Slim pickings: inside the museum of the world's richest man
Mexico's Carlos Slim opens stunning new complex to house art collection
It was two years ago that Mexican magnate Carlos Slim was named the world's richest man by Forbes magazine. But it was long before then - since his marriage to Soumaya Domit in 1966 - that he began collecting art. "It was during our honeymoon around Europe," he says. "My wife was always very sensitive to art. I fueled that passion by buying an important collection of Mexican colonial art. I later realized that there were no museums with international art in Mexico. [...] So I started to buy European art, which was as expensive as it is now."
As his empire grew, so did his art collection. And now Slim has just opened the Soumaya Museum in Mexico City to house his 60,000-piece collection, the name a tribute to the memory of the woman who inspired it all.
The first thing you notice about the 563-million-euro complex are the sparkles of light it gives off. Engineer Slim gave his architect son-in-law Fernando Romero the job of creating a building that would disappoint no one. Held up by 28 steel columns of different diameters, it is built over six floors, but natural light only penetrates the last one. The rest is protected by 17,000 hexagonal panels that reflect the sun's rays and evoke the "beehive and family work."
The second thing you notice is the apparent disorder of the works on show. Picasso, Rodin, El Greco, Van Gogh, Monet, Cézanne, Leonardo da Vinci - to name but a few - share space with a coin and medal collection, a mural by Diego Rivera and an Alexander McQueen dress. But there's a reason for the haphazard nature, says museum director Alfonso Miranda. "Slim's collection is so extensive that we have the chance to establish analogies, bridges of communication between the history of art in Mexico and the history of art in the West. It's interweaving the collection in a daring way, as it is the same building."
It certainly met the approval of Mexican President Felipe Calderón. "[This museum] places Mexico at the vanguard in the world of culture," he said at the opening ceremony, which was also attended by writer Gabriel García Márquez and US talk-show host and art collector Larry King.