Kendall Art Center: Beyond the Collector’s Kabinet
By Raisa Clavijo
You may view the article directly at: http://artdistricts.com/kendall-art-center-beyond-the-collector's-kabinet/
Collecting is not only a passion; it can
become a lifetime goal. Through collecting, stories are constructed;
stories that in the future will speak through the accumulated works,
providing a vision not only of the personal universe of the collector,
but also of the visual culture of his era.
It has been established that art is a
good investment when compared to the fluctuating currency and
precious-metals markets. Art speculates with its symbolic, cultural and
historic value. We know that it would be difficult for a Picasso,
Rembrandt, Goya, van Gogh or Warhol to lose value. However, what happens
when you collect works by young or mid-career artists? What happens
when you collect guided by passion and personal taste? Collecting
intelligently and passionately is more than just following the simple
logic of buying low and selling high or demonstrating a very high
purchasing power. To be a good collector of contemporary art implies
being sensitive to the world, artistic production, understanding the
period and its historic flow, since what we collect today will be part
of the history of art within a few decades. Even now, the relationship
between patronage and collecting is not passé; it is still very close.
There are many informed and responsible collectors in the world; they
invest in the work of artists that they collect and support their
careers. This is the case with Leonardo Rodríguez, a Cuban living in
Miami who started collecting more than 30 years ago in his native
country.
Rodríguez grew up in a family associated
with art and culture. His mother worked in museums her whole life. In
Havana, as an adult, Leonardo began buying and selling works of art from
the last decade of the 20th century. Subsequently, he
learned to work with metal, glass and bronze and specialized in jewelry,
especially working with silver and black coral. He was a member of the
Asociación Cubana de Artesanos Artistas (ACAA), and as a result in 1999
he traveled to Mexico to exhibit; then from there he moved to the United
States.
At the beginning, Leonardo acquired
mainly antiques, crystal ware, marble, furniture. Then he started buying
works by Cuban artists. “I kept what I liked the best, and the rest I
sold in order to buy other pieces that I liked, and in this way the
passion for collecting got into my blood,” he says. “My collection in
Cuba was extensive. I had works by Nelson Domínguez, Roberto Fabelo,
Pedro Pablo Oliva, Zaida del Río, Flora Fong, among other artists. I was
only able to bring 12 works to the United States, the least valuable.
Here, little by little, I got to know Cuban artists, and I continued
collecting.”
Currently, his collection is mainly
comprised of Cuban art, although Leonardo plans to enrich it with works
by artists from other parts of the world, in keeping with Miami’s
multicultural social psyche. His interest in collecting is guided by the
relationship he sees between the work of the artist and his own vision
of the world. “When I buy a piece, I always investigate; I find out
about its meaning, the context in which it was created. I have to
establish a dialogue with the piece in order to be able to live with it.
One of the artists in my collection that I like the most is José Bedia
because I understand what he is saying with his work. I studied
Afro-Cuban religion, and that is why I am able to identify with his
work. I am also interested in works that communicate freedom, reflection
on the evolution of human thought, soul searching and personal growth.
That is why I like abstract painting so much, because it appears to me
that it is an expression of emotions, feelings and the artist’s
knowledge, but expressed with hidden codes, not evident, codes that the
artist is inviting us to unveil.”
When asked which artists he would like
to include in his collection, he replies, “I have always wanted to have
work by Wifredo Lam. I see a relationship between the work of Lam and
Bedia because of their ties to Afro-Caribbean cultures. I would also be
interested in having works by Tomás Sánchez, Eduardo Roca (Choco) and
Tomás Esson. I would like to acquire other works by Pedro Pablo Oliva.
These are pieces I shall have some day.”
For Rodríguez, collecting also implies a
commitment to the community in which he lives. That is why he has
created the Kendall Art Center, which will open its doors on July 15.
The center will enrich the cultural options of the city of Miami,
especially in a densely populated area like Kendall in which no
important cultural centers exist. “The Kendall Art Center is being
established to support the careers of the artists I collect so that they
may have a space where they can create projects, a place to exhibit, to
be able to present talks, conferences, where they can have a platform
to promote their work,” Rodríguez says.
The Kendall Art Center will open with an
exhibition that will include significant pieces from the Leonardo
Rodríguez Collection, with works by such artists as Bedia, Ciro
Quintana, Pedro Vizcaíno, Néstor Arenas, Manuel Mendive, Silvio Gaytón,
Vicente Dopico Lerner, Aisar Jalil, Pedro Avila Gendis, José Orbeín,
Ahmed Gómez, Angel Delgado, Geandy Pavón, Jose María Mijares, Cundo
Bermúdez and Gina Pellón. According to Rodríguez, the center plans to
have a rich program of exhibitions that will include 12 shows per year.
“We would like the space to not only be a space for exhibitions, but
also for projects,” he says. “We shall invite artists to develop works
especially for the space at the center. We want the Kendall Art Center
to not only promote the work of the artists, but also to serve as a
platform for the production of new pieces, a space also open to
experimentation. Currently my collection has mainly Cuban art, but the
Kendall Art Center will be open to artists from everywhere, whose work
and career demonstrate solidity and coherence.”
The center is planning a program of
events that will accompany each exhibition. This program includes
creative workshops (painting, sculpture, photography, theater and body
painting, among others) basically directed at children and young people,
but which can also include people of all ages. In addition, there will
be book presentations, conferences on contemporary art, classes,
concerts, the mise-en-scène of plays, etc.
In the near term, Rodríguez plans to
gradually enrich his collection with works by notable contemporary
artists while supporting and promoting the careers of artists that he
collects. When asked if he considers the act of collecting to be an
investment, he replies, “I believe it will be considered an investment
for my third generation. Now I am showing my son a way of giving meaning
to life. By collecting you learn; you get to know the artists, who are
human beings with a very rich interior universe. For me, collecting is
my passion, my goal.”
Kendall Art Center opens its doors on July 15, 2016. It is located at 12063 SW 131st Ave. Miami, FL, 33186 | Phone: 305 778 7739 | www.kendallartcenter.com | info@kendallartcenter.com
Raisa Clavijo is an art critic, curator and art historian based in Miami. She is founder and editor-in-chief of ARTPULSE and ARTDISTRICTS magazines.
* All excerpts are the result of an interview with Leonardo Rodríguez that took place in May 2016.
i HAVE AN ORIGINAL TOMAS ESSON PENCIL IN PAPER PIECE
ReplyDelete