Clockwise from above: Juan Yarur with Pablo RiveraÕs Prototype for a better life 1, 2004; Tomas Rivas, Decay and Splendour, 2008Ð10; Juan Yarur in conversation; Alvaro Oyarzun, The Self-TaughtÉ, 2010
reiterating how much she has taught him, insisting modestly that, when they started working together, he knew so little. However, it is clear that he knows what he wants and he says he has a veto over things that his curator shows him. Alongside Cecilia, he has founded Beca AMA, a program of residencies, now in its second year, that brings Chilean artists to the Gasworks Studios in south London for three months at a time. The artists show their work there and return to a show at the Museo de Artes Visuales (MAVI) in Santiago, a private museum in Chile. Juan hosts a dinner for them on their return to Chile, inviting curators, critics and collectors to help support the artists’ careers. He says he and Cecilia do not select the artists themselves – this is done by an international panel. There is no mistaking his commitment and generosity towards the foundation. He has flown many of the artists over from Chile to install their works and hosted a large dinner to introduce their work to a wider audience. He sees this as an important part of his job. When I ask if he will eventually reciprocate and welcome British artists to Chile, he says not. ‘No, that is not the point. There are many foundations in Britain to support the work of British artists, but very few in Chile, and surprisingly few collectors.’ He therefore chooses to spend his energy supporting these artists. The large wall piece in theTectonic Shift exhibition, entitled Map, is by
met his curator and now friend, Cecilia Brunson. His father had asked her to find a Marilyn Monroe Warhol for him and, when she had, they met. ‘She saw that I was interested,’ he says and although he was only 18 at the time she was always telling him to ‘go and see this or that.’ By the time his father died, he and Cecilia had decided they should start a club of young collectors. Sadly, they realized that the other members were not that serious. ‘They would ask that the artist should always be blond and beautiful,’ he laughs and says, ‘Like, are you serious?’ He is intensely private about the art he owns. For years, he says, he hung nothing in the public part of the house until he ran out of space on the private floor, until he bought a huge Marc Quinn and had no option but to hang it there as there was no more space in the private part of his home. I ask if it was a flower painting. ‘Yes,’ he answers, ‘with a skull in it. I love it!’ He also has a Damien Hirst. When I ask which, he is very specific – a butterfly work, but ‘a little one, a really small one.’ He says: ‘I like the ones in which the butterflies stick and die on the canvas, not the ones that are merely put there.’ Juan professes that art has now become the focus of his life. It is what he cares most about and keeps him centered. But when it comes to selecting work, he does not want to choose only what he likes. Juan has endless admiration for Cecilia with whom he selects, praising her patience and 36
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