Dealer’s collection for Spain

Helga de Alvear to open museum

By Lindsay Pollock | From Frieze daily edition, 17 Oct 09
Published online 17 Oct 09

Bound for Spain: Ugo Rondione's A Day Like This Made of Nothing and Nothing Else, 2009 (Photo: Katherine Hardy)

One of the stars of the Frieze fair—Ugo Rondinone’s towering white aluminium tree—is bound for Spain, where it will be showcased in a museum housing the contemporary art collection of Madrid art dealer and collector Helga de Alvear (F4). The new museum opens next June in Cáceres in the west of Spain.

De Alvear, who celebrates her 30th year as an art dealer next year, has amassed a collection of 2,000 works by international artists dating from the 1960s to the present. She is donating the entire group to found the Visual Arts Centre, Foundation Helga de Alvear, Cáceres, which aims to spur development in the region. De Alvear’s collection includes works by Spanish artists Juan Uslé and Pepe Espaliú, as well as artists as diverse as Ai Weiwei, Donald Judd, Thomas Demand, Pipilotti Rist and Barbara Kruger. The German-born De Alvear, whose father owned leather factories and invented an absorbent plastic used in nappies, cheerfully admits she spent her inheritance in the best possible way, acquiring a collection to give to the Spanish people.

Her latest acquisition, Rondinone’s 2009 A Day Like This Made of Nothing and Nothing Else, was purchased from Eva Presenhuber’s stand (C3) where the asking price was €270,000. De Alvear gravitates to art underpinned by strong ideas. She fell in love with the tree on the first day of the fair. “It reminds me of a desert, when we don’t have any landscape any more,” she says. The Rondinone is one of three editions—all have been sold.

The first stage of the museum opens in June. A second phase is slated to be completed by 2012, bringing the space to 10,000 sq. m. “The idea is a Kunsthalle with a collection,” explains De Alvear. “It will not be a quiet museum.” De Alvear said exhibitions will rotate and art will be borrowed from other collectors and institutions.

De Alvear got her break working with Madrid dealer Juana Mordó in 1980. When Mordó died in 1984, De Alvear took over the business. She initially continued Mordó’s programme, selling Spanish artists from the “El Paso” group, including Pablo Serrano, Antonio Saura and others. She later changed direction, introducing international artists such as Nam June Paik and Robert Motherwell to Spanish audiences. “Nobody came,” she said. “Nobody had heard of them in Madrid.” She soon shifted into the more affordable photography field and gradually introduced video, sculpture and painting. Her gallery’s next show is devoted to German photographer Thomas Demand (27 November-

31 December).

Meanwhile, De Alvear is busy on her stand this week. She presents artists from her roster, including Spanish artist Santiago Sierra, American photographer James Casebere, UK sisters Jane and Louise Wilson and German artist Imi Knoebel. Most of the works are priced below €35,000. “For me the money isn’t too important,” she says. “It’s important to have great things.”