Jorge Pérez is a renowned art collector who has lived in the United States for more than 40 years. The story of how he got money playing poker at university to buy his first works has been replicated in all the media it has been through. Even though he no longer plays, he has dealt his cards well. Pérez is also the founder of the multimillion-dollar real estate company Related Group, which has projects in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Panama and the United States.
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He is the son of Cuban parents, was born in Argentina and raised in Bogotá. In addition to being a billionaire philanthropist, who mixes art with the design of his projects, Pérez has been in charge of exposing Latin American artists to the world. He has donated collections to museums such as the Reina Sofía in Spain, the Miami Art Museum and the Tate Modern in London.
He considers Colombia to be his second home and has a collection of more than a thousand works by artists from that country. “It is the second strongest Latin American collection that I have after the Cuban one”he assures. It is expected that the group of curators from his firm will be during the Bogotá International Art Fair (ArtBo), to bring the best of Colombian art to their real estate projects in South Florida, United States.
Where did the desire to collect art come from with the money you earned playing poker in college?
My mother was a great fan of art and literature. She was a good friend of Marta Traba, who was a very intelligent Argentine, who really liked everything that had to do with the world of the arts. That’s where my love for this started to come. Especially for Colombian art. When I moved to the United States I started playing cards and every time I won a little I went to New York to buy something to collect.
What things did you buy at that time?
Lithographs because it was the only thing I could buy. They cost me about $100 back then. I still have the first three lithographs I bought. They were Miró from Spain; Marino Marini, from Italy; and Man Ray, an American. I still have them in the collection, I mean, I have never sold a piece of art.
Why did you start collecting Latin American art?
Because it made me feel much closer to my roots. At first I did not collect any artists that were not Latin American. Create a collection, I would say one of the strongest in the world, in contemporary and modern art from Latin America. I gave that collection to the Miami Art Museum and I believe that today they have one of the most important collections of Latin American art. In just the last 13 years I have been collecting contemporary art from all over the world.
Now the Miami Art Museum is called Pérez Art Museum Miami, how did you end up naming that building after your last name?
The plan was that five of us were going to donate five million dollars each to fundraise. In the end I was alone and they asked me if I could make the donation and also give the collection as a gift. I thought that, in a country where Latinos are having more and more influence, there was no public building named after a Latino. They are all Guggenheim or Smithsonian or Whitney… For me it was very important to demonstrate that Latinos are also going to give to the communities where we are. That’s why the name is important in that great museum.
You have found a way to mix your passion for art with the real estate business, how did you do it?
A large portion of the condos sold here (Florida, USA) are from Latin American buyers. It is very influential that we put what I call museum-quality art into all our buildings, especially the high-quality ones. We have three private curators who are in charge of purchasing art for the buildings. Master Botero, Obregón, Beatriz González… All the greats of Colombian and Latin American art appear in our buildings. I think that gives our clients a lot of pride. I believe that this has helped us a lot in the marketing of the buildings.
How is your work with the curators? How much do you obey them?
I would think that we see almost all the most important galleries in the world. We work together to see what we think is best for the private collection and for the buildings. As for paying attention to them… when I really like a piece and I want something from an artist, I buy it for my private collection. I believe that there are great teachers who sometimes have not been treated as they should be treated. For example in the case of Botero. Many of the curators tell me that it is very commercial, but Botero is one of the great artists of the 20th century. I didn’t care much what they told me, I was going to buy my monumental sculptures and my Botero paintings, especially those from the early 70s. I love the black and white Boteros.
In your collecting task you have to be studying all the time, what things do you explore to join your project?
The private collection has nothing to do with the real estate collection, for which I do have to be studying all the time. When I am doing a real estate project I am not only thinking about the artist, but I have to think about the buyer. Although the art speaks for itself, I think about how it will reach the buyer and how what I am going to put affects them. If we have a project aimed at people under forty, we look for something contemporary and lively. Whereas if I’m doing something for people who are a little older I look for teachers that they have known all their lives.
What is your private collection like?
Sometimes it can be very strong because art is art and I believe that it should never be censored. The collection changes a lot because I don’t focus on just one thing. Now, a lot of it has to do with social issues, but at the same time it has to do with the greats of abstract expressionism like Mark Rothko or Cunningham, for example. There is also the art of Doris Salcedo, which is conceptual art in which you see a concrete chair and if you don’t know about art you don’t understand. I love this too. I love studying it because without studying it you can’t understand it.
What have been your most difficult obsessions to acquire?
I have a collection of American Abstract Expressionism, which I consider the most important movement in the 20th century. 50 or 60 years ago many of the great artists said that there was no great woman who was an artist and I began to collect a lot of their art. Especially what Elaine de Kooning, Joan Mitchell, Deborah Remington did… Looking for pieces of these women, when they still did not recognize each other, was a beautiful story because I had to go to the families. The reward has been very good because we have one of the great collections of abstract women. Today I couldn’t buy any of these pieces.
I didn’t ask a question. It is the continuation of the previous answer.
If you buy a Picasso today, no one is going to tell you that you found something. You no longer find anything there because it is proclaimed. I have always liked to look for geniuses who have not been discovered or who have not had credit. I have liked collecting things that were not worth 3 pesos and that now all museums want to have. It makes me very proud to have researched well and got it right. I think I still have the competitive spirit of wanting to win. Not in the sense that it’s worth a lot of money because I’m never going to sell it.but to win because you have done something different from everyone else and you have done it well.
JUAN JOSÉ RÍOS ARBELÁEZ
School of Multimedia Journalism EL TIEMPO
