Collector Eduardo F. Costantini on MALBA’s 25th Anniversary

When Argentine real estate developer and collector Eduardo F. Costantini founded the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA) in 2001, he did so with a mission. “The global perception of Latin American art [at the time] was still far behind, and I felt it deserved greater recognition and visibility,” he recently told ARTnews.

He wasn’t sure he could make it happen—but he had the desire to do so. “It was a long journey, step by step, over many years,” he recalled. “That is why my strategy was always public: I never bought a work anonymously; I did it openly, on purpose. I would go to auctions, raise my hand, and make the price public, so it would become news.”

MALBA’s 25th anniversary comes as the museum continues to grow—both in stature and in size. Located in the Palermo Chico neighborhood of Buenos Aires, the museum recently launched an expansion to accommodate its acquisition of the Zurich-based Daros Latinamerica Collection: 1,233 works by 117 artists, created primarily between the 1950s and the 2010s. (As part of the purchase agreement, he cannot, for the first time, reveal the price he paid.)

Major pieces like Hélio Oiticica’s 1959 sculpture Relevo espacial, Ana Mendieta’s 1972 photo series Untitled (Glass on Body Imprints), Belkis Ayón’s 1993 collograph La cena, and Víctor Grippo’s Analogía I (1971), a sculpture made of 40 potatoes connected to electrodes, are joining the private museum’s holdings, as are significant bodies of work by Lygia Clark, Gego, Antonio Dias, Maria Freire, Liliana Porter, Mira Schendel, Luis Camnitzer, and Doris Salcedo. The collection also includes 42 Julio Le Parcs.

As research into the Daros collection continues, including the acquisition strategy of its founders Ruth Schmidheiny and Stephan Schmidheiny, MALBA has already put some of the gift on view, in an exhibition titled “Latinoamérica en expansión.” That presentation will be expanded in September as part of the museum’s 25th anniversary celebrations.

For Costantini, the purchase represents a “refounding” of the museum, which until now has been known primarily for its holdings from the first half of the 20th century, with masterpieces by Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Tarsila do Amaral, Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo, and Wifredo Lam. Now, the institution can tell a fuller story of Latin American art history, with its 2,800-some objects.

It’s a far cry from the 200 works that Costantini donated to establish MALBA a quarter century ago, including Kahlo’s Autorretrato con chango y loro (1942) and Tarsila’s Abaporu (1928) which remain among the museum’s most iconic works. “There were few works,” Costantini said, “but they weren’t just any 200 works.”

The last six years have been especially expeditious in terms of acquisitions, with Costantini’s purchases often setting auction records. In June 2020, at Sotheby’s first live-streamed auction, he bought Lam’s 1943 painting Omi Obini for $9.6 million and Varo’s 1956 painting Armonía (Autorretrato sugerente) for $6.2 million, the highest prices ever paid for both artists. In 2021, he bought Kahlo’s Diego y yo for $34.9 million at Sotheby’s, resetting the record for a Latin American work at auction. In 2024, he acquired Carrington’s Las distracciones de Dagoberto for $28.5 million, another artist record. “It’s not just about the numbers,” Costantini said. “It’s about the quality of the collection.”

That quality is not defined just by MALBA or the market, but by international museums as well. MALBA receives loan requests for its masterpieces from institutions worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Tate in London, the Reina Sofía in Madrid, and the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. “They are constantly asking us for works because we have major pieces by major artists,” he said.

“MALBA has established itself as one of the leading platforms for Latin American art,” said Inés Katzenstein, a Latin American art curator at MoMA who worked at MALBA from 2004 to 2008. “Its exceptional collection creates a dialogue across generations, geographies, and artistic traditions in a way that few museums in the region, if any, have been able to achieve. More broadly, MALBA has been a crucial part of a larger institutional, professional, and geopolitical transformation that has profoundly reshaped the global perception of Latin American art over the past decades.”

The scale of the Daros acquisition accelerated Costantini’s longtime dream to extend MALBA’s building beneath the adjacent Plaza Perú, doubling its footprint to roughly 90,000 square feet. According to the collector, the museum is currently working with two architects on the design and also plans to build a 13,500-square-foot technical reserve at Malba Puertos, its outpost in the suburban city of Escobar, about 31 miles northwest from the original location. Construction at the Palermo Chico space is set to begin right after the 25th anniversary celebrations in September, with the new galleries scheduled to open in 2029.

For Costantini, the anniversary reflects an inflection point for his museum. “We are experiencing a kind of renaissance at MALBA,” he said. “A museum that began with 200 works now has nearly 3,000. We are celebrating these 25 years not only by looking in the rearview mirror and acknowledging the museum’s history, but also by looking ahead, with a great deal of work and financial commitment.”