BMW Art Guide by Independent Collectors

The Donum Collection

One of the world's largest accessible private sculpture collections

Artificial Rock No. 126, Zhan Wang, 2007–13. Photo: Robert Berg
Artificial Rock No. 126, Zhan Wang, 2007–13. Photo: Robert Berg

Founded in 2011, The Donum Collection is one of the world's largest accessible private sculpture collections. More than 50 monumental works, including open-air sculptures, are placed on The Donum Estate, with over a third being site-specific commissions. Throughout our 200-acre estate, each piece plays with scale, nature, and imagination. This evolving collection brings together a global community of artists, including works from leading practitioners from 18 nations, across six continents. Donum brings to life a delicate balance between wine, land and art that has made it an international destination.

Vertical Panorama Pavilion is The Donum Estate’s newest bespoke architectural experience. The structure was designed by Berlin-based design firm Studio Other Spaces, founded by artist Olafur Eliasson and architect Sebastian Behmann.
Inspired by the history of circular calendars, the conical canopy is centered on a northern-oriented oculus and glazed with 832 colored, laminated glass panels depicting yearly averages of the four meteorological parameters at the Estate – solar radiance, wind intensity, temperature, and humidity. The glass panels consist of 24 colors in variations of translucent and transparent hues, which resonate with the colors of the local environment in the Sonoma Valley.

© Vertical Panorama Pavilion at the Donum Estate, 2022, Studio Other Spaces – Olafur Eliasson and Sebastian Behmann – Photo: Adam Potts
© Vertical Panorama Pavilion at the Donum Estate, 2022, Studio Other Spaces – Olafur Eliasson and Sebastian Behmann – Photo: Adam Potts
© Vertical Panorama Pavilion at the Donum Estate, 2022, Studio Other Spaces – Olafur Eliasson and Sebastian Behmann – Photo: Adam Potts
© Vertical Panorama Pavilion at the Donum Estate, 2022, Studio Other Spaces – Olafur Eliasson and Sebastian Behmann – Photo: Adam Potts

Reaching Out

“She is a fictional character holding a mobile phone in both hands, socially connected yet consumed in isolation. Her pose is a reconsideration of statues, commonly seen preserved in a triumphant stance. Reaching Out rejects that grandeur and reconsiders those we've been taught to hold greater value within the nation — the sculpture presents a different proposition of conquering space. The US is such an essential arena for debate around this subject; it is an opportunity to expand the dialogue. For it to be placed on Donum and join such a range of global practitioners is an honor."

Artist, Thomas J Price

Thomas J Price, Reaching Out, 2021. Silicone bronze, 290 x 90 x 86 cm © The Donum Collection and the artist. Photo: Robert Berg
Thomas J Price, Reaching Out, 2021. Silicone bronze, 290 x 90 x 86 cm © The Donum Collection and the artist. Photo: Robert Berg
Thomas J Price, Reaching Out, 2021. Silicone bronze, 290 x 90 x 86 cm © The Donum Collection and the artist. Photo: Robert Berg
Thomas J Price, Reaching Out, 2021. Silicone bronze, 290 x 90 x 86 cm © The Donum Collection and the artist. Photo: Robert Berg

nuns + monks will continue to address the dual reflection between the inner self and the natural world. Just as the external world one sees is inseparable from the internal structures of oneself, nuns + monks allows such layers of signification to come in and out of focus, prompting the viewer to revel in the pure sensory experience of color, form, and mass while simultaneously engender in an altogether contemporary version of the sublime.

Ugo Rondinone, Nuns + monks (Orange Yellow Monk, Black Red Nun, and White Blue Monk). Painted bronze, various sizes, 2020 © The Donum Collection and the artist. Photo: Robert Berg
Ugo Rondinone, Nuns + monks (Orange Yellow Monk, Black Red Nun, and White Blue Monk). Painted bronze, various sizes, 2020 © The Donum Collection and the artist. Photo: Robert Berg

"The Care of Oneself" at Donum is a monumental sculpture of an idealised male nude that carries the inanimate body of another male nude – in much the same way that the Virgin Mary carries the lifeless body of Christ in Michelangelo's "Pietà". Considered more closely, the two figures reveal themselves to have the same face. They are, in fact, one and the same.

The Care of Oneself, Elmgreen & Dragset, 2017. Photo: Robert Berg
The Care of Oneself, Elmgreen & Dragset, 2017. Photo: Robert Berg

“Maze” was created out of a matrix of brass-coated stainless steel tubes that reflect the surrounding landscape. The work creates an optical illusion: from the outside, viewers have no idea what the structure is, and its elements shift with the light. From the inside, the grid forms both a pathway and a prison, as viewers look out at the world through the steel bars. The work is more playful than political though and reminds us that we see nature through a grid of our own making, whether through technology, through the window of a car, or looking at a photograph or painting of nature.

Maze, Gao Weigang, 2017. Photo: Robert Berg
Maze, Gao Weigang, 2017. Photo: Robert Berg

People Tree high on a hill, overlooking the pond, Gupta’s expansive sculpture, in the form of a giant banyan tree with its prominent “aerial prop roots”, is simultaneously an expression of traditional and contemporary life in India, one of the most populous nations on Earth. Thousands of ordinary stainless-steel dishes and pots are carefully melded to form the crown of the ubiquitous tree of the subcontinent, its lavish trunk and branches also dramatically formed from the super-shiny white metal.

People Tree, Subodh Gupta, 2017. Photo: Robert Berg
People Tree, Subodh Gupta, 2017. Photo: Robert Berg

© The Donum Estate and the artist.

For more Information visit The Donum Collection.

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