A background in Neuroethics led Emilie to start building a collection with a focus on perceptual abstraction. Fascinated by cognitive enhancement issues and Phenomenology, she was drawn to wonder how the human body perceives an artwork in space. Dating from 2012, her first acquisition was an Incomplete Open Cube (1974) by Sol LeWitt. Since then, building on the eclectic collection of her grand-mother Claire De Pauw, she has been trying to gather works calling attention to the viewer’s experience, both on a sensory level and that of our consciousness. And if most of the acquired works are from the 1960s, she is keen to discover living artists who are pushing these groundbreaking approaches further. Also, given the nature of certain artworks – kinetic pieces, light or sound installations – Emilie decided a couple of years ago to host them in a house in Brussels, where she is from, and to welcome people who share these interests.

Recently ranked among the top ten most influential French women in the art market,Anne-Hélène Decaux has been combining different occupations for fifteen years. As a specialist in 20th century art, Anne-Hélène Decaux directed the Post-War and Contemporary Art Department at Sotheby’s for over five years, before joining the prestigious Gagosian Gallery in early 2021. Anne-Hélène is also an engaged curator. She began her career at the Aga Khan Foundation, organized several exhibitions for Wild Touch, a French NGO distinguished for its remarkable work in raising public awareness about climate change, and since 2020 she has been developing artistic projects for Panoptes, a non-profit initiative based in Brussels. Anne-Hélène has been President of Thanks for Nothing since the beginning of 2021.