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Major art collection loaned to Spain for 15 years

Cuban-American multimillionaire Roberto Polo will loan his collection of 7,000 contemporary paintings, sculptures and photos to Spain for 15 years, the country's biggest cultural deal in over 20 years.

Published: 5 July 2017 09:22 CEST

Major art collection loaned to Spain for 15 years

Roberto Polo has donated 7,000 artworks to be shown in Toledo and Cuenca.

The collection, which includes works by German artist Max Ernst and US sculptor Martin Kline, will be shown at museums in Toledo and Cuenca in central Spain, the president of the regional government of Castilla-La Mancha, Emiliano Garcia-Page, told a news conference in Toledo.

After 15 years the loan period may be extended or the works may be donated to Spain, he added.

Garcia-Page said this was “the most important cultural operation for the country” since the Spanish government in 1993 agreed to buy the prized art collection of the Swiss industrialist Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza.

Officials did not give an estimate for the value of the works which will be loaned but top-selling daily newspaper El Pais said the collection is insured for $50 million (€44 million).

“I have always loaned works, and in the end if they have been well taken care of, valued and respected, I have always ended up donating them, but I first want to have proof that they are valued and respected as they should,” said Polo, who lives in Brussels where he owns an art gallery that bears his
name.

“I am going to turn 66 in August and in 15 years I will not have many more years left,” he added.

Polo, whose parents moved to Miami from Cuba after the Castro regime seized their assets in 1961, said he wanted to die “with empty hands” and without taking “anything to the grave”.

The regional government of Catilla-La Mancha will refurbish the Santa Fe museum in Toledo, and a public records archive in Cuenca, to display the works but Polo will receive no money for the loan of the works, Garcia-Page said.

The works will start to be displayed in Toledo from the middle of 2018, and in Cuenca shortly after, a spokesman for the regional government said.

By Diego Urdaneta / AFP

African-born director's new vision for Berlin cultural magnet

The “Haus der Kulturen der Welt” (House of World Cultures), or HKW, was built by the Americans in 1956 during the Cold War for propaganda purposes, at a time when Germany was still divided.

New director Ndikung said it had been located “strategically” so that people on the other side of the Berlin Wall, in the then-communist East, could see it.

This was “representing freedom” but “from the Western perspective”, the 46-year-old told AFP.

Now Ndikung, born in Cameroon before coming to study in Germany 26 years ago, wants to transform it into a place filled with “different cultures of the world”.

The centre, by the river Spree, is known locally as the “pregnant oyster” due to its sweeping, curved roof. It does not have its own collections but is home to exhibition rooms and a 1,000-seat auditorium.

It reopened in June after renovations, and Ndikung’s first project “Quilombismo” fits in with his aims of expanding the centre’s offerings.

The exhibition takes its name from the Brazilian term “Quilombo”, referring to the communities formed in the 17th century by African slaves, who fled to remote parts of the South American country.

Throughout the summer, there will also be performances, concerts, films, discussions and an exhibition of contemporary art from post-colonial societies across Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania.

‘Rethink the space’

“We have been trying to… rethink the space. We invited artists to paint walls… even the floor,” Ndikung said.

And part of the “Quilombismo” exhibition can be found glued to the floor -African braids laced together, a symbol of liberation for black people, which was created by Zimbabwean artist Nontsikelelo Mutiti.

According to Ndikung, African slaves on plantations sometimes plaited their hair in certain ways as a kind of coded message to those seeking to escape, showing them which direction to head.

READ ALSO: Germany hands back looted artefacts to Nigeria

His quest for aestheticism is reflected in his appearance: with a colourful suit and headgear, as well as huge rings on his fingers, he rarely goes unnoticed.

During his interview with AFP, Ndikung was wearing a green scarf and cap, a blue-ish jacket and big, sky-blue shoes.

With a doctorate in medical biology, he used to work as an engineer before devoting himself to art.

In 2010, he founded the Savvy Gallery in Berlin, bringing together art from the West and elsewhere, and in 2017 was one of the curators of Documenta, a prestigious contemporary art event in the German city of Kassel.

Convinced of the belief that history “has been written by a particular type of people, mostly white and men,” Ndikung has had all the rooms in the HKW renamed after women.

These are figures who have “done something important in the advancement of the world” but were “erased” from history, he added. Among them is Frenchwoman Paulette Nardal, born in Martinique in 1896.

She helped inspire the creation of the “negritude” movement, which aimed to develop black literary consciousness, and was the first black woman to study at the Sorbonne in Paris.

Reassessing history

Ndikung’s appointment at the HKW comes as awareness grows in Germany about its colonial past, which has long been overshadowed by the atrocities committed during the era of Adolf Hitler’s Nazis.

Berlin has in recent years started returning looted objects to African countries which it occupied in the early 20th century — Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Namibia and Cameroon.

“It’s long overdue,” said Ndikung.

He was born in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, into an anglophone family.

The country is majority francophone but also home to an anglophone minority and has faced deadly unrest in English-speaking areas, where armed insurgents are fighting to establish an independent homeland.

One of his dreams is to open a museum in Cameroon “bringing together historical and contemporary objects” from different countries, he said.

He would love to locate it in Bamenda, the capital of Cameroon’s restive Northwest region.

“But there is a war in Bamenda, so I can’t,” he says.

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