Roberto Polo, art collector: "The mixture of money and art disgusts me"

This patron and philanthropist has dedicated his entire life to art and has brought his Roberto Polo Collection to Toledo.

Castilla-La Mancha Center for Modern and Contemporary Art (Corpo), directed by Rafael Sierra.

Who is Roberto Polo? He has many facets. There are many lives in one. I have lived in many places, speak several languages, and have had a very eclectic upbringing. I always knew that my vocation was artistic. At first as a visual artist, then as a gallery owner, dealer, collector and philanthropist. Why did you decide to bring your collection to Toledo? I had other proposals in Spain, such as the city of Malaga, but Toledo symbolized something very great for me. It was like a challenge. At the time, I thought I was in my sixties and how many times was I going to be able to sell everything and start exploring new territory. We are filling gaps in the Spanish museum scene. What has been the hardest thing to get the museum up and running? Director Rafael Sierra and I are very eager to do things.Our biggest frustration is that among politicians this is frowned upon because you make it clear that they don't do anything. That annoys. But we have been very tenacious and there was very good chemistry with the president of Castilla La Mancha, Emiliano García-Page, who is a very intelligent and fast man. The Roberto Polo collection is full of authors unknown to the general public. How did you discover them? That is a problem of Spanish ignorance and the backwardness that the country has had. Renoir was not known here. When I put together my collection of 18th century French art they weren't highly regarded artists or anything like that. Why does a Renoir have to be more expensive than a Fragonard or a Chardin? It is a question of marketing, but in reality a Fragonard is much more important than a Renoir.It was much more revolutionary in its time and it changed history. How do you choose a work to buy? I have always been guided not so much by the name of the artist, but by the date of creation. Creation is invention is not an exercise in style. It is not doing technically better what someone else has already done. Give me an example. Sorolla did not invent anything. I went to the Masaveu collection, but it disappointed me because it smelled like a lot of money. The mixture of money and art disgusts me. She has complained that art fairs are shopping malls. Exactly. I know that it takes money to buy art, but it takes more knowledge than money. There are wonderful collections that are created with very little money. In Peggy Guggenheim's collection, the most expensive painting she ever paid was $ 300 for a twenty-foot mural commissioned by Jackson Pollock.When he opened his museum in Venice in 1951, who in this world knew who Jackson Pollock was? No one. She was a collector who had a new vision on contemporary art and a new point of view. He has claimed that Jeff Koons or Damien Hirst are fast food art like Burger King or McDonalds. Why are your paintings selling for millions of dollars? It has been a great job of marketing. They are the pompous artists of our day. There is a difference between art and the product of art. Fast consumer art is not the one that stays in museums forever. A work of art has to be an enigma that has to interrogate you. But he never has to give you the answer to the riddle because if he gives you the solution, you stop looking. Is Andy Warhol an overrated artist? Not for me. There is no artist who better characterizes his time than he.How were those nights of debauchery in the New York of the 80? I frequented all that world, but I have always been a man who likes to control. I have not smoked a single marijuana cigarette. I have always been very athletic. Andy was also surrounded by people like that, but then he was very spectator. It was very low-key and voyeur. You never saw him in any of that or any of the drugs. How did you keep up with those parties? I remember a New Year's Eve party in New York at a Chinese restaurant called Mr. Chow, owned by great art collectors. The bottom of the restaurant was like a champagne pool with amazing girls dancing on the tables. I went to the bathroom and found a long line to get in. When my turn came, I was surprised because the queue was to fuck Antonio López,a sex machine who was the greatest fashion illustrator in history. I was not this kind of guy. At that time I was married and very much in love with my wife. He became a millionaire as a young man. Was it also with art? Yes, but it was not because I was a good businessman, but because my gaze was different. I paid attention to certain artists before others and created trends. Whenever I have made money in life it has been to buy art again. When I create a collection, if I can't improve it, I sell it and open a new door. With each acquisition I have to learn. How did you get into finance? I was reading in the New York Times that Citibank had created an art investment department and that excited me. I went to be interviewed, but there was a problem: that all my training was in art and nothing in finance.They accepted me, but they demanded a

three-year

in finance. To my surprise, I came out of that

with 5 stars, as the person in charge of all Citibank operations around the world. Operations with respect to art? No, with respect to everything. Once I finished, my purpose was to create the art investment department. I asked for it and they transferred me to the investment management group. How it worked We created a fund to invest in art, but we also advised on specific acquisitions. For example, if a client wanted to invest in French Impressionist work, my responsibility was to update him on what was on the market and advise him on what to buy. My theory and my way of acting has always been that one acquires art for passion, not for money. It may be a good investment, but that is accessory.What advice did you give your clients? If the art you have bought has been crucial in the evolution of art history it is a good investment. If it was a revolutionary art at the time, it will take more or less time to be recognized, but it will be. What saddened me a lot afterwards is that my own theories were turned upside down and for 30 or 40 years art investors have been created. Is there much fakery in today's art? There are many inflated balloons. I don't know if you followed the case of the Knoedler gallery, the oldest in the United States. To the gallery director, Ann Freedman, a Costa Rican lady was offered a painting on paper by Mark Rothko. She did not go to authenticate the work with laboratory analysis or the experts on Rothko's work. For 20 years he was selling these fake Rothko,that came from this Costa Rican person. In what way is it detected that a work is false? Everything I buy goes through scientific laboratories to analyze that the colors correspond to the time of creation and confirm that those colors were those that that artist specifically used. What price can your collection have? I have had to pay for my collection with a lot of sacrifice, but it is based on knowledge and research, not money. I am not Baron Thyssen with one of the largest fortunes in the world and who used it to buy signatures, some very beautiful and others, no. Knowledge evolves if there is research: what 50 years ago we thought was one way, now is another. How many pioneers have been forgotten? I always spoke with my friend Barbara Rose about this topic. For this reason,We did the exhibition of painting after postmodernism to show that there is a new painting that corresponds to new principles. The problem is not that there is no new art, but that there is no one who knows how to identify it. How to do it In 1967, Barbara Rose published an article identifying the theoretical principles of minimalism. Before she described it, it was not known that it existed. I am known for identifying works that the world's greatest experts cannot identify. What my teachers taught me was knowing how to see, being able to see a work by someone we don't know, but deconstructing it and knowing who made it. If you are presented with an unknown work by an author, do you recognize it right away? It has happened to me many times. For example, with the great late-19th-century object designer Édouard Lièvre,that it was I who brought it out of oblivion. It is the bridge between the Napoléon III style and abstract ornamentation. I could be walking along the Rastro de Paris and every time I saw a work by Édouard Lièvre he would pull me over and take me to it. It was like a magnet. It is a matter of being born with a talent and having been able to educate it. I am not a rich man who to show that he has reached society buys works of art as ornaments. It is true that all the works in his museum challenge the viewer. And you try to know why and it is in that effort that you join the work because the work calls you. How long can you look at one of Koons or Hirst's works? Three seconds. They become a symbol that you have been able to pay 50 million dollars for them. Ah, he has a Jeff Koons!Many museums have experimented with removing labels. When you go to the museum, people look first at the file and then at the work. If it's a Van Gogh, you know it's worth a lot of money. Art and the art market are two very different things that rarely coincide. Nowadays, people value a work of art according to its market price. Has it ever been ruined? Of course it has, and then I'm reborn again. I have several pseudonyms. They call me

and the

of the art world. He stated that his problem was that he had too much testosterone. Every time I do my blood tests, the doctors tell me that I am a freak. People think that testosterone is only linked to sex, but it has to do with the desire to live. What is the social rule that does not support? Pretentiousness, pride and arrogance. There is much ignorant who overcompensates with arrogance that he is illiterate. OMG! What I have seen in Spain in the political part has been incredible. Is death very present in your life? Continuously. I have always had in mind the continuation after death. This is a legacy to a country where I have 99% of the origins. I have not found anyone whom I could empty my brain into that person's brain. Knowledge must be transferred.My collection is made from blood, sweat and tears. I wish there was someone to soak up all of that, but people are in a dynamic of knowing everything quickly and superficially.

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