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Rafael Tous: "Things in life have to be distributed"

2022-03-29T16:59:37.788Z


A tireless collector of the most varied interests, last year he donated his legacy of conceptual art to Macba in Barcelona


“Different” is an adjective that is often used lightly.

But he ideally fits the personality of Rafael Tous (Barcelona, ​​1940), a man as fascinating as he is unorthodox.

Tous has turned collecting into an art, thanks to his ability to put together sets that are coherent in their difference, whether of records, books or works of art.

It made headlines in May 2021, when he donated his legacy of conceptual art to the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA).

The gift was so important that, as the note in this newspaper indicated, it forced the center "to review the permanent exhibition."

It was the end of a path that the businessman, always linked to the world of textiles and fashion, began in 1965, at the age of 25, and which includes a brief period in which, more than contemporary art, he devoted himself to to Catalan Impressionism.

As a result of this donation to Macba, an exhibition appropriately titled

In real time

(which will remain open until June 6) was mounted

.

Dressed in jeans, relaxed, loquacious and with a still jovial spirit at 82 years old, Tous guided us through the exhibition before meeting us the next day at his imposing house, where books are emperors.

It is not strange;

Tous, he says, reads 400 pages daily.

From movie posters to travel books, cookbooks, English or Spanish literature, more than 150,000 titles make up a library that is growing at a dizzying pace and that he classifies with patience and rigor.

Also a collector of photographs and African primitive art, Tous was director of the fantastic Metrònom space (1980-2006), which presented the work of hitherto unknown artists to the Barcelona public.

He won the “A” Prize for the National Private Collection, granted by the Arco Foundation, and the 2016 GAC award for Collecting.

He is married to creator Ana de Matos.

And, in the time that all of the above leaves him, he maintains an orphanage for 500 children in Burundi.

Rafael Tous, owner of Galeria Metrónom in an image from the year 2000. marcel lí sáenz

In this environment, surrounded by Venetian glass, postcards, toys, African wooden sculptures, cassettes, CDs and LPs, art books and a huge variety of Buddhas from Tibet, it is inevitable to start the conversation out of curiosity.

Where does it come from, so much and so varied?

“At the age of six I discovered my passion for collecting, through those beautiful stickers that the Jesuits at my school didn't like so much, and then through movie posters and comics.

I became a collecting maniac,” she recalls with a laugh.

“My father, who was the older brother, received a very important inheritance, but that was the source of multiple family disagreements.

Already married to Carmen Godia [his first wife], it was when I began to collect paintings by artists such as [the painter Santiago] Rusiñol.

After a few years and with three children, I separated from her, which caused the annoyance of my father, who was very Catholic.

But since she owed money to my father-in-law, she kept all her works.

And me... with one hand in front and one behind!

This is how my new life began and, with it, my clothing business, whose articles I basically manufactured in Catalonia, and with which I began to earn real money: it was fantastic, because they took the clothes out of my hand”.

“Isabel de Pedro, my wife at the time, with whom I had a daughter, was my partner in the Metrònom adventure”, continues Tous, who, after losing his

noucentisme

treasures in the separation , made a decision: to collect contemporary art “ with a political and anti-Franco meaning present, although not explicit”, he specifies.

“Noticing that what was emerging internationally was conceptual art, I traveled the world, I entered that universe and I never left it.”

“In one of the galleries I had, I did 500 art and photography exhibitions, debates, round tables, contemporary dance shows and concerts.

That is to say, I devoted myself intensively to promoting art”, she comments.

But what made him passionate about a genre that could be as cryptic as the conceptual one?

“Ignorance of what this type of art meant, what message it contained, who made it, as well as the fact that no one wanted to expose it.

So, political and social conceptual art was not understood by God.

But I did, and I protected its creators.

How?

Buying works from them”, he affirms, and gracefully recounts how the separation of Isabel from Pedro caused her to keep the more traditional work —of names like Tàpies— and that he kept her conceptual collection,

'Ten notes for a tablecloth', by Antoni Miralda (1975), from the Rafael Tous collection, now at the Macba.MASSIMILIANO MINOCRI (EL PAÍS)

“I have accumulated 1,100 works of this type.

But parallel to that collection, especially from the mid-1970s, I was interested in contemporary photography, until reaching some four thousand pieces with a strong interest in social photography – and there you will find homosexuals who fought for their rights, protests, asylums or penitentiaries―, with very diverse origins –from Central America to Japan, Canada, South Africa and Spain― and, in all cases, acquiring entire series, because an isolated photograph of an artist tells you nothing”.

Composer and flutist Barbara Held was Tous's third wife.

He is now married to De Matos.

“I wanted to sell the collection for a very low price to a high-ranking museum, so that I could continue carrying out cultural activities.

But since none of them were accepted, and after thinking about it and talking to my children, who are very well-educated culturally, but for whom the lack of space to house the collection became a problem, I decided to give it away.

'Do what you want, because you have formed it,' they replied.

So I donated this collection, which makes me happy, because it will introduce great artists to people.

Later, yes, I will have to decide what fate I will give to the many works of other types that I treasure”, he confesses.

Only African art has about four thousand pieces.

But it all started with the trading cards.

“You start with that when you're little, you continue with more serious things and you don't stop anymore.

And all those books you see, why do I collect them?

Well, because I read them.

I catalog everything, because when I asked for help, I ended up missing something without realizing in my fucking life who had been responsible.

So I buy everything, place it and order it myself, ”she declares with an unshakable smile.

Before finishing, he answers a question that inevitably flies over the conversation: what will happen to his multiple collections when he is gone?: “I don't know exactly.

Maybe I'll put a line in my will so they can do what they want with it.

My family knows that I have always been interested in the social aspect and that during my youth I was very much on the left, despite the fact that my first wife was extremely conservative.

She means that I have considered that things in life have to be distributed.

And, so that all this work can be enjoyed by people and artists —who will see her work in public places, as is already the case at Macba— I continue to think the same.

Although of course, it will not be easy, because only between books and art magazines I have 250 thousand copies”, he concludes.

Source: elparis

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