control.
The Milkmaid, Johannes Vermeer (1658 – 1661)
In doing so, they didn’t just influence the aesthetic of their time.
They decided what was worthy of attention.
The idea of collecting continues to evolve in contemporary times, often moving beyond ‘ownership’ and into ‘collective authorship’.
Photograph: By Rossilynne Skena Culgan / Time Out | OlaRonke Akinmowo in The Free Black Women's Library in March 2023
Consider The Free Black Women’s Library in Brooklyn. What began as a mobile collection of books by Black women has become a living cultural site of memory. Visitors don’t just read or borrow - they donate, annotate and trade. The library travels to hair salons, parks and community centres, and in doing so, it blurs the lines between collector and participant.
By creating a collection of literary works authored by Black women, the movement ensures that their stories and voices are not buried under the weight of history. It protects the legacy of Black female authors over time. It decides what’s important and what narratives deserve to persist.
In this case, the archive isn’t static.
It’s alive, co-authored and constantly reshaped by the people it serves.
The Private Eye
Today’s collectors engage with themes far beyond beauty or rarity. Many are drawn to work that speaks to identity, migration, memory, and loss. Others see collecting as a way to keep cultural heritage within their country - especially in places where cultural institutions are weak or politically unstable.
At a recent Middle Eastern biennale, one Lebanese collector explained that her collection wasn’t just about personal taste. It was a way of protecting cultural treasures. By inviting people into her home, she wasn’t just showing them art - she was showing them what she believed deserved to be remembered.
In essence, her home becomes an unofficial museum.
A living archive of heritage, belief, and resistance.
These are acts of preservation, but also of quiet authorship. A way of curating the story of her people, on her own terms.
A private collection defines what is seen as important.
What is interpreted as meaningful.
What future generations inherit as truth.
The Real Value
As the art world globalises, and digital access reduces the need to make a pilgrimage to the original, the meaning of collecting has shifted.
In an era of visibility, ownership now signals something deeper.
Collectors today aren’t gatekeepers.
They’re stewards - selecting what deserves to endure.
It’s not about control.
It’s about commitment.
A belief that some ideas, some movements and some memories are worth anchoring in time.
Whilst the market may reward scarcity, it’s stewardship that turns objects into cultural anchors.
To Remember Is to Decide
At The Three’s Club, we’re not interested in collecting merely as a symbol of taste.
We’re interested in it as a statement of intent. We believe culture is not something to observe at a distance.
It’s something to participate in. To shape. To share.
We see collecting not as accumulation, but as responsibility.
A way to take part in the authorship of our era.
A way to answer the quiet but urgent question: what will our future remember about now?
History is not neutral.
It’s not inevitable.
It is shaped by what survives, and what survives is shaped by those who care enough to curate.
It is curation that decides what gets to enter the cultural bloodstream, what becomes an artefact, signal or truth.
Whether we collect objects, stories or knowledge, we are always shaping what endures.