The Museum of Modern Art of Buenos Aires inaugurated its first exhibitions of the year, “Modern and MetaModern”with pieces from the Museum’s historical and contemporary collections and, then, “The sensitive plot. Works on loan from the Banco Supervielle Collection”. The exhibition of 58 works acquired by the artists’ financial institution Ángeles Ascúa, Florencia Caterina, Claudia del Río, Alfio Demestre, Matías Duville, Lux Lindner, Eduardo Navarro, Sol Pipkin and Hernán Soriano This time it arrives accompanied by a book.
The text documents the bank’s relationship with art, “for more than fifteen years, when we became clear about how important it is to support our artists,” observes Patricio Supervielle, CEO of the group. There are issues such as specifically corporate art collections, whose genuine dimension can only be valued over time. Seen in retrospect, the works that appear in the book allow us to see a panorama of the artistic scene and the successive groups that cross it.
“This book is much more than the catalog of a collection of works: it is the expression of the link that unites the bank with the identity of contemporary Argentine art,” adds Supervielle, and says that with the help of Victoria Noorthooncurrent director of the Moderno, began to gather art by betting on new talents.
It is known that, beyond the ornamental purpose and the aesthetic pleasure they bring, art collections provide shine to the image of a company and strengthen its relationship with society. The history of corporate collections gained momentum in 1937, when at the New York International Fair, the president of IBM, Thomas Watsonsaid: “Directly or indirectly, artists must depend on companies.”
There it displayed the machines along with art from the 79 countries where the company did business. Profit was not IBM’s purpose, but in 1995 they sold part of the collection to invest in other areas and with 300 paintings they raised more than 25 million dollars. “Portrait with monkey and parrot” by Frida Kahlo – bought for a few dollars – was sold for 3.2 million and passed from the IBM collection to that of the Malba Museum in Argentina.
In the middle of the 20th century, David Rockefeller He had founded the Chase Manhattan collection, then considered “the queen mother of corporate collections” with 15,000 works distributed in 400 branches around the world. The Chase established rules of coexistence, such as the presence of art in the offices of its managers, spaces intended for the public and workplaces. It also extended its exhibition and acquisitions policy to branches in other countries, and in the ’70s it arrived in Argentina. Other corporations quickly assimilated the model and created beautiful and stimulating spaces. The end of gray offices had arrived.
During the meeting of Modern Museum They highlighted a special moment: the creation of the logo. They assured that since then it coincides with the renovation undertaken by the institution. “A logo is not a random occurrence, it is the search for a shape that shapes our DNA. It was necessary to discover a symbol that would make visible the values that identify us,” they explained. This is how they discovered “The Air Race”an installation by the Mar del Plata artist Daniel Joglar inspired by the flights of kites or paragliders and made with Mondrian’s geometries and primary colors. In Joglar’s work they found the metaphor of agility, lightness and flight that drives the imagination and, finally, the logo.
Noorthoon He pointed out that the Argentine scene after 2001 was energetic, generating a whirlwind of creativity and recounted the entry of the first artists: Diana Aisenberg, Marina De Caro, Ana Gallardo, Silvana Lacarra, Mariela Scafati and Alejandra Seeber. Also the youngest: Leo Battistelli, Matías Duville and Lola Goldstein. He added that the purchases were made with the support of gallery owners (Daniel Abate, Orly Benzacar, Alberto Sendrós and Hernan Zavaleta).
Later they would arrive Flavia Da Rin, Sebastián Gordín, Fernanda Laguna, Patricio Larrambebere, Rosalba Mirabella and Eduardo Navarro; Viviana Blanco, Verónica Gómez, Silvia Gurfein and Alberto Passolini; Eduardo Basualdo, Tomás Espina, Estanislao Florido, Max Gómez Canle, Juliana Iriart, José Pizarro and Graciela Hasper with a mural almost eight meters long, and a great work of Ernesto Ballesteros.
Alejandro Ros, Roberto Jacoby, Magdalena JItrik, Rosana Schoijett, Florencia Caterina, Sofía Bohtlingk, Juan Odriozola, Costanza Alberione, Amadeo Azar, José Luis Anzizar, Gabriel Baggio, Ana Benedetti, Zoe Di Rienzo, Patricio Gil Flood, Pablo Guiot, Aurora Castillo , Diego de Aduriz, Claire de Santa Coloma, Verónica Romano and Javier Soria Vázquezmake up, among others, the extensive list.
Today, the book dedicated to the philanthropist Emmanuelle Supervielle, the first manager of the project, brings together critical essays by Barbara Golubicki, Florencia Qualina, Andres Aizicovich and Alejo Ponce de León. The collection, coordinated by Ariadna González Nayaincludes more than two hundred works and is established as an artistic constellation that managed to identify key artists of our country.
