Presented by BookHampton & Guild Hall
Join collector and philanthropist Glenn Fuhrmanand artist Jeff Koons for a conversation exploring their distinguished careers and the ideas, relationships, and experiences that have shaped their engagement with contemporary art.
Taking Fuhrman’s recent book, Collecting Contemporaries: The Fuhrman Collection, as a point of departure, Koons and Fuhrman reflect on defining moments in their respective journeys as artist and collector. Together, they consider the evolution of artistic practice and collecting, the personal impulses behind building a collection, and the dynamic relationship that develops between artists, collectors, and their work.
Book sale & signing to follow.
Glenn Fuhrman
Glenn Fuhrman is a co-Founder and co-Managing Partner of Tru Arrow Partners, an investment partnership based in New York, formed specifically to partner with investing families from around the world. Prior to launching Tru Arrow Partners, he Co-Founded MSD Capital, L.P. (“MSD”), the private investment firm for Michael Dell, the founder and CEO of Dell Technologies, serving as it's Co-Managing Partner for over 20 years.
Glenn is a long-standing art collector and in 2007, he founded The FLAG Art Foundation in New York as an independent exhibition space open to the public. FLAG also co-sponsors a bi-annual artist award with Serpentine. The inaugural recipient of the 200,000 GBP Prize was just announced to be Gozo Yoshimasu. In 2013, Glenn and his wife Amanda sponsored the creation of the nation’s largest free Wi-Fi network covering 95 city blocks in Harlem. In 2019, the Fuhrman’s launched the annual FLAG Award for Teaching Excellence which awards extraordinary NYC Public School Teachers cash awards ranging from $1,000 to $25,000 each Spring.
Glenn is a Trustee of New York-Presbyterian Hospital, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, and The TATE Americas Foundation. He is also a Board Member of The Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, the 92nd Street Y, the Federal Enforcement Homeland Security Foundation, The Central Park Conservancy, Gagosian Gallery, and The Spence School.
Jeff Koons
Jeff Koons is one of the most prominent artists working today. He is known for transforming everyday images and objects into works of art that engage the viewer. For over four decades, Koons has explored themes of self-acceptance, empowerment, and transcendence.
Jeff Koons was born in York, Pennsylvania in 1955. He studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He received a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 1976. Since his first solo exhibition in 1980, Koons’s work has been shown in major galleries and institutions throughout the world. He is widely known for his mirror-polished stainless-steel sculptures Rabbit and Balloon Dog and universally recognized for his monumental floral sculptures. Puppy is on view at Guggenheim Museum Bilbao while Split-Rocker is on permanent view at Glenstone in Maryland and outside the new David Geffen Galleries at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
His work was the subject of a major exhibition organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art, Jeff Koons: A Retrospective (June 27 - October 19, 2014), which traveled to the Centre Pompidou Paris and Guggenheim Bilbao. Recent exhibitions include Shine at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence; Jeff Koons: Lost in America at QM Gallery ALRIWAQ in Doha; Jeff Koons: Apollo at the Slaughterhouse, a DESTE Foundation Project Space, in Hydra, Greece; Jeff Koons: Porcelain Series at Gagosian in New York; and Jeff Koons: Paintings and Banality, Selected Works at Espace Louis Vuitton Osaka in Japan. Currently, Jeff Koons: 'Venus' Lespugue is on view at The Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens, Greece.
Jeff Koons lives and works in New York City.
Sponsors
Performing Arts programs are supported by 2026 season sponsors Galia Meiri-Stawski and Axel Stawski, with additional lead support from Henry and Peggy Schleiff, The Melville Straus Family Endowment, Monica and Peter Tessler, and Vital Projects Fund.
Guild Hall’s Performing Arts programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
Additional support provided by Friends of the Theater: Natascia Ayers and Jim Ciquera, Bonnie and Joel Bergstein, Gene Bernstein and Kathy Walsh, Amy Cooney and Marty Feinman, John and Joan D’Addario, Suzanne and John Golden, Hilarie and Mitchell Morgan, Steve and Susan Pesner and Peace, in memory of Michéle Pesner, whose entire life was devoted to all aspects of culture, The Schaffner Family Foundation, Lisa Schultz and Ezriel Kornel, Stacey and Oliver Stanton, Susi and Peter Wunsch, and Mrs. George Yates.