A collector's dream

The Narbona Collection, one of the most important in the country, is showing some of its most representative works in an exhibition at Centro Espacio Arte. Works by important Latin American artists from this collection will be on display to the public in this tribute to its creator, Marcelo Narbona.

Espacio Arte marked its opening with an exhibition by the master Guillermo Trujillo. A fairly high bar that had to be maintained in its second proposal. And after the presentation of a great artist, the obligatory step seemed to be the presentation of a great collector.
Fundación Los Carbonell entered into talks with Colección Narbona to present the exhibition that opened its doors last Friday and is titled "Relaciones originarias", a small look at the art collection that architect Marcelo Narbona shaped for about six decades.

The exhibition was born from an informal meeting between the architect's daughters, who manage the collection with Fundación Los Carbonell and proposed to present a show as a tribute to one of the greatest art collectors in the country.

The curatorship was in charge of Sandra García Herrera, curator of the room and Gladys Turner Bosso as a guest. It was three months of continuous work, a short but very intense period of time to scrutinize one of the most important collections in Panama and probably the most extensive.

“It has about 2,700 works. What is being presented does not even reach 2% of the entire collection,” Turner warns. “We had to analyze work by work with different criteria, evaluate the number of artists from each country, for example, evaluate the themes, the topics that were part of the imaginary that the architect had created through his collection. It was a difficult task for three months of work,” she admits.

“We thought it was perfect for the beginning. It was like a baptism for Espacio Arte,” García Herrera comments. And with it, a great responsibility. The initial task was to verify the nationality of the works and verify that it is a collection of Latin American art. To value that the majority of the countries of the region were represented. “We managed to do that even when not all the countries were represented in the exhibition. We had to study the collection,” says García.

From there, all the possible variables were studied to establish the exhibition. “In some way we tried to make the exhibition adhere to the reality of the collection. Another criterion is to see what those themes are that recur in the architect: themes of landscape, not only natural landscape; themes about the city, ancestralities; the architect was very attracted to Caribbean rituals and those of the native peoples, but in a very sophisticated way, of course. And so we were taking out several axes to reflect them in the exhibition,” Turner explains.

Another element that was taken into consideration was the presence of female artists. “As in almost all collections in the world, including museums, the representation of women is very small and we decided to have the presence of female artists, perhaps not reflecting the quantity that was in the collection, but representing it,” she says.

The curators decided to make a separate preselection. Each of them established a list of works that they considered should be included and, to their surprise, they had many similarities.

“I would say that there was a 75% similarity. Then there were some small negotiations,” says Turner. “This speaks to the quality of the works, because if two people who are dedicated to art, but who come from completely different contexts, agreed on so many pieces, it is because they are very good works,” reflects García. That paved the way for us and we said ‘these are obviously going to be included.’ Then those discards began, which are always very difficult because they are often based on personal criteria,” he adds.

You can have some favorite works, but the idea is to be as objective as possible and highlight what is best for the exhibition, what should be shown. “There are works that we do not like personally, but we knew that they are by important artists for the region, important works. We also had to have works by local artists. The discourse had to gel,” argues Turner.

And the biggest enemy is space. A number of works was established considering the square footage of the room and although on paper the numbers say one thing, when the work is on the wall, that reality can change.

“Space is finite. You can never achieve the ideal exhibition that you would like. You are happy with the result, but the ideal criteria that you have is almost never achieved. These are details that the public does not see,” says García. It is a very complicated task when dealing with such an extensive collection.

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