Carlos Slim Helu

Carlos Slim's Museum To House Huge Rodin Collection

Filed under: Art

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

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Flawed Collectors in ARTnews Top 10

by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Art

roman abramovich Despite the large flushing sound that's accompanied the art market this year, there are still 10 collectors worth noting. In fact, ARTnews was even able to cobble together a top 200 list this year (if they went to 300, I figure I'd wind up on the list, too, given the state of the art market right now). The names in the top 10 still represent the art collecting elite, they just happen to be in much worse shape than they were at this time last year.

Roman Abramovich, Russian billionaire and art addict, takes the #1 spot. It would be easy to zero in on any one of several purchases last year and call it "defining," but the man spent a few hundred million on art. The most expensive pickup was a Francis Bacon triptych which set him back almost $90 million.

Top 10 Art Collectors (according to ARTnews):

Roman Abramovich
Debra and Leon Black
Edythe L. and Eli Broad
Steven Cohen
Marie-Josee and Henry Kravis
Jo Carole and Ronald S. Lauder
Francois Pinault
Mitchell Rales
Carlos Slim Helu
Sheikh Saud bin Mohammed bin Ali al-Thani

Okay, so you take a quick look at this list and realize that Abramovich, who requested a bailout from the Russian government, isn't the only flawed personality it contains. Steven A. Cohen, the Connecticut-based hedge fund manager, owns a dead rotting shark. While Damien Hirst's ego is built to last, his creations are more like personal computers ... planned obsolescence. Kravis, who sits atop esteemed and powerful private equity firm KKR, was not left unscathed by the current financial crisis. The precipitous drop in oil prices over the past year must have left the sheikh in a rough spot, and Slim thought he could make money by investing in a newspaper (that's just ~~fucking~~ stupid ... almost as stupid as paying $90 million for a 1970s Bacon, frankly).

Maybe we'll see some changes over the next year. I wouldn't mind writing about an unknown visionary busting into the winners circle at this time next summer. Now, all we have to do is find one.

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Carlos Slim's Environmental Push

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Green, Wealth

Billionaire Carlos Slim has been busy lately. The billionaire who holds the third spot in the Forbes billionaire list, has a fortune of around $35 billion. As part of a commemoration of World Environmental Day, Slim has donated $50 million to start an environmental project in Mexico with the World Wildlife Fund. The donation is part of the creation of a $100 million fund dedicated to Mexico's environment. The new project will focus on six regions in Mexico including the jungles in Chiapas, reefs in Baja California and the nesting ground for monarch butterflies in Michoacan. The World Wildlife Fund will raise the other half of the funds needed from foundations and donors. Slim has also said that he will donate more as the goals of the project are met. The plan will include ways of stimulating the economy in environmentally sensitive areas so that locals don't have to harm the environment to make a living. Mexico is estimated to be losing around 593,000 acres of land a year to logging. Slim made the announcement in Cozumel, Mexico with Carter Roberts, the the President of World Wildlife Foundation and Omar Vidal Director of Wildlife Mexico.

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