Art Could be a Sustainable Luxury (but it Has a Long Way to Go)

Art Could be Sustainable Luxury, but it Has a Long Way to Go.
Artist Betsabeé Romero honored at LuxuryLab 2022
Exhibition at Museo de la Ciudad de Mexico on view until end of August
(text edited by Delphine Schrank)

As I walked through Cuando el tiempo se rompió (When Time Broke), the latest exhibition by Mexican artist Betsabeé Romero at the Museo de la Ciudad de Mexico, I was struck by the juxtaposition of her most recent works. It suddenly made sense. It was all coming together. The artistic interpretation of movement, migrants, and mirrors. The artist was there, it was a Monday in June, and the museum was closed to the public.

I have marveled at Betsabeé’s work so often in the past. The first time was eight years ago, wandering the streets of the Condesa district. Betsabeé had transformed a car into a playful permanent installation, a human-size toy, really, and planted it on the doorsteps of the hotel Condesa DF. To the left of the white and burgundy car, passersby will find a large silver key. Turn it, and the car will suddenly play a rendering of Agustin Lara‘s Veracruz song.

Last November, Betsabeé was in Paris. She was overseeing the installation of her project ‘Le Retour des Soleils‘ (the return of the suns) in front of La Cour Carrée du Louvre, the ancient palace offset by I.M. Pei’s famous pyramid. A reminiscence of this artwork is now present in Mexico. In September 2021, she wrapped the façade of the Mexican Pavilion at Dubai’s World Expo. Before the pandemic struck, her large, carved, painted truck tires illuminated New York Avenue in Washington D.C. At the same time, in Mexico City, her artistic rendering of Frida Kahlo’s travels to Paris in 1939 filled an entire room of the Museo Frida Kahlo, Casa Azul, in the neighborhood of Coyoacán.

Betsabeé Romero wondered why it should be that, as an artist, she was suddenly associated with a conference that gathers leaders from the luxury sector and focuses on sustainability.

Betsabeé’s artistic influence shines the world over. Trained at Les Beaux-Arts in Paris, the artist rarely stands still. Her philosophically, culturally, and politically engaged art has drawn the respect of cultural institutions and cities worldwide. Betsabeé lives in a small two-story house in Mexico City. In her home, itself a vivid art installation, she frequently gathers friends, intellectuals, business leaders, and artists for sumptuous dinners that she cooks herself, embellished with her soulful decorative touches and with conversations that have been known to last until the break of dawn.

Later that June afternoon, Mexico’s hotel visionary Rafael Micha invited Betsabeé for a celebratory lunch on the terrace of his hotel Circulo Mexicano, which overlooks the cathedral of Mexico City. He and the founder of LuxuryLab Abelardo Marcondes had invited the founder of Quien Magazine, Luisa Serna, along with Jenny Viditz-Ward from Aspen’s Snowmass, New York gallerist and owner of Mourlot Editions Éric Mourlot, CEO of Interamérican Foods – La Moderna Esteban Abascal, and Mexico’s Museo Nacional de Arte’s director Carmen Caitan Rojo.

The next day, Betsabeé was due to receive LuxuryLab annual award.

She wondered why it should be that, as an artist, she was suddenly associated with a conference that gathers leaders from the luxury sector and focuses on sustainability.

Which was a symbol of sustainability: her art or her status?

If human beings are at the core of a more sustainable environment—i.e., living wages, diversity, and equal opportunities—perhaps her position as a world-renowned woman artist is, she mused while accepting her prize. However, she said, Mexico as a country and art as a sector remain as plagued with machismo as ever. From 2008 to 2019, Betsabeé pointed out, quoting a study published by ArtNet, that a mere 2% of the art auction market went to works created by female artists, dead or alive. Let’s put that in perspective, Betsabeé added. ArtNet explained that two percent of $196.6 billion spent was shared among 6,000 female artists. This represents less money than Picasso’s market in the same decade.

However, beyond the worthy goal of global equality, art allows for the transformation of our transient pasts and contemporary lives into symbols for future contemplation.

Here is a verbatim of most of Betsabeé Romero’s acceptance speech at Luxury Lab.

Betsabeé Romero’s translated excerpts from her speech at the 2022 LuxuryLab
Mexico City, The Four Seasons, June 21st, 2022
(Spanish version: scroll below)

“As a woman, I cannot forget that although I live and work in a wonderful country, full of culture and traditions, it is also a country where sadly, the number of daily femicides went from nine to 11 during the pandemic, and where 86% of the national territory is under alert for lethal violence against women.

Staring at this reality, I recognize that far from being normal, it is a great luxury to have grown up surrounded by love, freedom, and respect, to have been able to choose my life’s project, and to have had access to education until the furthest academic levels, in Mexico and abroad.

I do not want to be just an exception. There is no path ahead to generalize the opportunities I was blessed with. I am a privileged person, and with this comes the enormous responsibility of giving back as much as possible to the world around me.

In contrast, as far as the art world is concerned, the idea of an international career is not the common denominator, neither in Mexico nor in the world, and in this regard, I would like to mention some data.

Of the 500 most successful contemporary artists worldwide, only 60 are women.

Of course, their success is not distributed equally, neither by area nor race and age, quite the opposite.

My work pays homage to the human possibility for celebration. If Descartes was Mexican, I think he would have morphed his iconic phrase into “I celebrate therefore I am,” and that is fundamental in our culture because celebrations help us to remember, heal the mourning, identify with each other, and to become a family even if we are not.

Betsabeé Romero

An ArtNet investigation showed that out of $196.6 billion spent on art auctions between 2008 and 2019, only $4 billion went toward purchasing works by living or dead female artists. In other words, slightly more than 2% of the total art market value ended up recompensing women’s pieces.

There is hope, however. The women artists’ market doubled in less than ten years. It represented 1% of the market in 2008.

Let’s put this in perspective: 2% is a little less than what Picasso alone achieved in that same time. Picasso on one side and for the same amount, almost 6,000 women artists, who are the only ones inventoried, alive or dead.

Just here in Mexico, I researched the proportion of Mexican women artists in private and public collections and museum exhibitions. Altogether they barely reached 10%, while in other countries, an average of 20% of the total exhibited are female artists, following a long struggle that started in the 1960s. In only very few museums and cities—because of the local leadership —this percentage sometimes reaches up to 40%.

It is a fact that many women artists, after spending a lot of energy trying to open the doors of galleries and museums, have decided to seclude themselves in academia or literally in actual or symbolic deserts where they can create.

It took Carmen Herrera more than 60 years of a non-stop career to sell her first work. She was 89. (…) She continued to create until her death when luckily, she had achieved great success. Yes, but she was 106 years old.

Betsabeé Romero

Could it be to protect their mental or emotional health? They have preferred to distance themselves from the voracious competition of the mainstream art market. Some of the world’s most valued and recognized artists have even moved away from the big cities to lock themselves in their studios to spend more time teaching. They have favored a form of solitude and/or self-absorption: Yayoi Kusama, Agnes Martin, Georgia O’Keefe, and Louise Bourgeois.

A very symptomatic case is the silent warrior, as Julián Zugazagoitia called her. Until February of this year, Carmen Herrera was the most valued living Latin American artist in the market, a great Cuban abstract artist who died a few months ago at the age of 106. She lived and was friends with the great intellectuals of her time: Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, Kandinsky, Matta, Matisse, Newman, Josef Albers, Ellsworth Kelly, and others, but working at the same time as them and with very relevant work,

It took her more than 60 years of a non-stop career to sell her first work. She was 89.

In 2014, at the age of 99, her work was already being fought over in all the museums and prominent collections.

She continued to create until her death when luckily, she had achieved great success. Yes, but she was 106 years old.

And Carmen Herrera is not the only one. A few months ago, a Brazilian artist relatively unknown internationally—but now revealing herself as the author of great work—was celebrating her 99th anniversary. Her name is Judith Lauand, and now the world is finally paying attention and wants to fix its ignorance. Her first solo exhibition is currently scheduled for her 100th birthday. She is almost there, at the top, and let’s hope that, like Carmen Herrera, she not only reaches the top but also enjoys her triumph for a few years more. Longevity sometimes seems to be the only way out or the singular possible resistance to an otherwise incomprehensible situation.

To make art is to play at changing the meaning of the most common things, to recycle them symbolically, changing their skin, their context, their function, their relationship with the words but above all with those who look at them and have always interpreted them from another point of view.

Betsabeé Romero

As for my work, I love knowing that something I draw, think, and write on a sheet of paper, soon becomes a van surrounded by air, feathers, gold leaf, and bubbles of sky and clouds. I love playing with all these materials I had never associated with a vehicle before. I love knowing that I can count on the complicity of great artisans with whom I have enjoyed collaborating for more than 20 years, to dignify, rework and embrace the memory of rich and generous stories and traditions that are on the verge of extinction.

My work pays homage to the human possibility for celebration. If Descartes was Mexican, I think he would have morphed his iconic phrase into “I celebrate therefore I am” (Celebramus, Ergo Sum), and that is fundamental in our culture because celebrations help us to remember, heal the mourning, identify with each other, and to become a family even if we are not.

To make art is to play at changing the meaning of the most common things, to recycle them symbolically, changing their skin, their context, their function, their relationship with the words but above all with those who look at them and have always interpreted them from another point of view. This is what I have done with cars and tires. This is what I did with installations such as the Mexican pavilion at the Universal Expo in Dubai, where the texture and temperature of a building evolved thanks to the 7,000 meters of woven loops that a community of Penelopes in their community of Etzatlan Jalisco helped me to throw together, crocheting the three sides of a building with a message not only of diversity but above all human warmth. It was the only handmade pavilion in the entire expo, earning us the event’s first place for design.

TODAY, I think it is important to remember that:
Before 2020 we believed that waking up and going out wherever we wanted was just a routine.
After long confinement and countless losses,
We now know that even those minimal freedoms
Meeting and embracing friends,
Saying goodbye warmly to those we love,
Sharing a table with our dear ones,
Working freely in what we are passionate about,
We must appreciate them as great luxuries
That asks us to commit to them.

The good news is that the desire to do something for our environment is now more pressing than ever. The needs have moved from place to place and are innumerable.

(…)

If luxury used to be expensive and unattainable, it is now about recognizing it in our daily lives, in the time lost and regained, in the enormous number of opportunities we have had to live unique experiences.

We are invited to be aware that the enjoyment of what we are and what we do starts earlier and closer. It knocks on the doors of our homes and, above all, at our hearts.

Generosity is the luxury of those who not only know how to have goals or achieve them but also how to share them.

To amplify our enjoyment of what we earn is to appreciate the opportunity to live our triumphs accompanied with the affection of those whom we most love.

That, for me, is the greatest luxury of life.”

Betsabeé Romero, Mexico City, June 21, 2022

Interview of Betsabeé Romero during the pandemic, click here.
Interview of Éric Mourlot during the pandemic, click here

Betsabeé Romero’s original speech at the 2022 LuxuryLab
Mexico City, The Four Seasons, June 21st, 2022

Soy Una mujer que no puede olvidar que si bien vive y trabaja en un país maravilloso, lleno de cultura y tradiciones, también es un país donde tristemente la cifra de feminicidios diarios pasó de 9 a 11 según la ONU durante la pandemia y donde el 86% del territorio nacional está bajo alerta por violencia feminicida.

Partiendo de esa realidad, reconozco que lejos de ser lo normal, es un gran lujo haber crecido rodeada de cariño, libertad y respeto, haber podido escoger mi proyecto de vida y no sólo acceder a la educación hasta el más alto nivel académico en méxico sino en el Extranjero
desgraciadamente la excepción no hace la regla y el camino no está forjado para que las oportunidades que yo tuve para ser lo que soy se generalicen.

Pero este gran privilegio me conlleva a una enorme responsabilidad, la de devolver tanto como pueda al mundo que me rodea.

Por otro lado, en cuanto al mundo del arte, la idea de hacer una carrera internacional, no es tampoco el común denominador ni en México ni en el mundo y al respecto quisiera mencionar algunos datos.

De los 500 artistas contemporáneos más caros del mundo sólo 60 son mujeres.

Las cuales por supuesto que no se distribuyen equitativamente, ni por zonas, ni por raza, ni por edad, sino todo lo contrario-

En una investigación de In Therese words y art net news.

De los 196.6 billones de dólares gastados en subastas desde 2008 hasta la mitad de 2019, sólo 4 billones fueron para la compra de obra de mujeres vivas o muertas

Lo que significa que únicamente solo un poco más del 2 %del total del valor del mercado del arte correspondió a obras de mujeres.

Sin embargo, cabe mencionar que en solo10 años se duplicó , ya que en 2008 era solo el1% del total.

Para tener un punto de comparación ese 2% es un poco menos de lo que Picasso solo logró en ese mismo tiempo. PIcasso solo frente a casi 6000 mujeres artistas, que son las únicas inventariadas vivas y muertas.

En relación a México, cuando hice la investigación sobre la proporción de mujeres mexicanas en las colecciones privadas y públicas y en exposiciónes organizadas en las instituciones museísticas, apenas llegaban al 10 % en casi todas ellas, mientras en otros paises se ha logrado después de una lucha muy larga desde los 60s para que eso suceda, un promedio del 20 %. Solo En muy escasos museos y Ciudades, dependiendo mas de las personas que dirigen, que de las instituciones, ese porcentaje puede llegar hasta al 40 % .

Por otro lado, y después de mucho batallar tratando de llegar a los espacios de exposición más importantes, parecería ser que las grandes artistas deciden recluirse en el ámbito académico o literalmente en desiertos reales o simbólicos donde puedan producir aíslalas.

Posiblemente por salud mental o emocional, han preferido alejarse de la competencia voraz del mainstream, algunas de las artistas más valoradas y reconocidas del mundo se han alejado hasta de las grandes ciudades para consagrarse a su estudio, al mundo académico, a la soledad y/o al ensimismamiento: Yayoi Kusama, Agnes Martin, Georgia O Keefe, Louise Bourgeois.‘

Quiero mencionar Un caso muy sintomático es el de la guerrera silenciosa como le llamaba Julián Zugazagoitia.

Carmen Herrera, era hasta febrero de éste año la artista latinoamericana viva, más cotizada en el mercado, gran artista cubana abstracta que murió hace unos mese a los 106 años , una mujer que convivió y fue amiga de los grandes intelectuales del mundo, entre ellos, Sartre y Simone de Beauvoir, Kandinsky, Matta, Matisse , Newman, Josef Albers, Ellsworth Kelly y otros, pero Trabajando al mismo tiempo que ellos y con obra muy relevante.

Tuvieron que pasar más de 60 años de carrera continua para que vendiera su primera obra a los 89.

En 2014 a los 99 años ya su obra se la peleaban en todos los museos y grandes colecciones.

Ella siguió trabajando hasta su muerte, cuando por suerte había obtenido un gran éxito en todos los sentidos pero a los 106 años.

Y no es la única, hace unos meses, se festejó el 99 aniversario de una artista brasileña bastante desconocida internacionalmente pero ahora se está revelando como autora de una gran obra , Judith Lauand a quien el mundo quiere empezar a hacer justicia, por lo que ya le programaron su primera exposición individual para cuando cumpla 100 años, ya casi lo logra, esperemos que como Carmen Herrera, no sólo llegue sino que disfrute de su triunfo todavía algunos años más. la longevidad a veces parece ser la única salida o resistencia posible.

En cuanto a Mi trabajo, me encanta saber que algo que dibujo, pienso y escribo en una hoja de papel, en una semana se convierta en una camioneta rodeada de aire, vuelo, plumas y hoja de oro y burbujas de cielo y nubes, me gusta jugar con todos esos materiales que antes nunca había conectado con un vehículo, me encanta saber que puedo tener la complicidad de grandes artesanos con los que he disfrutado colaborar desde hace más de 20 años para dignificar, reelaborar y acariciar la memoria de historias y tradiciones ricas y generosas que están en vías de extinción.

Mi trabajo homenajea la posibilidad humana de celebrar, en Mëxico creo que Descartes transformaría su frase a “celebro luego existo” y eso es fundamental en nuestra cultura, pues las celebraciones nos ayudan a recordar, a sanar los duelos, a identificarnos unos con otros, a volvernos familia aunque no lo seamos .

Hacer arte es jugar a cambiar el significado de las cosas mas comunes, reciclarlas simbólicamente, cambiando su piel, su contexto, su función, su relación con las palabras pero sobre todo con quien las mira y las ha interpretado siempre desde otro lugar como lo he hecho con los automóviles y llantas o en instalaciones como el pabellón de México en la Expo Universal de Dubai donde la textura y la temperatura de un edificio se cambió gracias a los 7000 metros de lazos tejidos que una comunidad de Penelopes empeoradas en su comunidad de Etzatlán Jalisco me ayudó a lanzar desde ahí hasta el mundo entero , cubriendo con croché los 3 lados de un edificio con un mensaje de género, pero sobre todo de calor humano en el único pabellón hecho a mano de toda la expo, ell cual nos valió el primer lugar de diseño en dicho evento.

HOY, me parece importante recordar que
Antes de 2020 creíamos que despertar y salir a donde quisiéramos era sólo una rutina,
Después de un largo confinamiento y de innumerables pérdidas
ahora sabemos que hasta esas libertades tan mínimas
Como reunirse y abrazar a los amigos
Como despedirnos calurosamente de quienes queremos,
Como compartir una mesa con los nuestros,
como trabajar libremente en lo que nos apasiona hay que apreciarlas como grandes lujos
que nos comprometen

La buena noticia es que las ganas de hacer algo por nuestro entorno, ahora está más a la mano que nunca, las necesidades se han movido de lugar y son innumerables.

Nadie está a salvo de ayudar, gestos como guisar un poco de pasta para quien lo necesita, como lo ha hecho Abelardo (Marcondes) en cocinamos México le ha cambiado la vida a los que comen de ese gran gesto pero también a los que cocinan y acompañan esta labor. apoyar a los migrantes , poner la mano en el hombro a quienes han perdido a un ser querido, está a la vuelta de la esquina.

Si antes era caro e inaccesible el lujo, ahora se trata de reconocerlo en nuestra vida diaria, en el tiempo perdido y recuperado, en la enorme cantidad de oportunidades que hemos tenido para vivir experiencias únicas.

Estamos invitados a estar conscientes de que El disfrute de lo que somos y hacemos empieza desde más temprano y desde más cerca, toca la puerta de nuestras casas y sobre todo de nuestros corazones.

La generosidad es el gran lujo del que no sólo sabe tener o lograr metas sino compartirlas.

Multiplicar el goce de lo que se gana es darnos la oportunidad de vivir nuestros triunfos acompañados del afecto, de quienes más queremos , lo que para mí ,
es el gran lujo en ésta vida.

Gracias

Betsabeé Romero, Mexico City, June 21, 2022