“I don’t know anything about art,” boasts Marty Edelston, a cheery, toothy, 65-year-old New York businessman who recently donated his collection of 143 photographs to the Art Institute. “I just bought them for the messages.”
Hanging near the Hindenburg thing was a lenticular photograph by Barbara Kruger that reads, alternately, “Our prices are insane!” and “I’m just looking” as the viewer shifts angles. Of Robert Heinecken’s Untitled News Women: Diane Sawyer–a blurry, pointillist rendition taken off the television screen–Edelston says, “Beware of the media. Television is a killer of communication.”
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Edelston entered the media business himself 20 years ago when he founded Boardroom, Inc., now a hundred-million-dollar company with 77 employees and a current-offerings list that includes five special reports, eight newsletters, and nine books, all brimming with advice for businesspeople. Book titles include How to Do Everything Right. He sends out T-shirts bearing the platitude Happiness Is Positive Cash Flow.
Edelston also owns Barefoot Attorney, Chicago, July, 1989, another Sternfeld, which portrays a man standing in a corner office– perhaps at Lake and LaSalle, from the looks of his view. There’s a globe beside him. He has no shoes or socks on. “His company was just taken over by the Japanese,” mused Edelston.
“I had never given my art away,” says Edelston. “Then I had a revelation. Why not give up the whole collection? I had this great apartment and kept the shades down all day so the sun wouldn’t ruin the art. My walls were filled with the stuff. I couldn’t add another picture unless I took one down and found another one the same size. And that’s no way to pick photographs.”
At the “Lessons in Life” opening Edelston explained, “The more art I bought, the guiltier I felt.” A few years ago he handed out profit-sharing checks for the first time. “Some of my employees broke down and cried. It was the first time in their lives they were out of debt.” He realized he’d been a bit out of touch with economic reality.
