Institutional

The Calmon-Stock collection, based in the city of Rio de Janeiro, is a collection of contemporary Brazilian art which gathers 112 artists and more than 300 works which include painting, sculpture, installation, video, objects, performance and, more recently, NFT. Started in 2000 by collectors Roberto Calmon and André Stock, the Collection spans the two first decades of the 21st century, keeping as its guideline the unconditional support to young contemporary artists, young art galleries and artistic-political collectives. The Collection, although of a private nature, is open to the institutions, having collaborated by lending to exhibitions at Banco do Brasil Cultural Centre, Caixa Cultural, Museum of the Portuguese Language, MAM Rio, Maria Antônia Cultural Centre among others.

In 2017 the book “Bodies, Letters and some Animals” was released with the curatorship of artists Omar Salomão and Fernando de La Rocque, from Rio. It consisted of a history and samples of the collectors’ choices. The main objective was to make Brazilian artists viable in a moment in the history of the country in which various democratic pillars like the Ministry of Culture are extinct, and the liberty of the arts is being patrolled. A print run of 500 copies, with collaboration of Brazilian and foreign intellectuals like Marcelo Backes, Nina Saroldi, Evangelina Seiler, Alexandre Ribenboim, Daniele Dal Col, Olav Velthuis, Markus Gabriel, Christoph Türcke and Diederich Diederichsen was distributed to artists, museums and galleries in Brazil, but also in Germany, England, Spain, the Netherlands, Canada, Chile and Argentina, with extraordinary reception. Its online version was published conjointly.

In the book, curator Evangelina Seiler wrote: “The Calmon-Stock collection is more than a collection. One may say that it is a residential curatorship which starts with the association of familiar objects and selected works. Curious, thought-provoking and particular, the Calmon-Stock collection shows two collectors who have chosen their works independently of external interests. The coherence of the whole is established by the collectors and by them only”.

That is true. But adding to the issue of coherence a theoretical perspective, it is mainly the Kantian aesthetics – in its non-formalist or purist view – which appears to us as a beacon and as the path for our discussion and our choices: in the act of always rethinking the issue of autonomy of the aesthetic judgement beyond the restricted spheres of art or of a supposed autonomy of beauty. Therefore, we understand Kantian aesthetics and its contemporary interpretations as a theoretical key to think the Collection, for in it are gathered the issues which matter to us: art, beauty, work, politics, ethics, possible meanings of the world and, more precisely, the political idea of art as creation of new common meanings to the community.

If there is then to a private collection some mission or view, it would be to look at the path of the artists, the arts and the works, with their different ways of living, seeing and expressing the world. Under that aspect – aware as we are of the very high criteria of art, of art criticism and its history – we do perceive a horizontality in our way of seeing it. Dealing with so many works of art, canonical or not, and with so many diverse histories is not only a privilege but also a commitment to diversity and to the phenomenon of equality. As collectors who also deal with other areas of knowledge, that seems to be a natural way. On this new site – which contains most of the collection – we share a common path with pleasure and great joy

Roberto Calmon e André Stock

 

ALSO READ:
The Calmon-Stock Collection indicates the collective LEVANTE NACIONAL TROVOA
El coleccionista privado como constructor de narrativas del arte latinoamericano