Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on November 2010

©Katsuyoshi Tanaka

During the first few minutes of what seemed a perfunctory documentary about an elderly pair of art collectors, I was formulating in my mind a perfunctory review. (I know squat about art.) But not far in, I began to get interested, then fascinated, and finally moved. Herb and Dorothy Vogel, a postal worker and a librarian, have since the mid-’60s managed to build one of the world’s major art collections. Their criteria: the works had to be affordable on their salaries, transportable by subway or taxi, and able to fit into their one-bedroom Manhattan apartment. With the cats and the turtles. By the time Japanese journalist-turned-filmmaker Megumi Sasaki began shooting, the couple had amassed over 2,000 works of minimalist and conceptual art and were preparing to give it all to Washington’s National Gallery of Art (it took five 40-foot moving vans to transport it). They accomplished all this through their own “art”: instinctually, even mystically recognizing young, new talent and buying early. Motivated by a pure love of art, they never considered selling a single piece, and even today they’re using the modest stipend the gallery insisted they take to refill their little apartment. That’s just inspiring.