Become a collector in Arco (without shipwrecked in the attempt) | Art and action

The first times they are impregnated with doubts, enthusiasm and nerves … More if we talk about entering art collecting and doing so at a fair as an arc, giant and with so many stimuli. Will there be any piece that fits me in the budget? What if I like several works, what criteria I apply to decide? What is the smartest option?

Against this logic hesitation, as a kind of GPS to not get lost among the thousands of proposals that are agglutinated in each edition of the Fair, in 2011 First Collectors, a free and free advisory service promoted by the Banco Santander Foundation. Anyone can sign up through an email and, thanks to a form, a team of experts prepares a dossier with the proposals of works and galleries that recommend approaching to visit, all consistent with their pocket and their tastes. Do you prefer to bet on an emerging artist and whose work will be revalued in the future? Go here. Sculpture, painting, more contemporary expressions? “The intention is to offer accompaniment for people to dare to get closer to the work of artists, to lose fear,” says Elisa Hernando, a doctor in art and economics and founder of global art, the Spanish company pioneer in these lides that is responsible for personalized advice.

Hernando greets Esley Sánchez and her husband Eduardo Rodríguez and sits next to this Cuban marriage. They have been based in Madrid for just six months, it will be their first time in Arco, although they are not precisely beginners in this art. Rodríguez inherited from his grandfather, Juan Miguel Rodríguez de la Cruz, Ceramista, a collection of pieces with the most pomegranate of the ceramic work of the artists of the Cuban avant -garde of the fifties. Since he reached their hands, the couple has tried to take care of it and make it grow. He has just been exposed in Museums of Boston and Miami.

And for that purpose, to discover new works that dialogue with their own, appear for the fair.

Hernando gives in the nail (“The best art of the avant -garde remains fully in force because it has in the background a transcendent and timeless air,” he tells them pointing with the index a corner of the dossier), and the eyes of both are posed in the staging amphora of a Moroccan artist, Mounir Fatmi. “The forms of, for example, a Cuban porrón, come from the Spanish tradition, and the Arab and the Mediterranean have influenced all that, of course,” says Rodríguez.

With at least three sculptural pieces of ceramics and glass on the horizon and the location of all marked in the plane of the fair, the route begins.

The work begins before the inauguration

That precise and well directed walk given Eduardo Rodríguez and Esley Sánchez began to take shape weeks. “We have to arrive with the duties done,” says Hernando. They spend months in preparing an arc, they talk to the galleries (214 from 36 countries) and with the organization of the fair, they know the heart which artists come and what they bring. Last year, they served 130 people through the First Collectory program, in this 2025 edition, with the Amazon and climate change as central themes, they will undoubtedly exceed that figure.

The search to succeed in each dossier is exhaustive and requires a deep understanding of the interests of the buyer potential: national or international artists?, Emerging or consecrated? Does it prioritize some aesthetic coordinates or concrete works whose value grows in the future?

For those more newbies, another fundamental task to be carried out is purely pedagogical. The art market has particularities that not everyone knows: from the rental of the stand, the transport (both to the place of exhibition and to the home of the buyer), the insurance and the whole paperwork are responsible for galleries, complex work and, sometimes, very expensive; The artists usually receive 50% of what a work costs, and from that benefit they have to reduce the production costs of the piece, in addition to the taxes. This is almost always a necessary explanation to understand the reason for the price of a picture, a sculpture or an installation. “In global art we have collectors with budgets ranging from 500 euros to 200,000. It is an exciting sector, but without anyone who guides you, it is very easy to feel overwhelmed by uncertainty, ”explains Hernando.

And is that his advice is really precious even for the most expert voices. When María Beguiristain, art director of the Banco Santander Foundation, travels the arch corridors, points works, he knows almost everything about her authors; You can barely advance a few steps without artists or gallery owners from greeting her and rejoice in finding her there. Well, even Beguiristain tells anecdotes of an occasion when Hernando advised her to venture to acquire a piece and she did not decide, an opportunity clearly lost, now that she knows what she could not know then: “It was a small piece of June Crespo (Pamplona, ​​1982), it was beautiful and cost, I do not remember, between 500 and 600 euros”; He would have loved to add her to her personal collection but did not dare. Some time later, Juan Crespo was selected to participate in the 59th Venice Biennial (2022), the Pamplonesa artist is today, according to the specialized publication Artfacts, one of the 100 most important in Spain.

The collector’s profile

Passion and Reason of Art

Beguiristain and Hernando coincide: you have to dare to enter a gallery like who goes to gossip in a furniture store or a bookstore. “Without stopping, there are people who ask me surprised, ‘Do you really do not pay entry?’, We have to erase that barrier at once. It is the first step to educate the eye, ”Hernando insists.

His story is that, surely, he could not have finished any other way: as a child he loved the history of art but the paternal advice of studying at the same time a “useful” career; In the morning he was subject to economic and business sciences, in the afternoon he changed his hall and faculty and studied what fascinated him. The two degrees were taken (and years later he would continue with two doctorates), he tried to devote himself to the investment bank abroad and, with twenty -six years, from Brussels, he decided to change course. He returned to Madrid, fastened in several galleries and, finally, in 2003 he inaugurated global art, the company that combined his knowledge, a business model that still did not exist in Spain: what they called in English Art Advisorythe type of art advice that they usually need public and private institutions, from museums to banks and foundations, to correctly manage their collections and choose their new acquisitions or what sales to do and in what way.

Daring to enter galleries is the first step to approach contemporary art and educate the eye.

Hernando also wanted to extend the service to individuals, especially since she had passed by and wanted to “solve the doubts that had also been raised” whoever needed it. “The first work of art I bought was an engraving of Chillida that I acquired in installments and that I keep with a lot of love,” he confesses.

The first thing that comes into play is always passion, he says, falling in love with a piece, fantasizing to be able to admire her every day; But then the reason also appears in the game: “It seems that it is frowned upon, but I am an economist; Art is bought for pleasure, for love, but of course you have to think that if one day I get tired of the piece or I want to give it to my children or I need to sell it, the investment has been beneficial and it has been revalued. ”

They are almost 15 hours on the day of the opening of Arco, Eduardo Rodríguez and Esley Sánchez have just finished the route proposed by Hernando and want to approach to request a catalog of the Fair. They have not yet been decided, perhaps it is not in this edition when they venture to continue adding ceramics to their collection. However, the experience, they say, has been worth it, have found what they were looking for without getting lost. Mission fulfilled.