Collecting Is About Conviction: Meet the Collector Alain Servais

Moderated by Adam Budak

10.3.2026, 6 pm

In the series: Collecting: Anatomy of Passion

Discussion in English

Alain Servais is one of the most engaged, outspoken, well-informed and well-travelled collectors in the international contemporary art field. He belongs to a long tradition of what he calls an ‘almost extinct, risk-taking’ breed of collector, attuned to the most cutting-edge media and connected to the furthest art capitals. Since 2000, the Servais Family Collection focuses on underrepresented but also museum-quality art, supporting artists who raise difficult questions about materiality, corporeality, violence, racism, and death, with a special interest in video art and new media. Coming from an investment banking background, the Servais Collection is based out of an 1800-square-metre industrial space known as The Loft since 2000, where every year a collection exhibition by a guest curator is featured. Servais also runs an artist residency and actively lends works to institutions worldwide. During the meeting, Servais will reflect on what it means for a collector to act as a mentor, exploring how collecting can become an engaged, socially responsible practice that nurtures artists and is generously shared in the field.