Extractos de entrevistas
These are extracts from the interviews given by the artists for the edition of the catalogue "Colecciones de Artistas", Fundacion Proa, 2001.
Luis. F Benedit
When I like the image of someone, it is not that I want to have several works, I like to have one, independently of the date, year, value.
This attitude is very different to to the collector's attitude.
Many things I liked but I do not have them. Other that I liked long time ago, now they seem very ugly.
Also many works do not resist the time, and may be you still like them but they don't provoke you that ancient enthusiasm.
I have a friend that began to buy pens, and now he is an expert. It is a despaired, he does not resist a weekend without going to buy a pen. That is a collector, he has the fever. Going to a store and, as say in France, quoi de neuf, to see what there is, what appeared. And he has more than hundred forty pens in very little time.
It is with that state that is made a collection, it has nothing to do with the works accumulation that accomplishes an artist.
The collector has the syndrome of the craving. I know it because when I was young enchanted me the popular art things, I was a fanatic. And I was insane, I was despaired by the guacos and the Peruvian things. I was also obsessed by the popular art. I arrived to buy a pieces heap, a day I satiated myself and I liquidated them.
I was young and I made what I could. I bought ceramics and pots in Spain and Portugal. In those moments, in every place I went I bought something of popular art and I could not stop of making it. That happened, now I do not have that craving.
Luis Felipe Noé
Personally, I changed much work, but as I said, the majority are gifts. Those things sometimes are not given in a formal manner. It was like "I give you... and you give me and thus sometimes it is concretized and sometimes not. I vave much work of my ex-partners of studie, Deira and de la Vega, but they are things that in some way were remaining us. What I meant is that not always that sort of barters are equivalent.
Rogelio Polesello
Of my own works that I preserve, I have things that I prefer, things that I like by various motives more than other. For histories, moments of my life, or by plastic ideas that then I continue working. There are things that I like more and aches me to sell. Lastly, I try not to sell works. Recently, Mrs. de Fortabat bought me for her museum, some works that now I actually miss. Some very large works that accompanied me for a long time. But when I think that they are going to be in a museum seems me that I can detach me because is a very interesting proposal.
Antonio Seguí has a fabulous collection of pre-Columbian art that he have been mounting for many years. Also he mounted a very important collection of contemporary art that I believe that it is the one which has been donated to the Museum of Córdoba. Seguí was the buyer of my first paintings, and I am happy of that because he is a real collector.
I buy works since I was very young. In that time, also, the exchanges were more frequent... because we were younger. It was easier. With the time that had changed. The things begin to take value, one begins to have a place... and then it is complicated.
Alfredo Prior
The artists of my generation we gave presents to each other, yes, not even they were exchanges, they gave me, I gave them, it was like that. We don't formally proposed an exchange. If I think it, they are things that happened 20 years ago. Other times, the years have passed.And if the changes happened...I have a lot of work right now.
I do not continue exchanging, I do not want to have too many objects. It passes me with all the things. I do not want records, I do not want books; but, however one always is attempted with something. I do not want because to add something-above all in the case of a work-, adds a bonus to your life. In the walls and in the head. I prefer to strip.
Josefina Robirosa
I have never proposed to exchange a work because I was very shy. I thought that the other could have not interest in what I was offering to him, and I didn't want to put him the bind by saying that.
I suffered with the painting, now I paint with pleasure, because now I know that is going to work, I put the painting against the wall and I wait it. Before I forced it, and it was a struggle.
Sometimes, I made some huge bonfires in a place in San Isidro. When it seemed me that a painting did not gave more, I burnt it. They were assembled neighboring, cousins, friends, that said "do not burn this, give it to me". ....Each time today that there is a work of mine in an auction, it makes me very nervous, I go almost masqueradeed to see what is going to appear.
When Bueno, Cambre, Kuitca and Prior were young, they came to request to give them a painting of a meter by a meter for a sir that offered to make a catalogue for their exhibition in exchange for a table mine, and they proposed me to change to give me each one a table. That's why I have the Cambre, a Bueno, the little bears of Prior and the Kuitca.
Kuitca delayed too much time in bringing me that painting, and he said to me "I am working on that". I asked to him, "why it takes you so much time?". And he said to me: "Because is on something that you told me".
After six months he appeared with this painting that has a woman putting the head of my brother in the water;-that was what made with us a babysitter- and I shrieking to the side. And put me: "to Josefina, from memory to memory". And it was wonderful to me.
Rómulo Macció
I would be a great collector, if I could. I know to watch, and would buy, but I do not have the money. I have to sell to buy. Though I have bought several things... some that now I do not preserve.
If I might have have resources, I might have bought a painting of Leonardo da Vinci. It is not easy to find, but there are some and it is not an impossible, because incredibly it is cheaper than many contemporary painters.
I have a few paintings. What I have are barters... gifts. Some works were in part of payment, as Quinquela Martín, that is a fantastic picture, I have it in my house.
In this exhibition I am going to expose "Un plato fuerte" (A strong plate). It is from the '60s and it is called like that and it is a strong plate. Because it is the "mother of the Nueva Figuración".
Nicolás García Uriburu
I mount a collection because I like it. I have made a vocation crisis very rare, maybe I invented it, as serving to the people, I do not know why. I believe that I have a fate in the one I am obligated to make things for the other. It enchants me that they say to me: "Nicolás, you are thoroughly insane, nobody is waiting nothing of you, have fun and spends' your money on travelling ". But when I sell a table, that money goes to different places, to different collections that I am arming.
I have armed two collections that are actually very important. If I might have been a rich person, I might have made a hospital or I might have made something in education, but for that I need money.
Furthermore I am artist and I am in the painting and the art interests me. I see a work and immediately I realize of his importance, I believe that that is my contribution. I have made a very large collection of Argentine pre-Columbian pieces. After realized that was too important to have those collections in my hands and I am making them public.
Long time ago I bought Argentine traditional sculpture, twenty or thirty years ago, but I see a very labeled European origin andit doesn't interest me any more.
Now I am interested in telluric, in autochthonous, in ethnic. I am with the head in other place.