Porto, Dec. 18, 2024 (Lusa) - Nuno Luzio, who brokered the arrival of part of the collection of collector Christian Duerckheim at the Serralves Foundation in Porto, considered his action to be "a patriotic duty and right".
In an interview with Lusa, the Portuguese national, who works in the office of the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, said that his motivation for acting as an intermediary between the Duerckheim family and Serralves was "a patriotic duty and right", "without any nationalist pretences".
"I've been away for more than 20 years, I still follow the news from my country on a daily basis and I'm an interested citizen, so I thought it was a duty and a patriotic right to try to bring this great collection of contemporary art to Portugal," he told Lusa.
On Thursday, the Serralves Foundation announced an agreement to deposit 37 works by 19 artists from the Duerckheim Collection, including the donation of Anselm Kiefer's piece to the Portuguese institution.
At stake is the deposit of pieces by Darren Almond, Georg Baselitz, Isaak Brodsky, Roman Buxbaum, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Theaster Gates, Gilbert & George, Antony Gormley, Damien Hirst, Zhang Huan, Stefan Hunstein, Anselm Kiefer, Michael Landy, Mamedov, Haralampi Oroschakoff, Sam Taylor-Wood, Matthias Wähner, Cerith Wyn Evans and Remy Zaugg.
Emphasising that "there is no compensation, either financial or in-kind" for the intermediation, Nuno Luzio said that the only compensation that came from it was "to have this achievement, to contribute, but also to have a challenge that is achieved".
"Often, the satisfaction of achieving something doesn't have to mean money. Besides, obviously, due to my professional duties, I can't and shouldn't, and I'm extremely respectful of the rules, receive any pecuniary compensation," he explained.
Taking advantage of the fact that he is a friend of Christian Duerckheim's family - one of the "most significant collectors in Europe", according to Serralves - Nuno Luzio, who also worked for several years at the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), including in Kosovo and Ukraine, suggested Portugal as a possible destination for part of the collector's collection.
Revealing that Christian Duerckheim's daughter had told him that his arguments had won the sympathy of her father - a German industrialist born in 1944 and a count descended from the aristocracy of Saxony - Nuno Luzio then began the process that culminated in last week's announcement by the Serralves Foundation.
"It's a long process, and that's a point I want to emphasise. People often think, or take it for granted - or some people - that having a network of contacts is enough to achieve something", but Nuno Luzio believes this “depends a lot on how you mobilise that network of contacts”.
The process progressed from meetings during the pandemic to Delfim Sardo, an expert sent by the State to Switzerland (where Duerckheim lives), to see the collection, first through the former foreign minister Augusto Santos Silva and then through the Ministry of Culture.
The process lasted around three years and accompanied two government changes in Portugal. According to Nuno Luzi, ito, also influenced events in terms of time and created some pressure, albeit admittedly self-imposed.
Faced with successive government changes, he went "directly to Serralves" and found "absolutely magnificent partners" in Porto, both the president of the Foundation's board of directors, Ana Pinho, and director Philippe Vergne.
The agreement was signed after visits by Vergne to Switzerland and Duerckheim to Serralves.
"What I want to emphasise is that Serralves has also managed to do this professionally. We do indeed have islands of excellence, both in the south and the north, and it's important that they continue to spread their roots to other parts of society and the country," he emphasised.
JE/ADB // ADB.
Lusa
