It seems that the English court never changes, that the mechanical escaleits are the same of our childhood as well as the éclairs of the pastry. However, if you look carefully, there are surprises, images that look out of context and that are almost funny by unexpected. Yesterday, the chain of department store inaugurated in its center of the Paseo de la Castellana, in Madrid, the first art gallery that opens at any of its stores. On the first floor, it is that of ladies' clothes, in a corner with double height.
There, under a label in which the names of the Galers María Porto and Leticia Hervás are called, works by Picasso, Tàpies, Chirino, from Miralles and also of live artists as Jaume Plensa, Jacinto de Manuel, Arturo Garrido , Gonhdo or Rafael Sañudo, rated between 200 and 300,000 euros. Although the important thing about the previous phrase is not the names or prices but the verb "will sell".
"Until now, the English court had had a small space dedicated to exposing art and had come to sell some engraving of Picasso," 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 paid for the space to El Corte Inglés, just as it does any luxury firm. We make decisions about the art that will be shown and we will take care of qualified personnel ».
His work, therefore, will not be to dispatch more or less noble engravings but in mediating between the artist and the collector, as in any art gallery. They will guide their suppliers in their creative career, advise their clients, will seek for specific pieces and help them sell the works of art that they want to get rid of.
But they will also do that kind of things that the sellers who work in the English Elcorte do: open at 10.00 and close at 22.00, survive the agglomerations at Christmas and attend the walkers. And that is the sense of being in the English court: "Many times people see in the art galleries a barrier, a site that intimidates," explains Leticia Hervás, a gallerist with experience in Southeast Asia. "Many times we have sinned from snobbery. Being here means to assume that we have to give information and explain what can give them the art, how safe is the investment, what we can do for them nostrica as a gallery ... "
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 customers. That idea has an interesting derivative: his gallery is designed to create synergies with the interior arcier service that has opened the English cut: A client arrives at the center of the Castellana with the idea of reforming his apartment and his architect tells him that, If you are looking for something a little special for that room that will expand, a blade of canogar or a bust of plensa, you just have to go down to the first floor.
And there are customers who work like that? Yes. Many of the Latin Americans who in recent years have invested in the Luxury real estate market in Madrid have infinite white walls of high ceilings to which they give content. For many, the English court is a consumer myth.
Date Of Update: 07 December 2021, 17:28
