ENCOUNTERS WITH GREAT PATRONS OF THE ARTS (XXII)

Juan Carlos Maldonado: “My idea is to educate through art”

The collector, specialized in abstract geometry by the modern Latin American masters, also has works by Vasarely and Calder

DANI LEVINAS
MAR 17 2021 - El País

"The humility of the greats" is an expression too often used in much of Latin America. However, it is difficult to find a better one to describe Juan Carlos Maldonado Bermúdez, whose success as a collector, patron, businessman, even as an involuntary leader, is striking.

There are already several installments of these "Encounters with Great Patrons of the Arts" done by Zoom during this pandemic devastating the world. The warmth of men such as the British Jonathan Ruffer or the depth of Maldonado radiate an air of normality to our lives at a time that has nothing normal about it.

This is how our protagonist introduces himself to speak with El País. He agrees to suspend his evident modesty when he welcomes us in Miami, surrounded by "Iridescent Geometries'', a superb exhibition by Cuban artist Ernesto Briel that takes place at the Juan Carlos Maldonado Art Collection (JCMAC).  El País already had access to his private collection, gleaming with Latin American geometric art, in a beautiful apartment in the Madrid neighborhood of Salamanca, decorated by the interior designer Belén Domecq.

Abstract geometry of modern Latin American masters, especially those who shone between the 1930s and the 1970s, is the star of a collection that brings together some of the sacred monsters of Colombia, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Cuba, in addition of key pieces by European and American icons such as Victor Vasarely and Alexander Calder.

A major player in the insurance market in South America, the businessman lays bare his roots, exhibiting his versatility early on in the interview. “I was born in Puerto Ordaz, in the state of Bolívar, where Jesús Rafael Soto comes from, but at the age of four I moved to Caracas, where I have lived all my life, including my schooling years. For university, I attended Wofford College in South Carolina, and later MIT, where I did my MBA. I worked at Citibank for many years in Venezuela as well as in New York, where I dedicated myself mostly to asset trading and management. In 1995 I returned to Venezuela to join the family business, a large insurance company, and worked there for 15 years until I became CEO. But in 2009, ten years after Chávez came to power and having lived through very difficult times, including the expropriation of an important family animal conservation reserve, we finally made the decision to sell the company. 

I decided then to focus on my own projects, particularly in the insurance, health and banking sectors. So the dynamics of buying and selling companies is not alien to me. I enjoy taking businesses that are in a difficult situation, change them, improve them and, after ten years, evaluate the results. I have had the ability to build things quickly and to be able to identify the benefits of a business. I am motivated by the business issues and even more by the social and cultural responsabilites”, says Maldonado with ease.

It  was not until 2005 that the Venezuelan began to collect. “Before 2005 I had no art, although my aunt Milagros Maldonado is a collector of Latin American art, so I have always been exposed to great art, which includes creators such as Wilfredo Lam and Roberto Matta. She has been my point of reference in the family and lives between Paris and Miami. Milagros has a very interesting space in Wynwood and works with many young artists. We continue to have conversations that I value very much today ”, Juan Carlos adds.

And pointing to the unique direction of his own collection, he adds: “I began with the serious intention of collecting Venezuelan artists first, with a preference for geometric abstraction rather than figuration and, within it, for kineticism. That movement, that shape and that handling of space caught my attention. But it was not until 2009, with the sale of the company, that I decided to invest heavily in that trend, not only focusing on Venezuelan artists, but also on other Latin Americans, ranging from Torres García's constructivism to Brazilian concrete art or the Madí art, because, ultimately, geometric abstraction is universal. And I was keen to see the exchange of artistic concepts between Europe and Latin America, mediated by determining historical processes, such as the Second World War. It has been a journey of analysis and study ”.

A journey, it should be noted, in which Maldonado established a whole network that began with the hiring of María Carlota Pérez, a curator based in New York who helped him understand what was happening with geometric abstract art in Latin America, so as to be able to select the most relevant works from a trend as vast and fertile as the one that fascinates him. “That process, which is so interesting from a cultural point of view, was also a tremendous learning process for her, who curiously was not an art expert at the time, because she came from the financial sector. Ms. Perez travelled everywhere to meet collectors and gallery owners, as well as to learn about artist estates and go directly to the sources. For example, the “Bicho” by Lygia Clark we bought directly from her family. And in the case of a work by Tomás Maldonado, we made our way to the last owner, who was quite linked to our family’’, says the entrepreneur. And he completes: “There are galleries and museum directors who have asked me: where did you get that piece, for example, by Gonzalo Fonseca? Nevertheless, many of the pieces in the collection have been bought at auctions, as it happened with one by Carmen Herrera that I flew to New York for just 24 hours just to see it in 2009. That, plus the relationships forged over the years with each gallerist and player in the art world, show you have developed a network that responds to the work you are doing, for example, to find the best sources. And in our case, it becomes personalized because we have decided to focus on the decades between the 1940s and the 1960s. I have studied and researched in depth to get here ”.

Before ending, Maldonado -who plans to open another major artistic space in Miami, for which he has joined forces with the Spanish architect Juan Herreros- refers to some of the many contributions he has made through the loan of essential works, such as a Jesús Soto extraordinaire, to other museum institutions, and close collaboration with the educational world. And he graphs it clearly: “My idea has been to educate through art. For me, the most important luxury that a human being can have is education. I am not interested in my collection being for one man, but rather for everyone and for it to be seen. This is why we made the effort to create this space. I want people to come and look, to question and to be a part of the cultural community that Miami has to offer. This could not be achieved without the scholarship program that we are preparing. We want to be a complete institution for all those who are interested in the arts, especially in universal geometric abstraction, because we have room for Albers and for Calder, but also for Theo van Doesburg, who somehow functions as the origin of all this history".

Generously, Maldonado will find time to talk about mythology, anthropology and, of course, about art, a topic to which he seems to have always dedicated himself.

“I - he affirms without losing his serious tone that never becomes solemn - I am not necessarily guided by what others are doing, I do not buy anything that is not related to something we want to show and therefore must be connected with what we are planning. Today I think about each acquisition from the point of view of its historical relevance and what we want to project when we present an exhibition. Nothing is random ”.

Likewise, and with the modesty that distinguishes him, Maldonado highlights the role of the curator Ariel Jiménez and concludes: “I fell in love with the art of Carmen Herrera, so not everything is intellectual. At the end of the day, I think all of this helps people rethink and explore their creativity and inventiveness. We love that those who visit us see another world and rise as human beings. And I'm particularly interested in working with artists who have something to say about art history, and understand where what they do comes from. When you understand the life of the artist and then see his final product, everything is much simpler ”.

After this, what else can be asked of him?