Visiones de la tierra/El mundo planeado "Visions of Earth/The Planned World. Luís Paulo Montenegro Collection

Since February 20 and until June 10 of 2018, the Fundación Banco Santander presents the exhibition titled Visiones de la tierra/El mundo planeado "Visions of Earth/The Planned World" at the Sala de Arte Santander in Boadilla del Monte. It is the first exhibition of works belonging to Brazilian art collector Luís Paulo Montenegro. Luís Paulo Montenegro began his collection in 1999, when he bought at auction his first work, Cândido Portinari's La India Carajá (The Karajá Woman). Today, Montenegro possesses one of the most important collections of modern and contemporary art in Brazil and has been recognized with one of the "A" Awards for Collecting granted by the Fundación ARCO. Rodrigo Moura, former director of the Art and Cultural Programs of the Instituto Inhotim and the exhibition's curator, selected more than two hundred artworks out of the five hundred pieces included in a collection that reflects the artistic taste of Montenegro, a collector who initially developed an interested in Brazilian modernism, then in Latin American art and Brazilian concrete art and, lastly, in contemporary art. Visiones de la tierra/El mundo planeado "Visions of Earth/The Planned World" is divided in several sections: "Opinion," where a tribute is paid to the Instituto Brasileiro de Opinião Pública e Estatística, managed by the Montenegro family since 1947; "Modernisms," "Indigenisms," "Paulistas and Cariocas," and "Precedents and Parallelisms;" and concluding with the section "Contemporary," which features the most current artistic manifestations in Brazil as well as by creators working in the international art scene. During the presentation of the exhibition, the collector said "I hope that with this exhibition Europeans can appreciate Brazilian art […] Collecting is an act of love but also a learning process. The Luís Paulo Montenegro that began collecting in 1999 is not the same person today. I started with Brazilian artists, and then I focused on Latin American art before my collecting reached Europe." The exhibition features a selection of 218 artworks from different artistic disciplines, with an emphasis on painting. Sixty-five of the works were created by Brazilian artists, while the remaining 35% were created by artists from other nationalities. The artists selected include several important names in Brazilian art, like: José Damasceno, Nelson Leiner, Marcius Galan, Fernanda Gomes, Jorge Macchi, Anna Maria Maiolino, Cildo Meireles, Alfredo Volpi, Lygia Clark, Lygia Pape, Hélio Oiticica, and Ernesto Neto; Latin American artist like Doris Salcedo, Wifredo Lam, Joaquín Torres-García, Tomás Saraceno; and renowned international artists like Alexander Calder, Max Bill, Andy Warhol, Mona Hatoum, Piero Manzoni, Willem de Kooning, and Alberto Giacometti.