Argentine collector Eduardo Costantini: "Frida manages to make viewers enter into communion with her life"

Frida Kahlo awaits in the shadows the spectators of the Museum of Latin American Art (Malba) in Buenos Aires.

Entering the chapel dedicated to the great Mexican painter, her eyes are caught by a small, magnetic self-portrait,

(1949).

With tears in her eyes and her hair clinging so tightly to her neck that they seem to hang her, Kahlo drew between eyebrows the one who caused her such suffering, her unfaithful husband, the Mexican painter Diego Rivera.

This work, the most valued in Latin American art since it was acquired in 2021 for 30.8 million dollars, is the star of the exhibition

, in which the Argentine collector Eduardo Costantini shows for the first time jewels from his collection in dialogue with those of the museum he founded 21 years ago.

“Frida manages to make the spectators enter into communion with her life.

They are impregnated with her suffering because she shows herself that way, on the surface, even in the most dramatic situations, such as an abortion and the infidelity of her sister and her husband, ”says Costantini in an interview with EL PAÍS .

Costantini bought

from a distance and did not see her until she landed in Buenos Aires in the middle of a movie security operation.

“It was a very exciting moment opening the box.

It was quite a ceremony.

It is with all the works, but Frida is Frida, did you see?

She takes you into the field of intimacy of her life, into an emotional relationship”, she assures.

It will remain on display for one year.

“Then he leaves, he goes to rest”, anticipates Costantini without revealing more details.

His admiration for whom he describes as "the best known artist in the world" goes back decades.

In 1995 he had to choose between her or her husband at auction: Sotheby's put up for sale

(1942)

by Kahlo, and

(1928)

by Rivera.

She opted for the first and that piece now accompanies the new acquisition in the exhibition

together with photographs of the artist and objects that belonged to her, such as a huipil (typical Mexican dress) and a handkerchief that she received from a friend of hers for their wedding.

Costantini notes that he started buying art spontaneously and took several years to identify himself as a collector.

His first mentor, Ricardo Esteves, was key to his first steps on this path that he began in the early eighties.

At that time, Latin American art "had little visibility," he says, and high-quality works appeared on the market at good prices.

Costantini believes that there was a great change at the beginning of the century, parallel to the inauguration of the Malba in 2001. Great American museums such as the MoMA, in New York, or the Houston museum appointed curators of Latin American art and interest in these works skyrocketed , as well as its value.

Costantini bought Kahlo's

in 1995 for 3.1 million dollars, ten times less than what he paid this 2022 for the protagonist of the current exhibition.

Costantini in front of 'Portrait of Ramón Gómez de la Serna', by Diego Rivera. Silvina Frydlewsky (Silvina Frydlewsky)

When inaugurating Malba, Costantini donated everything he had collected in the 1980s and 1990s.

The work he has since acquired is instead part of his private collection, which is being exhibited as such for the first time.

The two collections together are overwhelming.

Among the 240 pieces on display there are masterpieces of 20th-century Latin American art, such as

(1928), by Tarsila do Amaral;

(1915), by Diego Rivera;

(1945) by Remedios Varo;

(1943) by Wilfredo Lam;

(1925) by Vicente do Rego Monteiro;

(1934), by Antonio Berni;

and

(1964) by León Ferrari, among many others.

Over time, this construction entrepreneur also developed a hunting instinct for art.

Willing not to be overcome by obstacles, Costantini recalls that it took him two decades to buy that Rivera that escaped him in 1995 and it took him almost four years to persuade Ferrari to sell him

.

In the end he succeeded, but there was a thorn in his side: not having achieved the same with

(1965), Ferrari's best-known work and the key to the Golden Lion he won at the Venice Biennale in 2007. I spent 30 years trying to convince him, but he never wanted to.

His idea was to make a foundation with his work, but in the end it was not done”, he regrets.

Another of the jewels with which he tried to stay was

by Tarsila do Amaral.

"They didn't want to sell it to me.

I think that if they had sold it to me, Brazil would have declared war on me”, she jokes.

Complaint for theft

The biggest scandal in which he has been involved so far as a collector occurred last month.

His name was involved in the complaint of robbery and fraud made by Geneviève Boghici, widow of art dealer Jean Boghici, against his daughter Sabine.

She was arrested accused of stealing works of art worth more than 142 million dollars from her mother.

Of the 16 pieces that she stole from him, there were two —

by Rubens Gerchman and

, by Antonio Días — that were bought by Costantini for her private collection and are now on display at Malba.

According to the founder of the museum, his purchases were made "in good faith and duly registered" and Geneviève, with whom he maintains a direct link, "released him from all responsibility."

Costantini admits that Mexico and Brazil have a clear advantage over Argentina in the international art markets, but maintains that this is not due to the quality of the artists but rather to the scarce local collecting and the lack of state support.

"Art is not a priority on the Argentine government's agenda," he complains.

To those who want to start collecting, the Argentine businessman advises them to "get advice".

The first mentor he had was followed by others, including the successive artistic directors of Malba.

"My collection is the product of many people, of many eyes," he concludes.

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