Background
Protecting cultural heritage is difficult to define. It is not simply a question of protecting what we already know to be important. It is equally about having the knowledge, instinct and experience to recognise what deserves to be preserved before its significance is forgotten or lost.
Many people can stand in front of an important work of art or historical object without realising what they are looking at. Recognition requires knowledge, but also curiosity, experience and a feeling for history. In that sense, preservation begins with recognition.
I have travelled extensively throughout my life and visited museums, foundations and institutions around the world. I have had countless conversations with scholars, collectors, curators and people whose knowledge has influenced the way I see art and culture.
Some of this goes back to my school years at Niels Steensens Gymnasium, Copenhagen. The Jesuits who taught me encouraged intellectual curiosity and introduced me particularly to history, philosophy and the Renaissance. At the time I was simply ambitious to learn. I did not really know why.
Later I understood that it had become my calling.
This is part of the background to The Cultural Reserve.