Why Would a Mega-Collector Want a Fair of His Own? We Spent a Rainy Afternoon With Felix Founder Dean Valentine Trying to Find Out

ARTNET NEWS
By Matt Stromberg

Art collector Dean Valentine in Santa Monica, California. Photo: Angela Weiss/Getty Images for Art Los Angeles Contemporary.

Under gray skies, a light drizzle was falling over the pool area at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, but Dean Valentine wasn’t fazed. Sporting a baggy, blue hooded sweatshirt over his thickset build, Valentine could have been mistaken for one of the art handlers unloading artwork, rather than one of LA’s most prominent collectors of contemporary art. The TV mogul—a former president of both Disney TV and UPN—has long been a champion of emerging artists, especially Angelenos, searching out undiscovered talent rather than established names. “I have much more fun with art that hasn’t been validated yet, because I get to be part of that validating process,” he told the Robb Report in 2011. [More]