INTERVIEW: THE RESTLESS MIND OF FABIAN KLUTH
THE RESTLESS MIND OF FABIAN KLUTH
Fabian arrives at the Numéro office that day pulling a small carry-on suitcase behind him, walking with the determined energy of someone who has decided there is no time to waste. He is in Berlin to record an episode of his podcast one.voice together with Numéro publisher Götz Offergeld – four more conversations with different guests are planned during his short stay in the city, he mentions casually. He already has all the equipment with him; setup will take five minutes, maximum.
At just eighteen years old, Kluth is already considered one of Germany’s youngest art collectors and recently staged an exhibition in Berlin featuring works from his collection one. The fact that he personally wrote email after email inviting our team to this event feels symbolic of his entire approach: persistent, direct, and completely unimpressed by any kind of rule.
It becomes obvious within the first few minutes that Fabian is exceptionally intelligent. While others spend years building an understanding of art, markets and cultural systems, he seems to have absorbed that knowledge in an astonishingly short amount of time – through books, conversations, YouTube tutorials and obsessive research. It all began during the pandemic with a work by Rosa Loy that he financed himself through student jobs. Today, he funds his collection through stocks and crypto investments and focuses primarily on contemporary artists engaging with themes such as gender, politics and the social structures shaping everyday life. But intelligence alone does not explain his momentum. It also takes vision and a willingness to simply begin before doubt has the chance to grow too large.
That is exactly what we speak about with Fabian Kluth in this conversation.
Ann-Kathrin Riedl: When the media writes about you, you are described as Germany’s youngest art collector. How did that come about? Did you grow up in an environment that was passionate about art?
Fabian Kluth: It really began during Covid. We were all sitting at home, locked in, and at some point you just get bored. I never really had much homework from school, so by Monday I already felt like I had finished everything I was supposed to do. Then there were still six days left in the week that somehow needed to be filled.
So I started getting into all kinds of things. I was reading a lot – Goethe, philosophy, mathematics, physics – and I started asking myself: what do I actually want to do after this pandemic?
At some point school announced that we all had to do internships. So I randomly applied to an architecture office in Cologne. I realized very quickly that I would never become an architect because I was catastrophically bad at the artistic side of it. But I became fascinated by the question of what drives people creatively. And once you start dealing with architecture, you automatically end up dealing with fashion and art too. It’s all connected somehow.
AKR: So you introduced yourself to the art world. But how did that lead to collecting?
FK: I could never produce art myself. I’m completely incapable of that. I got terrible grades in art at school too. But I love to own my own pieces.
AKR: I think it’s healthy to have that kind of self-awareness. How did things continue from there?
FK:I discovered artists on social media, especially in Leipzig. One of them was Rosa Loy, the wife of Neo Rauch. I became obsessed with her work. So I tagged her on Instagram and emailed her asking for previews. Everything was far too expensive for me, obviously, but eventually I found one piece hidden at the very end of a PDF that somehow seemed possible.
I realized that if I worked gastronomy jobs all summer long, I could maybe afford it. So at the end of summer vacation, in 35-degree heat, I took a bus to Leipzig with a huge tote bag and picked up my first artwork.
AKR: Tell me more about it. Was it love at first sight?
What interested me wasn’t beauty. I don’t buy beautiful works necessarily. I buy works that move me or disturb me.
FK:Things that create friction. That’s still true today. It’s much more about themes.
And I don’t only collect paintings either. The exhibitions are very broad in terms of medium.
AKR: Which themes are important to you?
FK: The exhibitions are always about creating a reflection of our time. I think art should function as a mirror. It should confront us with ourselves.
I’m very interested in gender issues, environmental topics, consumer culture. Harry Nuriev, for example, is incredible. He did this exhibition with Dietrich & Schlechtriem where he created soaps with Balenciaga labels trapped inside them. I think that kind of critique of consumerism is brilliant.
Most of the artists in the collection are born in the 1990s or later. Some of them literally just graduated from art school or are still studying. I simply found them online, visited their studios and bought works directly.
AKR: Does the collection follow a commercial purpose at all?
FK:Not at all. Nothing is for sale.
At the exhibitions a lot of people immediately wanted to buy works. Which was actually great for the artists. One artist sold several pieces directly from his studio that evening because of the exposure.
But I don’t take commissions and I don’t want to. That’s not the point.
AKR: So how do you finance this passion today? Many people would probably assume that you’re a nepo baby.
FK: Absolutely not. But art isn’t necessarily as expensive as people think.
And honestly, Covid helped in that way too. I started learning about stocks and crypto – this was before the big AI boom. I invested in NVIDIA, Apple, Microsoft, Meta. It all developed relatively quickly. Today I make a lot of money through stocks and crypto.
AKR: The term “art collector” comes with a lot of associations – older men, wealth, status, establishment. What makes you so fascinating is that none of these clichés really apply to you. But do you sometimes feel that the way you’re portrayed is also a bit sensationalized?
FK:I actually hate the term collector. That’s why my project is called Platform and Vision and not “collection.”
Of course the stereotypes exist. But I’m not interested in profiling myself through art. I don’t need a Gerhard Richter hanging in my hallway just so visitors understand I can afford one.
AKR: The established art world is also considered quite closed-off – how did people there respond to you?
FK: In the beginning nobody took me seriously. They imagined some rich kid in Louboutins with daddy’s money.
But that was never me. I wear the same thing every day. Black shirt, same trousers, different shoes depending on the season. That’s it.
AKR: Is that because you want to eliminate the question of “What do I wear?” from your life by creating a uniform?
FK: Exactly. Like Steve Jobs with his Issey Miyake sweaters. I don’t want to stand in front of my closet every morning thinking about clothes. I want my energy elsewhere.
AKR: Which also removes a lot of the self-performance that defines our era.
FK: Especially now with social media, yes. But honestly, I also want the project to exist independently of me eventually. The interesting thing isn’t Fabian Kluth as a person. The interesting thing is the discussion around the work.
Honestly, this “youngest collector in Germany” title gets old quickly anyway. Eventually there will simply be another younger person.
AKR: How do you position yourself in relation to the established art world?
FK: I don’t really care about conventions or norms. I do my own thing.
And honestly, criticism interests me more than praise. I need friction. I need tension.
AKR: You seem incredibly driven.
FK: If I want something, I go after it relentlessly.
There’s an artist I wanted work from for over a year. I called every Monday asking if there was something available. Every single Monday. At a certain point, he agreed. It’s persistence.
AKR: But where does that drive come from?
FK: That’s difficult to answer.
My parents never pressured me. Quite the opposite actually – very laissez-faire. But for me it feels natural. If I do something, I want it to work properly.
AKR: You give off a great sense of ease. Do you ever have to force yourself to do things, or does it all come naturally to you?
FK: Of course there are things you have to do. But generally I try to only do things I genuinely care about.
Look at today for example. I came to Berlin last night, didn’t sleep at all, tomorrow I’ll drive back at four in the morning, then I have appointments again immediately. But I just do it because I love it. Doing nothing stresses me more. I can’t lie on a couch for two hours. Impossible.
AKR: Is there anything in your life that calms you down?
FK: I have a horse. Laughs. Once a week I go there, clean the stable, put on rubber boots and walk around for two hours. That’s probably the calmest part of my week.
AKR: Alongside collecting and exhibitions, you also host the podcast one.voice, for which you’ve already spoken with people such as Johann König, Amir Kassaei, and most recently our publisher Götz Offergeld. How do you choose the people you speak with?
FK: I’ve always loved misfits.
I felt like all the existing art podcasts always invited the exact same people. I wasn’t interested in that. I wanted people with friction. Naturally I already had close contact to many artists because I collect their work.
AKR: Would you describe yourself more as an observer than a participant?
FK: In a club I’d probably sit at the bar watching people instead of dancing.
But eventually I’d still walk over and talk to them.
AKR: What would fulfillment mean to you?
FK: Definitely not repeating the same exhibition format for the next forty years. The vision is much bigger than that. I want to bring people together. That’s really the core idea behind everything.
And honestly, if tomorrow I wake up and decide I want to make a magazine instead, or open a clothing store, then I’ll do that.
AKR: With the same intensity.
FK: Exactly. Whenever I get excited about something, I start immediately. Perfectionism is basically fear in disguise. I don’t really care about perfection at first. I’ll just ask ChatGPT how to solve things.
AKR: What would your advice be to people who want to realize their ideas but keep getting stuck in overthinking?
FK: Honestly? You just have to fall on your face again and again. Fail repeatedly. Get up again. Continue.
You just have to analyze what you’re doing and how you can improve it. Not everything has to be radically disruptive immediately. Sometimes it’s enough to question existing systems and optimize them differently.
Germany especially has this fear of failure. But life is too short to spend it doing things you don’t care about. I don’t want to wake up every morning working on topics I feel nothing for. That’s the real nightmare to me.
Fabian´s podcast „one.voice“ featuring Götz Offergeld as an episode guest can be listened to here.
