Gotta Have It

From whence comes the urge to collect? According to the historian/shrinks, from anxieties borne of erratic mothering, arrested development and repressed sexual urges--not in that order, naturally. The obsessive nature of collecting, the theory goes, is a form of transference, a process whereby the art object stands in for absent and undependable people, providing a temporary balm for emotional anxiety. The hunt is, of course, a ritual action intended to expiate uncomfortable emotions. Thus, a treasure like Titian's "Europa" functions for someone like Gardner as a less-worn "lovee," or infant's stuffed animal.

This "instinctual drive" theory of collecting has its most interesting application in the case of Art Lover, Anton Gill's 2002 biography of Peggy Guggenheim. Newly available in paperback, Gill presents Guggenheim as one quivering mass of id. Though not exactly repressed in matters of sex, in every other aspect, she fits the psychoanalytic theories to a T: abandoned in childhood by her father (who went down with the Titanic), massively insecure, disappointed in love, unable or unwilling to form the most elemental human bonds (such as parenthood). Gill's biography presents her as a "passive" collector, guided by the tastes and machinations of more dominant personalities, including not only advisers but her many lovers. Seeking their approval, as well as companionship and the applause of the intelligentsia, Guggenheim emerges as the ultimate poor little rich girl: neurotic, nosy, pitiful, but, fortunately, never boring. Her life may be the proof of Freud's theory that, in the 20th century, "neurosis [took] the place of the monasteries, which used to be the refuge of all whom life has disappointed."

Long live disappointment.