For collectors Don and Mera Rubell, a bond with Palm Springs

"The advantage of not being able to produce art is that you can spend all your energy looking at art," said Don Rubell, whose family of self-confessed contemporary art fanatics is perpetually in search of the next addition to its 5,000-piece collection. Pleased to have uttered a complete sentence without being interrupted by Mera, his wife and collecting partner of nearly 45 years, he eased into a knowing smile as she jumped in to explain how their collecting obsession works.

"To do what we do, we have to go everywhere, with rolling suitcases that we never check and wash-and-wear clothes, usually black," she said. "Here's our schedule for about two months: Beijing, Shanghai, Tokyo, London, Paris, New York, Washington, Los Angeles and here, then New York again and Abu Dhabi. We need to see what's going on in the world."

Miami is home to the globe-trotting Rubells, who are on ARTnews magazine's international list of the top 200 collectors. "Here" is Palm Springs, where they traveled for a special occasion -- the launching of a relationship between the Florida-based collection and the Palm Springs Art Museum with the recently opened exhibition, “Against All Odds: Keith Haring in the Rubell Family Collection.”

A museum's focus

The partnership is in its infancy, and no one would go on the record about what's next. But here's what Steven Nash, executive director of the museum, had to say: "We hope to have an ongoing tradition of excellence and great art brought from Miami."

It's a notable development for a regional outpost founded in 1938 as a museum about the desert. Long known as the Palm Springs Desert Museum, it has collected art -- including Western American paintings and sculpture, studio art glass, photography and Modern and contemporary works -- and presented exhibitions for many years. Eventually, the natural history component was phased out and the institution's name was changed to reflect its exclusive focus on art. The last big show featured realist paintings by D.J. Hall of Los Angeles. Coming attractions include a 20-year survey of paintings by Bay Area artist Wayne Thiebaud and photographic portraits by the late Robert Mapplethorpe.

The bicoastal association began serendipitously about a year and a half ago, Nash said, when he met Mark Coetzee, director of the Rubell Family Collection, who was visiting the desert community. Nash, who had recently taken charge of the Palm Springs museum and was overseeing its refurbishment, was open to new ideas. One conversation with Coetzee led to another until a plan shaped up.