FYI__
From: Adan Griego <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: a Guggengeheim Museum in Mexico?
Bringing a Guggenheim to Mexico, a widow's legacy
BY CLAUDIA ORTEGA/EL UNIVERSAL/The Herald
El Universal Martes 25 de mayo de 2004
Nuestro mundo, página 4
CUERNAVACA, Morelos Seated in his shady Cuernavaca garden, Victor
Contreras' face lights up as he describes his late friend Evelyn Lambert
and her project to create a Guggenheim in Mexico. The diminutive urban
artist, best known for his massive bronze sculptures, worked with Lambert
for five years, quietly laying the groundwork for two Guggenheim museums,
one in Morelos, the other in Guadalajara. He picks up a photo, taken for a
2003 interview with "Epoca," one of Mexico's leading art magazines, and
smiles.
"She was so happy and lived such a long life," he recalled. "She was
grateful for living the last years of her life here, and wanted to give
something back."
Contreras first met Lambert buying paintings at an estate sale in a
downtown Cuernavaca home, which Lambert later purchased. Unfamiliar with
Spanish, Lambert spoke to him in Italian, and the two became instant
friends. The home she acquired, a large white and stone structure, was once
the notorious Black Cat brothel, frequented by General Emiliano Zapata and
his men in the early nineteen hundreds.
In the late eighties, chronic asthma forced Lambert to close her large
palazzo in Venice, Italy. Doctors recommended she live south of India, or
in Cuernavaca, Mexico, two places where the climate might improve her
condition. She moved to Mexico in 1990, because, Contreras says, "she was
crazy about it." Lambert soon became one of Cuernavaca's art patrons,
joining the board of the Brady Museum, sponsoring concerts for Amigos de la
Musica, throwing lavish dinners at her home, and producing art exhibits at
the Borda Gardens. Her passion for contemporary art, shared by Contreras,
gave birth to the idea of a modern art museum.
Lambert, Contreras and her attorney Gabriel Padilla, sent letters to 32
Mexican governors, asking if they would like to have a Guggenheim in their
state. The answers were overwhelmingly positive, making the choice
difficult, but the best offers came from Morelos Governor Sergio Estrada
Cajigal and Jalisco Governor Francisco Ramírez Acuña.
Lambert chose the triangle of land formed by the Xochicalco mountains, the
ex-hacienda of Chinconcuac and a large parcel donated by the Monterrey Tec
University, as the Morelos site. Area farmers agreed to cede title to half
their land, over 70 acres, for a project that would include pre-Hispanic
ruins, a school of architecture and the colonial remains of Chiconcuac. A
nearby airport provided access to an area Lambert assumed would soon be
filled with luxury hotels.
By October 2000, Lambert and Contreras had notarized permission, signed by
communal land owners, to go ahead with the project. Lambert was to lay the
first stone, but things didn't go as planned.
Permission to sell the parcel must be approved by the Secretary of Agrarian
Reform and by special legislation passed by state Congress before the land
is available for sale something that could take years, Contreras says.
A plan to turn Lambert's home into a house museum has also been stalled
indefinitely. Creating a house museum that is open to the public, on
historic Plaza El Zacate, now a popular nighttime teenage hangout, might
help restore some of the area's colonial flavor, according to Contreras.
But he fears changes made to Lambert's home since her death and a lack of
interest by current owners could hamper the project.
The concept of using her house for the arts was not a first for Lambert.
The Venetian palace, once belonging to her husband Joseph Lambert, is now a
music conservatory. Although she maintained a low profile in Cuernavaca,
Lambert, considered one of the foremost collectors of contemporary art in
the world, was written up in U.S. and European magazines and on the
internet. Her passion for modern art drove her to buy her first painting in
1945, and to continue collecting famous painters such as Jackson Pollock
and promising unknowns, until she died.
José Clemente Orozco and David Siqueiros were among her favorite Mexican
painters, although she dismissed Diego Rivera as primarily a politician and
Frida Kahlo as a narcissist. Her taste also ranged to Rufino Tamayo, whose
work she purchased and donated to the art museum in Dallas, Texas where she
had a second home.
As an art patron, she formed a wide circle of friends that included museum
directors, artists and other collectors, something that led to her
association with the Guggenheim Foundation, of which she founded a Mexican
branch.
Lambert's vision of a Guggenheim in Mexico was based on the Bilbao Museum
in Spain. Like Bilbao's Guggenheim, constructed by the Basque government to
transform the city into a major metropolitan center, the Guadalajara museum
will focus on contemporary, universal art. The idea of modeling a
Guggenheim after Bilbao's museum, the financially successful model that
provided five times their return for investors, helped garner Mexican
industrialist's enthusiastic support.
During his fourth visit to Mexico, Tom Krens, world director of the
Guggenheim museums, chose a sprawling multi-acre spread, 600 meters above
Oblatos ravine, inside an ecological preserve, as the site for the
Guadalajara Guggenheim. With breathtaking views of the Sierra Madre
mountains, and access to Guadalajara and a nearby airport, the site offers
possibilities Krens described as "unparalleled."
"This is one of the most spectacular places I've ever seen," Krens told the
press. "If we put a world class museum there, it would be instantly
famous." Five days before she died, weeks short of her 98th birthday,
Lambert received a call from Tom Krens, giving the go ahead for the
Guadalajara museum. Contreras, now vice president of the Mexican Guggenheim
Foundation, feels this gave her inner peace, before she passed on.
"She was so happy when she got the call," he recalls. "She felt as if she
had accomplished her mission." If you have questions or comments, email
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