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The coronavirus pandemic also marked a before and after in the art world.
Faced with so much death and confinement, those who could afford it decided to live the rest of their lives in the best way possible.
One of their options was to settle in cities that offered them “a safe, pleasant and quality life.”
The reflection is made by the businesswoman and collector Ella Fontanals-Cisneros (Havana, 80 years old), with residence in Madrid since 2015 and homes in Caracas, Miami, Mexico City, the Dominican Republic and, very soon, in Mallorca.
From one of the living rooms of the Madrid apartment you can see the central axes of the Salamanca neighborhood: the streets of Ortega y Gasset and Velázquez.
Very close to this Golden Mile are the other two centers chosen by these wealthy new residents of Madrid: Justicia and Retiro.
It is difficult to quantify the number of great fortunes that have settled in Spain in recent years, but we do know which are the predominant countries of origin: Venezuela, Mexico, Colombia and Argentina.
“They are countries with political insecurity,” says Fontanals-Cisneros.
“People who can have settled with their families in a country where the same language is spoken, from which they can move throughout Europe and where their children can study and walk the streets without bodyguards,” adds the collector.
Portrait of the collector Ella Fontanals-Cisneros.
MAURICIO DONELLI
The connection of these new Madrid residents with art goes back a long way, with the arrival, sporadic or not, of great fortunes.
All of them were “signed” little by little by the previous director of the Reina Sofía, Manuel Borja-Villel.
The state budgets to buy works were scarce and the former director had the idea of going out to find financing by inventing the Reina Sofía Foundation.
There are almost all the great collectors of Latin origin who have long enriched their collections, but also those of MoMA, the Tate or the Pompidou Center.
They usually have two annual meetings with their corresponding boards of trustees and, under the pretext of these trips, many have ended up buying luxury homes.
In that foundation there are names such as the Cisneros (Ella and Patricia), Hugo Sigman, Mario Cader-Frech, Ricardo and Susana Steinbruch, Julia Borja, Alberto Cruz, María Amalia León or Lilly Scarpetta.
Also the Chilean Juan Yarur (40 years old), resident in Santiago and with New York as the axis of his financial operations.
Even so, perhaps the Latin American collector with the most international weight is Jorge Pérez (Buenos Aires, 73 years old).
A Miami resident since 1968, his real estate empire has made him one of the richest men in the United States.
The collector brings work by 50 artists to the exhibition
Territories,
which opens today at the CAAC in Seville, curated by the center's new director, Jimena Blázquez Abascal.
Pérez does not have an open house in Madrid, although it is something that he weighs with his wife, Marlene, with whom he comes to Arco every year: Madrid and London are his favorite cities to buy.
The Spanish gallery owners, he says by email, “have become friends.”
And he gives the names of Elba Benítez, Maisterravalbuena, 1 Mira Madrid, Espacio Mínimo, Juana de Aizpuru, Max Estrella, Casado Santapau, Alarcón Criado, Senda, among many others.
His collection has more than 200 works by Spanish artists, from Antoni Tàpies to Jaume Plensa, including Aurèlia Muñoz, Cristina Iglesias, Teresa Lanceta and Miki Leal.
The number of Latin American clients of Max Estrella is 90%.
For Ehrhardt Flórez, sales have increased by 60%
“Madrid has become a Latin American capital: many collectors have moved to Madrid or spend time in the city,” Pérez responds about the so-called new Miami.
“They will continue collecting art from their respective countries, but, as time goes by, they become more immersed in the Spanish scene.
This will give more visibility to the Spanish contemporary art market, which has not had much presence internationally, with rare exceptions.
Many of these collectors are involved in or already supporting institutions in Spain.
This institutional support is a very important aspect for the market to be strong, sustainable and diverse.”
Spanish gallery owners celebrate the arrival of these new neighbors with economic power and large homes.
If it had not been for them, the coronavirus crisis would have forced them to close their businesses.
Iñigo Navarro (Leandro Navarro) occupies a space at the fair with names of the caliber of Miró, Picasso, Balthus or Matisse.
It is common for the most expensive piece at the fair to be found on its display.
This year the star is one of the 27 oil paintings that Miró included in
Las Maronitas,
in 1936, of which there are only two in Spain.
It will be sold for 3.3 million euros.
“I don't know if a Latin American will buy it, but it could be.
Very important collectors have arrived from America.
Before they were in Miami, but it is a big, uncomfortable and unsafe city.
Since covid, its presence in Madrid has multiplied.
It is a collection linked to a real estate boom that I recognize may not be good for the population, but its properties are spaces in which to show off works of art.”
Pablo Flórez (Ehrhardt Flórez) has a store in the Justicia neighborhood from which he has witnessed the arrival of this new neighborhood.
“The phenomenon began just before the pandemic and then has consolidated,” he explains.
Like his colleagues, he recognizes that sales have increased considerably: at least 60%.
“It is not true that they buy art by weight.
They are usually prepared people, who visit all the important fairs and who know the artists we work with, beyond the best-known names, like Secundino Hernández.”
Alberto de Juan (Max Estrella) agrees with him.
“My number of Latin American clients, at this moment, is 90%.
Most of them come to my Madrid space because they have visited us before at fairs.
We have to recognize that the Spanish market is practically non-existent.
Knowledge is not fashionable here and these people are well traveled, very cultured and move in circles in which boasting about having a collection is well regarded.”
The Chilean collector Juan Yarur.
SIMON PAIS
Belén Herrera Ottino, director of Opera Gallery, the international firm that last May inaugurated its 16th headquarters in the Madrid neighborhood of Salamanca, also seems to address this clientele.
On its roster there are artists such as Picasso, Chagall, Dubuffet and Antonio Saura.
The director assures that she did not open it because of the boom in Latin American collectors, but rather that it was a pending project of the company.
However, she only has words of praise for her American clients for “their culture and knowledge.”
The heads of the Colombian gallery La Cometa, Paloma Jaramillo and Amaya Ortuondo, opened a branch in Madrid almost five years ago.
Before they did it in Miami and they have 40 years of experience in Bogotá.
They knew that many Mexicans, Venezuelans, Peruvians and Colombians chose Madrid to live.
“From here it is very easy to move around Europe and that facilitates any investment,” they explain.
The arrival of this new collector not only benefits the market, but also the creators.
The artist Cristina Lucas (Úbeda, Jaén, 50 years old), present at this edition of Arco, is certain that Madrid has become a meeting point.
“For just over a decade, the city has been welcoming artists and curators, both young and with stable careers, as well as collectors.
This makes the cultural fabric enrich both intellectually and economically.”
She is also happy about the resurgence of the market because contemporary creation, “often critical of social processes, is not only in the hands of the State.”
Her works are in the collections of Pérez and Fontanals-Cisneros.
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