Milagros Maldonado

Milagros Maldonado
Born	9 September of 1994 Valencia, Carabobo, Venezuela
Other names	Grande Dame des Arts
Occupation(s)	Cultural Promoter Gallery owner Art advisor Visual arts collector and curator
Children	Ricardo Degwitz Maldonado Alexander Degwitz Maldonado
Parent	Iván Darío Maldonado Bello Elsa Blaubach Horrocks
Website	http://maldonadofamily.com/familia/

Milagros de las Mercedes Maldonado Blaubach is a cultural promoter, gallery owner, art advisor, visual art collector and curator. She was born in Valencia, Carabobo state, Venezuela on July 9, 1944. She was the founder and president of La Previsora Foundation, La Previsora Art Gallery and La Previsora Movie Theater. She is currently the President and founder of META Miami.

Early years

Milagros de las Mercedes Maldonado Blaubach was born on July 9, 1944, in Valencia, Carabobo, Venezuela. Daughter of Elsa Blaubach and the Venezuelan lawyer, cattle rancher, and businessman Iván Darío Maldonado.

Her paternal grandfather, Samuel Darío Maldonado, was a figure in Venezuelan politics, medicine, literature, and journalism. His character and way of seeing life influenced Milagros' professional career by guiding her first steps in literature and fine arts.

(…) My grandfather was fundamental in my life. He was a writer, poet, doctor, Minister of Health and Social Assistance, and an inveterate adventurer (...) He left a sensational library, which was neglected over the years until it ended up in the garage of my house. I discovered it there one day when I was learning to read.

Professional life

After finishing her first studies in Valencia, her hometown, she moved to the United States, where she majored in art at Saint Mary's of Notre Dame High School in Indiana. In those years, she met Wifredo Lam at an exhibition at the University of Notre Dame. She began her higher education in Venezuela at the University of Carabobo, where she studied art history and painting. However, she desired to study at L'Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma. In 1969 she separated from Ricardo Degwitz Acosta, traveled to Italy, and obtained a degree in Art History summa cum laude at the aforementioned academy.

During her stay in Italy, she took courses in architecture, painting, sculpture, and engraving techniques, along with her academic training. In this period, we can highlight her participation in a series of lectures on Renaissance art at the University of Rome, dictated by the renowned art historian and critic Giulio Carlo Argan.

Her first steps in managing and promoting the visual arts consisted of her invariable attendance at the Venice Biennale since 1972. During those years, she also began her work as a co-producer of exhibitions, art installations, concerts, and dance-theater shows at L'Attico, the avant-garde gallery led by Fabio Sargentini in Rome. Likewise, between 1972 and 1974, she participated as coordinator of the performance, music, and dance section at the Great Contemporary Exhibition in Rome.

Milagros Maldonado maintained an active cultural work through friendships and work relationships with numerous European and American artists that nurtured and broadened her vision of the art world. Among the artists with whom she worked were: Jannis Kounellis, Nam June Paik, Luigi Ontani, Trisha Brown, Marisa and Mario Merz, Steve Reich, Terry Riley, Gino De Dominicis, Richard Serra, Francisco Clemente, Sol LeWitt, Joseph Beuys, Glauber Rocha, Philip Glass, Gilbert and George, Steve Paxton, La Monte Young and Robert Wilson. In Paris, from 1980 to 1986, she organized several salons for Latin American artists, inspired by the famous salons of the 19th century, intending to establish connections between writers and artists. Since then, she has earned the informal Grande Dame des Arts title.

In New York, from 1997 to 2004, with artist and producer Generoso Villareal, she founded and ran the Generous Miracles Gallery in the Chelsea Art District, where this area began to stand out. From that time, we can point out the following artist exhibits: Ana Mercedes Hoyos, Andrés Serrano, Edouard Duval Carrié, Luis Caballero, Lucca Pignatelli, Alejandro Garmendia, and Carlos Garaicoa, among others.

Work in Venezuela

Department of Art and Culture/Museum of Fine Arts

Despite being established in Rome, Milagros Maldonado felt the need to get reacquainted with Latin America and her native country.

(...) I began to feel restless. But then, thanks to a friend of mine, Luis Alberto Pocaterra, who knew Jorge Daher—who would become the general director of CONAC [National Council of Culture]—I was able to connect with the nucleus of the cultural organization that was being created (...). It was like finding in Caracas what I had left behind in Rome: a connection with the intellectual world and with the artists.

Maldonado returns to Caracas in 1975. She was hired as an assistant to Luis García Morales, the President of CONAC (the leading cultural institution in Venezuela then), which allowed her to become involved in all management areas. Later, in 1977, she became assistant to the general director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Gonzalo Castellano, responsible for coordinating programming and exhibitions.

La Previsora Foundation

By 1986, the Maldonado family, located in Caracas, was the majority shareholder of Seguros La Previsora. Milagros Maldonado, who had returned to Venezuela after a period in Miami and Paris, led the creation of a Foundation aimed at promoting and carrying out cultural, scientific, and social activities, whose purpose was to contribute to the professional improvement of employees. In 1990, the foundation expanded its objectives and established three main lines of action: eco-development, education, and fine arts. The latter was led by Milagros Maldonado.

La Previsora Movie Theater

These new activities stopped being exclusively for workers as the new guidelines focused on creating spaces and quality content for all audiences. Therefore, Milagros Maldonado's management consisted in transforming, in association with the National Cinematheque, the La Previsora Movie Theater (Cine La Previsora) into an art film space dedicated to the screening of national and international films, art-independent and commercial cinema.

Due to its constant programming of quality feature films, and organization of festivals, film forums, workshops, and courses, it was declared Social and Cultural Heritage of Caracas by the Municipality of Libertador in 1998; in 2000, it also received the Municipal Award for Cinematographic Diffusion as the best movie theater in the city.

Moviola Magazine

The Moviola magazine was created to promote and publicize the Foundation's activities. It was first published in August 1997, and copies of every edition were distributed free of charge to those attending the La Previsora movie theater. In addition to providing information about the movie theater and art gallery programming, it was complemented with notes and comments on literature, gastronomy, and theater.

La Previsora Art Gallery

The La Previsora Art Gallery, created under the responsibility of Milagros Maldonado, constituted a new space to carry out exhibitions of national and international artists. Unlike the Cine La Previsora, whose direction and programming were later transferred to José Pisano in the Gallery, Milagros Maldonado worked as the programmer, producer, and curator of the shows until she abandoned her functions in 2009. This space promoted numerous Venezuelan and international artists.

Exhibition in Venezuela

Figuration/Fabulation (1990/2004)

On the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the insurance company La Previsora, in 1989, the Foundation led by Milagros Maldonado organized the exhibition: Figuration/Fabulation: 75 Years of Painting in Latin America, with the participation of more than 100 Latin American artists in the spaces of the Museum of Fine Arts in Caracas, Venezuela. Some of the artists exhibited were: Rufino Tamayo—featured on the cover of the catalog—Antonio Segui, Antonio Henrique Amaral, Julio Galán, Mario Abreu, Candido Portinari, Armando Reverón, Luis Caballero, Fernando Botero, Mario Carreño, Oswaldo Guayasamín, José Gamarra, Flavio de Carvalho, Ana Mercedes Hoyos, María Izquierdo, Wifredo Lam, Amelia Pélaez, Anita Malfatti, Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, Remedios Varo, Oswaldo Vigas, Jacobo Borges, Carlos Zerpa, Roberto Matta, amongst others. With the exhibition of the works, a booklet was also published with reflections on the pieces written by curator Roberto Guevara, with a prologue by the acclaimed author Gabriel García Márquez.

Goya's Caprichos (2001)

This exhibition was held with a series of Goya's original engravings. Its realization had the support of the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the European Union, and Cooperación Española.

Carlos Cruz-Diez (1992/2006)

In commemoration of the 78th anniversary of the insurance company, Milagros Maldonado commissioned the renowned international artist and kineticist Carlos Cruz-Diez to design the main door of the company's headquarters. This piece, called Cromoestructura, remains in the building and constitutes one of the exemplary contributions to integrating art in Venezuelan architecture. In 2006, in the spaces of La Previsora, the exhibition Cromosaturaciones y Cromo Interferencias was held, bringing together two emblematic works by the artist: a chromo-interference with moving projection and a chromo-saturation chamber.

The Sense of the Modern - Leo Matiz (2007)

In addition to comprehensively covering the Mexican muralist movement with its protagonists, including Frida Kahlo, Leo Matiz's photography encompasses almost all of Latin America's scenarios and characters. This exhibition, curated by José Antonio Navarrete, focused on the beginning of modernity in architecture in our hemisphere, with a unique look at the Universidad Central de Venezuela, a world cultural heritage site.

Walter Arp… Rara Avis (2008)

This exhibition reviewed the body of work on Venezuelan birds developed by the painter and ecologist Walter Arp for over fifty years. Milagros Maldonado was the leading promoter of this event due to her deep admiration and respect for the artist's ornithological research and its scarce diffusion until then. This exhibition included more than sixty paintings that were exhibited along with photographs, interactive applications, and videos that reflected, through "Warp's" art, the vast number of Venezuelan birds, with their respective behaviors and details of their physiognomy. The exhibition was accompanied by a publication about the life and work of Walter Arp by his curator Sergio Antillano Armas, with a prologue by the renowned Venezuelan poet Eugenio Montejo.

Pancho Quilici: Tras Caracas (2009)

The Tras Caracas exhibition consisted of more than fifty paintings, installations, and videos in the spaces of La Previsora Art Gallery. In it, the painter showed the result of deep research of photos, documents, and plans of the city of Caracas that the exhibition curators provided. In a city that at the time was experiencing the concerns of urban growth, Milagros Maldonado proposed this dialogue with the artist to generate a meeting point for perception and reflection on Caracas. Quilici had created his memories of the capital with a vision of nostalgia and a certain futurism. The incorporation of incomplete buildings, labyrinths, and semi-transparent geometric forms provided a relevant gaze at the development of the city's memory.

Film career

Milagros Maldonado ventured into different areas of cinema. In 1986 she starred in a film version of Doña Bárbara by Rómulo Gallegos. The filming, which took place in the ranch Hato El Frio owned by her family, could not be completed due to a conflict between the leading actor and the producers. Sometime later, the renowned director Diego Rísquez cast Milagros Maldonado to play La Malinche, the Nahua woman who collaborated with Hernán Cortés in the conquest of Mexico, in his film Amerika, Terra Incognita, released in 1988.

During her tenure as director of La Previsora Art Gallery, she promoted the making of several documentaries. The first one was La Vida en Color de Carlos Cruz Diez (2005) in co-production with Bolívar Films. Later, Leo Matiz, El Sentido de lo Moderno (2007), with the collaboration of Cuban photography curator and critic José Antonio Navarrete. Finally, for Walter Arp… Rara Avis (2008), the Foundation teamed up with the television network Vale TV to produce a documentary on the artist's necessary research on Venezuelan birds. The network still broadcasts the film.

Work in Miami

By the time Milagros Maldonado left La Previsora Foundation in 2009, she had assembled an extensive art collection that included artists such as Wifredo Lam, Roberto Matta, Fernando Botero, Antonio Seguí, José Gamarra, Luis Caballero, Ramón Alejandro, Gerardo Chávez, Agustín Cárdenas, Pancho Quilici, Armando Morales, Jacobo Borges, Armando Reverón, among others. This group of artworks led to the idea of creating an exhibition, Beyond the Erotic (2010), curated by José Antonio Navarrete, which also included a series of lectures and educational activities.

Upon moving to Miami, after gaining some experience in New York with exhibitions in alternative art galleries, she founded a new cultural space in Wyndwood, motivated by the artistic boom that this part of the city was experiencing.

(…) Excited by this transformation, I decided to open a non-profit entity to organize a Biennial for the city. Given the success of Art Basel Miami, there might be an interest in creating a Biennial to reinforce the city's bond with the art being produced in it. (…)

Miami Biennale / Maldonado Education through Art (META Miami)

Milagros Maldonado's work at  Miami Biennale lasted eight years, during which she curated and produced numerous exhibitions, as well as musical and educational events.

Following a proposal by Henrique Farías, and given that we had not been able to make the Biennale a reality, we changed our name to META Miami (Maldonado Education Through Art), a name suggested by our current director Isabel Pérez.

This non-profit organization manages multicultural projects that include permanent activities such as national and international art exhibitions, musical presentations, lectures, film screenings, book presentations, and workshops of different types, as well as fairs and festivals related to the main objective of the organization, which is to promote creative dialogue between Miami, its diverse cultural communities, and the rest of the world. Some of the most relevant activities to date are:

• Exhibition: Beyond the erotic (2010).
• Exhibition: Leo Matiz, The Expanded Eye (2010).
• Exhibition: Convergence Paris. José Gamarra, Atelier Morales, Ramón Alejandro and Panho Quilici (2011).
• Exhibition: Exhaling Gnosis, Miami (Michele Oka Doner's first solo exhibition in Miami) (2012).
• Cultural event: Piano Fest, Music meets Painting (2012).
• Cultural project: Wynwood Ways Cruz-Diez Intersection (Wynwood's first color intersection dedicated to Tony Goldman) (2013).
• Exhibition: ILLUMINATIONS: An illuminating exhibition. (James Turrell's piece Coconino) (2015).
• Exhibition: Proposals on color, rhythm, and light, Waldo Balart (2017).
• Exhibition: Beware of Red (2017).
• Exhibition: Horacio Zabala, Isolations (2018).
• Exhibition and auction: ARTTION, Acción Solidaria a Beneficio de Venezuela (Auction of art for people living with HIV and to get medical supplies for Venezuela) (2018).
• Workshop: Empowerment through Art. Patricia Van Dalen and Creativo Dance Studio, The Miami Biennial, Merrill Lynch, Rotary Club Brickell, and Miami Women's Club. (2018)
• Exhibition: Solid Abstraction. Strategies of Disobedience in Cuban Art (2018).
• Exhibition: Mercedes Elena Gonzalez at Pinta Miami (2019).
• Exhibition: Esvin Alarcón Lam, Inverted Histories (first solo exhibition in Miami by the Guatemalan artist)(2020).
• Exhibition: Warheads by Mercedes Elena González (to benefit the organization Acción Solidaria)(2021).
• Homage to Venezuelan poet and essayist Rafael Cadenas, a celebration of his life, organized by Rolando Peña (2022).