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María Porto and Leticia Hervás inaugurate the first art gallery located in a department store, designed for classic and casual collectors and for Latin American luxury clients
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It seems that El Corte Inglés never changes, that the mechanical stairs are the same as in our childhood just like the lightning from the pastry shop. However, if you look closely, there are surprises, images that seem out of context and that are almost funny because they are unexpected. Yesterday, the department store chain opened in its center on Paseo de La Castellana, in Madrid, the first art gallery to open in any of its stores. On the first floor, which is the women’s clothing, in a corner with a double height.
There, under a sign on which the names of the gallery owners María Porto and Leticia Hervás are written in calligraphy, works by Picasso, Tàpies, Chirino, Miralles and also living artists such as Jaume Plensa, Jacinto de Manuel, Arturo Garrido will be sold. , Gonhdo or Rafael Sañudo, valued between 200 and 300,000 euros. Although the important thing in the previous sentence is not the names or the prices but the verb “will sell.”
«Until now, El Corte Inglés had had a small space dedicated to exhibiting art and he had come to sell some Picasso engraving», Explains María Porto, former director of the Marlborough Gallery in Madrid. «This experience is different. To begin with, because we are the owners of the gallery and we pay El Corte Inglés for the space, just like any luxury firm does. We make the decisions about the art that will be shown and we will take care of putting qualified personnel ».
His work, therefore, will not consist of dispatching more or less noble engravings but rather of mediating between the artist and the collector, as in any art gallery. They will guide their vendors In their creative career, they will advise their clients, search for them for specific pieces and help you sell the artwork you want to get rid of.
But they will also do the kinds of things that salespeople who work at ElCorte Inglés do: open at 10am and close at 10pm, survive the crowds at Christmas and cater to the passersby. And that is the meaning of being in El Corte Inglés: «Many times people see art galleries a barrier, a place that intimidates “, explains Leticia Hervás, gallery owner with experience in Southeast Asia. «Many times we have sinned snobbery. Being here means assuming that we have to give information and explain what art can give them, how safe the investment is, what we can do for them as gallery owners … ».
The logic of Hervás and Porto is easy to understand: at a time when the art business is in uncertain circumstances, they go out to meet new clients. This idea has an interesting derivative: his gallery is designed to create synergies with the interior architecture service that El Corte Inglés has opened: A client comes to the center of La Castellana with the idea of reforming his apartment and his architect tells him that, if he is looking for something a little special for that room that he is going to enlarge, a Canogar print or a bust of Plensa, he only has to go down to the first floor.
And are there clients that work like this? Yes. Many of the latin americans that in recent years have invested in the luxury real estate market of Madrid have endless white walls with high ceilings to which they give content. For many, El Corte Inglés is a consumer myth.
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