BusinessWeek – In a darkened 19th-century former church near London’s Regent’s Park, Michael Platt sips white wine and contemplates an unusual altar display: a life-size wax gorilla nailed to a wooden cross.
The sculpture is a new work by Paul Fryer, a young British artist whom Platt, co-founder of hedge fund firm BlueCrest Capital Management Ltd., has sponsored for the past three years. Like a modern-day Medici, Platt has recouped his investment by selling Fryer’s works to collectors such as French billionaire Francois Pinault.
As he gazes at the ape — intended to represent the desecration of nature — Platt, 41, says, “The point is not to make money out of it; it’s to have fun. I’m not trying to make the art business my ticket out of the hedge fund world.”
