Entrevista a Rafael Gelman: "Anecdotario de un coleccionista"

A.- I can't say that I have ever regretted a purchase... I never sell the works in my collection. I keep them all. I have three houses full of art works, in the United States, and I have two warehouses, a private one and a special one, where I store very, very good things. When I buy something, I do it with complete conviction. Right now I am after a work by Thomas Hirschhorn, although I still haven't been able to get it (not the one I like, at least). At Paris Photo, I found an Allora & Calzadilla that I loved, and I bought it. I am very impulsive. In any case, at the moment, as well as the Hirschhorn, I am also considering a piece by Alain Séchas, as I have some of his works, but I want to buy a few others.

Q.- Are there a lot of works around that you would like to have but you cannot afford?

A.- Oh, yes. I have always wanted to have a Rauschenberg, for example, but I think his prices have gone too far for me now. He is a painter that I love, I am very enthusiastic about his work, and he is also an artist I know, who my wife and I have photos with. Yet, unfortunately, whenever I approach the possibility of buying one of his works, he goes up another step. He slips away from me. It is not the first time this has happened: when I graduated I had some savings and, whilst I was in Paris, in 1969, I was offered a Max Ernst, a screen painted on all six sides. They were asking 96,000 French Francs for it -about 20,000 dollars of the time-, but I did not have enough money to buy it. When I did gather the amount, Ernst's works were a lot more expensive. The same occurred with a table piece by Calder, a small work I asked a dealer to get me. I had to travel to Venezuela, and left my wife in Paris; she called me after two weeks to tell me they had got us the Calder. It cost 25,000 Francs -at the time the Franc and the Venezuelan Bolivar were at par value-, so that made it 5,000 dollars, but I was at the end of my sabbatical, and I had spent everything we had saved up, so I said to my wife: "Don't even go and see it, because if you do, we'll buy it." That was a big mistake. I should have asked for a loan from the bank to buy that Calder, because now it costs between 600,000 and 700,000 dollars. These are just mistakes one makes. As a collector, you often go after things you would like to have no matter what, but you just cannot have them. However, I do have other very good things, I have a lot of works, and contemplating them makes me very happy.

Q.- So you prefer to live with the works in your collection?

A.- Absolutely. Although some are stored, I do live surrounded by my works. I have them in the apartment in Miami, at my son's house, at my daughter's apartment. I also have some works at my son's apartment in Madrid. Contemplating the works stimulates me to continue the collection. It's a shame that we have not been able to leave better works in Venezuela. We left the Venezuelan art collection there. Yet, I'm happy: I live surrounded by things I have had since I was young and that I do not want to get rid of.

Q.- Has it been difficult to conserve any of them?

A.- No, I have never had a problem with conservation. I do not have many Arte Povera works, as I have seen how many of my friends that do have Povera works have seen them degrade, and that has stopped me from getting into that trend. The thing is that, also, when a museum asks you to lend a Povera piece, it is very difficult for them to return it in the same condition as you sent it.

Q.- So do you keep away from works that require special conservation measures?

A.- I do think twice about them, as there's not much point in buying a work that will degenerate over time. As it will no longer be the work you wanted to own. You should always purchase works you can conserve, and that can be "used" by others if they ever ask you to lend them.

Q.- Where do you think your collection will end up?

A.- I have considered setting up a foundation that gathers all of our works, but my wife and I have not agreed on the issue yet. I would like the collection to be on show for the entire world. However, that is not possible at present given the political situation in Venezuela. I wish I could leave the collection to a good institution or to a museum or foundation in my country one day. I would like these works to always be on display. Otherwise my children will keep the ones they like the most and the rest, unfortunately, will be auctioned.

Q.- Can the taste for collecting be inherited?

A.- Yes, I think so. We used to take our children, when they were five years old, to visit galleries on Sundays. They used to complain, but they always came. Later on, in Caracas, when they started their university degrees, one in economy and the other in administration, they wanted to support themselves. So they decided to sell art works. They used our contacts at the time with artists, who gave them pieces on consignment, and, in the five years they spent at university, they sold almost 540 works of art. As regards my daughter, you can catch her visiting fairs on her own; she does not want me to go with her, so that I don't influence her taste.

Q.- Do you buy more at fairs, or do you prefer the actual gallery venues?

A.- I continuously visit a number of galleries in different cities. For example, I visit the Madrid galleries about two or three times a year, but I prefer the French ones, followed by the ones in New York. Nevertheless, I do buy most of my pieces at fairs, actually. I buy about for or five pieces on average, some more expensive than others.

Q.- Do you set aside a more or less pre-established annual budget for purchasing works of art?

A.- Actually I do not, I don't plan a budget and that is something my wife and I argue about. She complains sometimes: "Wow! This year we've spent a lot on art works"... After all, sometimes six or eight months go buy without us buying anything, because we do not see anything that we like. At other times, we buy five or ten works in one go.

Q.- In your opinion, which are the most important art fairs?

A.- I can list the most important fairs for me, the ones that I go to. The first one is, arco , in Madrid, which has made the city change, and attracts 200,000 visitors. That attendance rate has never been seen at any other fair. The first time I visited arco , I saw how the people came with their sandwiches and their bottle of wine and they sat down in the halls to have lunch. I thought that was extremely beautiful, very poetic, although some gallerists did not like it. After arco , that is a very populous fair, we like going to the Armory Show, which has achieved a good level strictly as regards contemporary works. Then we like Art Basel Switzerland, which is the queen of fairs at present. At Basel, the problem is that when the fair closes down for the day, at seven in the evening, there are not that many places to eat or relax. That is quite annoying; there is nothing to do, since you do not just go to the city to see art, you also go to eat nice food and have fun. After Basel, we like to go to Frieze... Although I did not go this year, as last year [2004] we did not approve of certain events: they apparently let a specific number of collectors in before the special guests. By the time we got in, everything had been sold, in half an hour. The collectors they let in first had bought almost all the interesting pieces. So, after Frieze, Art Basel Miami Beach is the fifth fair we like to visit. We obviously also visit the fair in Caracas and other small fairs, but more as to support them than to buy works, because the pieces presented at these fairs do not fit the quality we are looking for for our collection, not yet at least.

Q.- As regards what you said before, about your visits to galleries, I deduce you prefer French galleries. What do you think of Paris' most representative art fair, the fiac ?