Developer Jorge Perez is making another big art gift. But it’s not staying in Miami
Miami developer and art collector Jorge Pérez has announced the donation of a dozen works by Latin American and U.S. Latino artists to Spain’s national museum of modern art.
The Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid will also receive a $500,000 cash gift from Pérez, to be used by its curators to acquire additional works by Hispanic or Latino artists, a spokesman for the developer said.
The art to be donated, which includes a work of photography by the famed late Cuban-American artist Ana Mendieta, is valued at a total of over $1 million, spokesman Jorge Mendez said.
“Jorge’s goal is to create closer links between the European and Latin American art worlds, all while continuing to position Miami as a global cultural hub,” Mendez said in a brief emailed statement.
In a statement, the Reina Sofia Foundation called Pérez’s donation “important” and said the works will form part of a growing focus within the museum’s collection on Latin American art dating from the 1960s to the present. The museum will exhibit the art works, many of which raise social issues, but no schedule has been announced, Mendez said.
The museum said several of the artists whose work is included in the Pérez gift are not currently represented in the Reina Sofia’s collection, including Jorge E. Eielson of Peru, Eugenio Dittborn of Chile and Juan Carlos Alom of Cuba. The Reina Sofia statement called Alom a leading innovator in contemporary Cuban photography.
One of the most significant pieces in the gift is a collaborative mural by the Canadian Marcel Dzama and Raymond Pettibon, an American artist, the Reina Sofia noted.
The museum added that’s it’s also using Pérez’s gift to acquire a work by Spanish sculptor and installation artist Asier Mendizábal.
The billionaire “condo king” has increasingly turned to philanthropy as he reduces his day-to-day role at The Related Group. Last year, he announced an annual program of $1 million in grants to visual arts groups in Miami, a pair of new annual art prizes and a $1 million gift to benefit 20 local non-profit groups focused on culture and the arts.
He also inaugurated a new private exhibition space in Miami’s Allapattah neighborhood, Espacio 23, to showcase his art collection. The Pérez Art Museum Miami, or PAMM, was named for him after he made a substantial donation of art and cash.
Several of the works to be donated to the Reina Sofia remain on view at Espacio 23, including:
* “To Raise an Object, Airmail Painting No. 115,” 1995-98, by Dittborn;
* “Calendario (Abril 2009-Marzo 2010),” 2015, by Gilda Mantilla, of the United States;
* “Untitled (Glass on Body Imprints); 1972, by Mendieta;
* Two works by contemporary painter Claudia Coca of Peru, “Otorongo,” 1970, and “Territorio,” 1970;
* “Amor a primera vista,” 1943, by Marta Minujin, of Argentina.
