Before Lygia Clark was getting major museum retrospectives; before Adriana Varejão was represented by leading galleries; before Beatriz Milhazes was achieving high prices at auction, Patricia Phelps de Cisneros
was collecting Latin American art, filling the walls of her home with
Modernist abstraction and contemporary works by artists from Brazil,
Venezuela, Argentina and Uruguay.
Over
the last 16 years, Ms. Cisneros and her husband, Gustavo A. Cisneros,
have donated 40 of these pieces to the Museum of Modern Art, where she
has served on the board since 1992. Now, they are giving 102 more and
establishing a research institute at the museum for the study of Latin
American art.
“This
is a transformative gift,” Glenn D. Lowry, the museum’s director, said
in a joint interview with Ms. Cisneros at his office on Friday. “It
comes fully developed.”
The
donation includes artists who were working on abstraction during the
middle and second half of the 20th century, such as Hélio Oiticica,
Lygia Pape, Jesús Rafael Soto and Tomás Maldonado. Of the 37 artists
whose works are included in the most recent gift, 21 are entering MoMA’s
collection for the first time.
Ms.
Cisneros offered MoMA its pick out of her home collection, as long as
the museum, in addition to displaying the pieces, would regularly loan
the works to other institutions, Mr. Lowry said.
Ms.
Cisneros did not part easily with the selections she and her husband — a
member of the Cisneros family that made its multibillion-dollar fortune
in Latin American media — have been living with for 40 years.
“She said, ‘You’re taking everything in my living room,’” Mr. Lowry recalled.
A
piece by Willys de Castro, for example, enjoys pride of place in Ms.
Cisneros’s study. “Did we dare to ask for that picture?” Mr. Lowry said.
“It’s like taking the centerpiece from a room.”
Essential
to the mission of the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros is bringing
public and scholarly attention to Latin American work and ensuring its
place in the pantheon of modern art.
“My
big frustration in Latin America is, we’ve always been on the back
burner in many areas, certainly in art,” Ms. Cisneros added. “It was one
of the great centers of Modernism in the ’50s, yet hasn’t been taken
into account.”
The
Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Research Institute for the Study of Art
from Latin America — to be located on MoMA’s Midtown Manhattan campus —
will offer colloquia, fellowships, publications and scholarly
conferences.
The Cisneros study center is not alone in its efforts. The International Center for the Arts of the Americas at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston
has devoted 15 years and more than $50 million to initiatives in
20th-century Latin American and Latino art. A principal focus of the
International Center is a digital archive for some 10,000 documents in
the field. There will also eventually be digital archives at the
Modern’s institute.
MoMA’s
history of collecting, exhibiting and studying the art and artists of
the region dates back to 1931, and Ms. Cisneros said the original vision
of Alfred H. Barr Jr., the first director of the Modern, included Latin
American art. The Cisneros gift joins more than 5,000 works by artists
from Latin America.
But
142 works do more than just add to the museum’s holdings, those
involved said; they affirm how much more integral to MoMA’s overall
program Latin American art has become. Works by artists now show up in
all sorts of exhibitions at the museum, and are lent to other museums
around the country.
“There are many more works hanging seamlessly,” Ms. Cisneros said. “Curators are traveling to Latin America.”
“I
think that part of the battle has been won,” Ms. Cisneros added. “It’s
taken 30 years, but now museums all over the world are taking Latin
America into consideration.”
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