A special summer issue of Modern Painters, which will be published in installments on ARTINFO this month, surveys the world’s best galleries, across six continents and 36 countries. Throughout the issue you’ll hear from 50 of the most influential gallery owners and directors, discussing their achievements and envies, the artists they have their eye on, and the regional trends affecting this increasingly international market. Below you’ll find Q&As with two gallerists based in Puerto Rico. To see other installments from the special issue, click here.
ROBERTO PARADISE | SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO.
ARTISTS: José Lerma, Katherine Bernhardt, José Luis Vargas, Austin Eddy, Chris Bradley
ESTABLISHED: 2011
CONTACT: robertoparadise.com; info@robertoparadise.com; +1 787 429 4887
FRANCISCO ROVIRA RULLAN, DIRECTOR
How did you get your start as a gallerist?
Very early on I realized I was the only one of my friends who was not an artist. If I wanted to stay in such great company, I needed to find a role for myself.
How have you generally discovered new artists? Are there any new discoveries for the gallery whom you’re especially excited about? I
I rely heavily on instinct and on the recommendations of a select few. We are very excited about the work of Caroline Wells Chandler, a young Yale graduate with an extraordinary sensibility who recently joined our program.
What was your biggest show of the past year?
A massive multicanvas commission by Katherine Bernhardt, created in Puerto Rico for the collection of Alberto and Mari de la Cruz.
What’s one show you loved in the past year at a gallery other than your own?
Tyson Reeder’s “New Paintings” at CANADA, New York.
What trend do you see happening in your region right now?
A return to more conceptually based practices amid lots of rehash tropicalia and bland abstraction.
What might you be doing if you weren’t a gallerist?
I might be an actor.
Name the last great book you read, art-related or otherwise.
Puerto Rico: The Trials of the Oldest Colony in the World, by the late José Trías Monge.
If cost were no object, what work of art would you have in your bedroom?
Zilia Sanchez’s erotic stretched canvases from the 1970s, hanging on the wall above our bed!
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WALTER OTERO CONTEMPORARY ART | SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO
ARTISTS: Arnaldo Roche, Angel Otero, Ramón Miranda Beltrán, Gamaliel Rodríguez, Anthony Giannini
ESTABLISHED: 2003
CONTACT: walterotero.com; +1 787 998 9622
WALTER OTERO, OWNER/DIRECTOR
How did you get your start as a gallerist?
In the ’90s I met Arnaldo Roche Rabell, one of the most important artists in Puerto Rican, Caribbean, and Latin American art history and one of the most influential artists in the 1980s in the Latin American art scene in the United States. Roche offered me a position working as part of his team, which I gratefully accepted. During this experience, I had the opportunity to travel to exhibitions, biennials, and various museums; this opened my eyes to the art world and quickly led me to develop a passion for contemporary art that has been growing ever since.
How have you generally discovered new artists? Are there any new discoveries for the gallery whom you’re especially excited about?
We are constantly following careers and meeting established and emerging artists worldwide. We also look at and visit MFA and institutional shows. One of our latest discoveries, which we are especially excited about, is Ramón Miranda Beltrán.
We began working with Ramón before his graduate studies at SAIC.
What was your biggest show of the past year?
Last year we had five major shows: Carlos Rolón/Dzine, Anthony Giannini, Rafael Vega, Gamaliel Rodríguez, and Luis Vidal; all these shows were big in their own special way.
What’s one show you loved in the past year at a gallery other than your own?
The show that I loved from the past year was “The Last Brucennial,” in New York.
What trend do you see happening in your region right now?
As time passes by, there is an overlap in mediums that seems to be strengthening more and more, but the trend that I see happening in my region is a resurgence of figurative and Neo-Expressionist work.
What might you be doing if you weren’t a gallerist?
I have never really given serious thought to this aspect of my life. I don’t see myself doing or being any other thing but a gallerist.
Name the last great book you read, art-related or otherwise.
Leo and His Circle, by Annie Cohen-Solal, was the last great book I read.
If cost were no object, what work of art would you have in your bedroom?
I would have Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Son and any of Pollock’s action paintings.
