How celebrity collectors are shaking up the art world, from Swizz Beatz and his wife Alicia Keys, to Leonardo DiCaprio, Jay-Z and Madonna

In the late 90s, when rapper and record producer Kasseem Dean, aka Swizz Beatz, was still a teenager, he tried to buy an artwork from a gallery. “But they didn’t take him seriously,” says Kimberli Gant, curator of modern and contemporary art at the Brooklyn Museum in New York. “He wasn’t a typical collector – he was this young man who they didn’t really know.” But that didn’t deter Dean. He kept attending openings and museum shows, demonstrating a serious interest to gallerists who eventually ushered him into their inner circle. His first major acquisition was a photograph by legendary American artist Ansel Adams.

Last year, the Brooklyn Museum staged “Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys”, a sprawling exhibition of about 100 artworks, which is travelling to the Minneapolis Institute of Art this month. The show features just a fraction of their expansive collection.

Celebrity collecting isn’t a new phenomenon but what has changed is that it’s now becoming much more visible. Stars are getting involved in exhibitions, posting more on social media and making appearances at major art fairs. “What is happening is that the worlds are merging,” says Gant. “I think we’re going to see more exhibitions like ‘Giants’, as celebrities who are serious collectors decide to put their collections out there.”

Museums and other art world institutions have become increasingly interested in collaborating with celebrities to attract a broader audience. The “Giants” show pulled in more than 125,000 visitors, including people who travelled from California, Georgia and Maryland. Gant explains that the exhibition injected new life into the museum, offering a non-traditional experience: “The art world has cultivated an expectation of what museum shows should look or feel like, with purely white walls and silence, but this was different.”

The exhibition featured several mini living room vignettes with sofas where visitors could lounge and browse through catalogues of artists’ work. Swizz Beatz also created a soundtrack for the show, which was playing in the background: “So there was a lot of Marvin Gaye and smooth music, which creates a beautiful energy when you walk through … and people could get the idea of what it could be like to live with art in their own home,” says Gant.