Art Matters: The difference between the price & value of art

What is the difference between the price of art and its value?

For Ronan Grossiat, collecting is not a matter of speculation but of responsibility. He describes himself as an activist collector: someone who chooses engagement over passive investment, ethics over trend-following. A collection, in his view, is not a static portfolio of assets but a living, evolving practice that reflects social, political and cultural complexity.

Grossiat is deeply committed to strengthening the international visibility of contemporary artists living and working in France. As General Secretary of Association pour la Diffusion Internationale de l’Art Français, he helps lead a network of more than 300 collectors and patrons dedicated to supporting artists beyond national borders. In 2000, ADIAF launched the Prix Marcel Duchamp, in partnership with the Centre Pompidou, now one of the most influential contemporary art prizes in Europe. Grossiat has also served on the board of the Palais de Tokyo and on the Scientific Committee of Ateliers Médicis.

In 2022, he co-founded the Édouard Glissant Art Fund in Martinique, inspired by the thought of Édouard Glissant. Glissant’s concept of créolisation proposes that identity is formed not through purity or fixed origins, but through relation, exchange and transformation. For Grossiat, this idea extends far beyond the Caribbean. It offers a lens through which to understand contemporary art, and perhaps contemporary society itself, as shaped by encounter, complexity and irreducible difference.

At this Art Matters lunch, we explore collecting as a cultural act. What does it mean to support art today? How can collectors shape institutions, international visibility and artistic risk? And what responsibility comes with that influence?