Neel Khokhani: ‘The Two Sides of My Life Meet There’

Unlike some collectors, Neel Khokhani’s interest in how art is stored is no afterthought.

The Australian entrepreneur, who began collecting around seven years ago, is based in Dubai, where his home is filled with works by artists including Ed Ruscha, Alex Katz, and Caroline Walker. A Leilah Babirye sculpture is among his recent additions.

When he went looking for off-site storage in the emirate, what he found was less than ideal, however. So he set up his own company, offering secure, climate-controlled storage for fellow Gulf-based collectors. Called Vachi, it recently opened a second facility in the Al Quoz industrial district, close to Dubai’s commercial galleries on Alserkal Avenue.

“The two sides of my life meet there,” he says. “The investor in me saw a structural gap: the US has roughly ten square feet of self-storage per person, while the Gulf has well under one.”

Historically, Geneva’s free ports have been a go-to destination for wealthy collectors in the Middle East looking to store art and other valuables. One company has begun offering deep storage beneath a Swiss mountain. That image describes a particular idea of collecting, he says: "Art as an off-shored asset, held in the dark.” Khokhani says: “Collections should be able to live in this region… rather than in a vault in Switzerland.”

As the Gulf region’s collections grow, so will the need to house them properly, he believes. Besides art, his warehouses also offer locals and expats a place to store luxury cars and other high-value possessions.

He prefers to live surrounded by the art he collects, typically choosing works because they have a personal resonance. “Collecting grew out of the same temperament as the rest of my work: a long horizon, a willingness to commit early, and an interest in things that reward you the longer you live with them,” he says.