Entrevista a Rafael Gelman: "Anecdotario de un coleccionista"

R.- Sí, cómo no. Tengo cosas "viejas" de España, así como cosas nuevas. Por ejemplo, en fotografía, tengo a García Rodero y a García-Álix. También tengo a Fernando Sánchez Castillo, y varios más. En general, de lo contemporáneo, tengo más que nada fotografía. En cuanto a los "clásicos", tengo obras de Saura, Tàpies y Miró.

P.- ¿Cómo ve la calidad de las galerías españolas?

R.- Bien, bien. No tienen nada que envidiar a galerías de otros países. Juana de Aizpuru, Helga de Alvear, etc., están a la altura de cualquier galería del mundo. Hay en España, claro está, galerías que no llegan, pero que se esfuerzan. Por ejemplo, me gusta mucho visitar la galería Moriarty, en Madrid; presenta cosas que me atraen bastante. Igualmente, en París hay galerías, como la de Kamel Mennour -una galería de fotografía-, que llegarán a ser muy importantes, indudablemente.

Rafael Gelman is a regular at the best international art fairs. Sociable and witty, he is not interested in the stardom that has affected many collectors in the last years. He is friendly from the start, and does not beat around the bush. He is not afraid to speak with contagious enthusiasm about what he loved or hated at this or that fair. With his wife, Jeannette, Gelman visits different art fairs in search of the small jewel that fits in the intriguing puzzle of his collection. Like all collectors who consider this practice a sort of secret double life -liberal professionals or entrepreneurs who are increasingly, and at the same time almost mysteriously, becoming exquisite treasure hunters-, the Gelmans are very discreet when referring to the works in their collection. In fact, they have preferred no reproductions to appear in this interview. Yet, in truth, this attitude is not caused by a neurotic zeal towards their privacy. As Rafael Gelman says with his habitual frankness, the political situation in Venezuela, as well as making him move a good part of his collection abroad, urges him to not reveal his acquisitions.

QUESTION.- How do you describe your first steps as a collector?

ANSWER.- When you start collecting at a young age, you make a lot of mistakes, but they decrease as you read more and visit better galleries and go to fairs, biennials, etc. At first my collection focused, mainly, on the regional painters from the city of Maracaibo, a school of drawing that has on occasion represented Venezuela at the Venice Biennial. Subsequently, I started favouring painters that were known nationally, to then quickly move on to internationally renowned artists. At first, my wife and I always agreed on the artists; then, I started to favour photography. Back then I bought a series of photographs without my wife knowing; she discovered the purchase when she found the works at home. So I had to rent a warehouse to deposit the works which we did not agree on. Consequently, in view of this lack of agreement, I even hid money and cheques so that I could buy certain works without my wife knowing. One of my children presented a paper on this fact at Columbia University on commercialisation and marketing. They had never heard anything of the like: hiding money to buy works of art.

Q.- How does one become a collector?

A.- I cannot really explain it. My father is Russian and my mother is from Morocco, and my father did have a warehouse where he stored paintings by Romanian and Polish artists, pieces that were sometimes worth five or ten dollars, that he bought from a wholesaler, who bought them from young boys. That was all I used to see. But I had no "schooling" in this subject, and I did not study it either at first. I started buying art when I started dating my wife. Forty-five years ago I bought a small work from a student, at the School of Architecture -a very cubist piece that I still have today-, and I gave it to my wife, my girlfriend at the time. That piece cost me about twenty dollars. Then, when I was 23 years old, we went to Europe to study a Ph. D. course, in 1968. My father-in-law gave me a gift so I could travel, and with the money that was left over, that same year, I was able to buy a linoleum by Picasso, an engraving by Miró, an engraving by Dalí, and a Jean Cocteau, and I still had enough left over to buy my first genuinely contemporary piece, an Appel I bought in Holland. That work cost me twelve dollars and I still have it. We educated ourselves as collectors. We have studied, and I think we have quite a good notion of contemporary art. I have taken out subscriptions with many art magazines, and I read them all. I think that is where this vocation I cannot contain has come from. I am a compulsive buyer: I want to own everything I see -as long as I think it is good-, and that is how my life as a collector has been.

Q.- Do you discover interesting revelations reading art magazines?

A.- I think magazines are the most important source for information about what is going on in the art world. When you buy a Spanish magazine, with a universal nature, like LÁPIZ, or an English or a French magazine, or any of the American ones -there are three very well-known publications: Art in America, Art News and Artforum -, you can establish a vision of contemporary art that no museum or fair in the world could offer you. To be precise, it's the magazines that say exactly what is happening in art. Consequently, in my opinion it is crucial to be subscribed to good magazines to be aware of what is going on in the contemporary art world.

Q.- How much attention do you pay to what gallerists or dealers tell you when you buy a work of art?

A.- Well, there are lots of types of gallerists. Some are very serious, and you listen to those when they say: "Look at this work, it's good." If Chantal Crousel, Templon, Lelong, or Juana de Aizpuru, for example, say that, I believe them, and I have actually bought a lot of art from them. There are obviously many earnest gallerists and dealers, but there are also others that nobody should trust. As regards this issue, I remember one time that we visited a Wifredo Lam exhibition at the Lelong Gallery in New York and we asked about the price of a painting; the young girl in charge of the venue said it cost 45,000 dollars, and I told her that she must be wrong. So she went to ask at the offices and when she came back she said: "Yes, that's the price." I said: "I don't want to rob you," but she insisted it was worth 45,000 dollars. Then Jean Frémon, one of the owners of Lelong, came into the gallery and I told him what was happening. He was surprised, and said: "No, this piece is worth 160,000 dollars." If I had been a crook I would have accepted the price she had given me, it would have been the purchase of a lifetime. However, they have never tried to trick me in Lelong, so I did not want to take advantage of that situation. Since then, we have a very trustworthy relationship with that gallery.

Q.- However, the opposite also occurs; some people get conned...

A.- Oh, yes, of course some people get conned. In fact I am in the middle of one right now, I was conned by a New York gallerist, who sold me a fake Amelia Peláez painting some time ago. I got the painting certified and there is no doubt that it is a forgery, so I asked the gallerist to refund the money I had paid, and she answered that all she could do was give me 8,000 dollars, the amount that she had made in the transaction. The sad thing is that I have spent over 400,000 dollars in works with that gallerist; that was the magnitude of the business operations I did with her... So she has obviously lost a good client.

Q.- Apart from this sorry experience, have you ever regretted buying a work?