Page 11 - David Bermant Foundation

10(continued)Much has been said about those qualities thatmake up the ideal collector. The term “passion” is invariably used to describe the collector’s primary personality trait. With David Bermant, it certainly was a passionate pursuit, but it was more than the satisfaction of a need to possess things. With David, it was a cause to be shared. When I asked him to display his extensive and varied collection with us,I saw a side of him that endeared him to many. He saw in my invitation the opportunity to expose a new kind of art to yet another audience. The night of the opening reception, he became an evangelist, preaching and educating everyone in the galleries as to the wonders of what these artists had achieved. I can still see him demonstrating the interactive work by Nam June Paik, an artist whom David admired and championed early on. His devotion to the cause of new and exciting media won over many thatvery night, making our future efforts to present a permanent home for technologically based art at the Butler Institute much easier to accomplish.It is certainly no wonder that the artists collected by David would have such great affection forthe man. Over the years, the Butler has shown numerous Bermant artists in the museum’s Bermant Gallery, and with each exhibition comes a tribute to the singular vision of this extraordinary man.It is clear that the artists who experienced David’s encouragement and support remain committed to the ideals of David Bermant. Even though David has been gone for some time, his adventurous spirit seems to be alive in the artists who first inspired him and, in return, inspired. But I am convinced that David would be thrilled to know that anothergeneration of artists has taken the banner and are running with new ways to marry art and science. He would be overjoyed at what has transpired as a result of digital technology being available to the artistic mind. He would be ecstatic to know LEDs have advanced so dramatically, and that computers and large-scale digital printers are offering images with such clarity as to be unimaginable just ten years ago.That ever advancing technologies would oneday become a tool of the artist would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. But David Bermant saw this. He envisioned a world of art that dazzles us visually while challenging us intellectually. The future of the artist, as David Bermant predicted, would be intrinsically tied to the scientist. David applauded this collaboration and devoted a great deal of his life to permitting it to flourish. Hisvision and his good work will live on through the ongoing creative energy within the artists whom he discovered and promoted, and through the spark of innovation found within a new generation of artists who are, and will be, inspired by what he was about. Thank you, David Bermant, not only for what you once accomplished, but also for the impact thatyou continue to have on us. You introduced us to a universe of new ideas, and in the process enriched our lives and stimulated our imagination as to what the future of art may become.