Carlos Slim's Museum To House Huge Rodin Collection

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Sep 2nd 2010 at 12:01AM

The world's richest man, Mexico's Carlos Slim, has had a busy summer. Not only did he pick up the Duke-Semans Mansion in New York for a $44 million, but he's been hard at work on another project, the new branch of his Soumaya museum. The museum in Mexico City is the second one that the has created. The six-story museum, named for his late wife, was designed by son-in-law Fernando Romero. The modern and shiny aluminum structure will contain his treasure trove of artwork by French sculptor Auguste Rodin, the biggest collection outside of France. The new museum will open on November 30 as part of the Mexican bicentennial celebrations and admission will be free.

The building will have five stories of exhibition space totaling 183,000 square feet. A piece by Rufino Tamayo, one of Mexico's best known painters, will grace in the lobby. The Latin American Herald Tribune says that Slim is investing $1.4 billion in Plaza Carso, a complex that will also be home to movie theaters, housing and retail space. Slim has an art collection of 66,000 pieces, a number that makes Eli Broad's 2,000-piece collection seem almost modest my comparison. Check out a couple of video renderings of the project after the jump.

Tags: Auguste Rodin, Carlos Slim, Carlos Slim Helu, mexico city, rodin, soumaya museum

Filed under: Art

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Gary Arseneau Sep 2nd 2010 9:16AM

September 2, 2010

The Soumaya Museum contains a large collection of posthumous Rodin, Daumier, Renoir and Degas forgeries.

Degas never cast in bronze, Renoir was a paralytic who did not sculpt after 1910, Daumier never cast in bronze and the Georges Rudier foundry went into business some 35 years after Rodin's death in 1917.

The dead don't sculpt.

At best, Carlos Slim was misled into purchasing forgeries the artists themselves have -never - seen.

Yes, I understand you find it hard to believe.

The news media, the majority of the time because of time constraints, uses the press releases they receive to write their articles, repeating the same misinformation as if they were facts.

The academia, with or without intent, indoctrinate under the guise of education these same misrepresentations as they were facts.

The museum industry, on more occasions than not, display forgeries, in their collection and/or exhibitions, that violate their own endorsed ethical guidelines.

To learn more about these contentious issues of authenticity, link to: http://garyarseneau.blogspot.com

Gary Arseneau
artist, creator of original lithographs & scholar
Fernandina Beach, Florida