A Conversation with Ramón Cernuda

Cernuda Arte in Coral Gables has become an authority on Cuban art. The family business is owned by Ramón Cernuda and Nercys Ganem, who run it with their son, Sergio Cernuda, and Luisa Lignarolo, a young art historian who joined the gallery before marrying Sergio. Recently ARTDISTRICTS spoke with Cernuda at the Miami home where, he says, “Every wall is nothing but a pretext for a painting” from the important collection of Cuban art he and Nercys have amassed over 38 years.

By Margery Gordon

Margery Gordon - Could you tell me a little bit about your childhood experiences in Cuba and your encounters with art?

Ramón Cernuda - My family left Cuba in October of 1960. It has been 51 years now. I was a young adolescent then, and our first encounters with art were after we arrived in Miami and my family relocated to Puerto Rico in San Juan. The art community in San Juan was small, but active, and through the University of Puerto Rico Museum and three or four other art institutions, we were able to establish our first contacts with the arts. Also, at the University of Puerto Rico, where I studied social sciences and humanities, I had the opportunity of taking various courses in art history and art appreciation. So those were the very early beginnings, in the 1960s and very early ‘70s. I acquired my first painting in 1973. It is in storage. Over two-thirds of our collection is in storage. We rotate the works. We hang about 180, so we estimate maybe in the neighborhood of 500 in the private collection, not considering our gallery inventories.

M.G. - And do those mix?

R.C. - Well, my wife makes it a point not to mix them. That was one of her conditions when I finally convinced her 11 years ago to open up a gallery-that we build a Chinese wall around the collection to try to keep it separate from our business. Occasionally we are clients of our own gallery, and every so often we agree, the two of us, to trade works from the private collection with the gallery when we find that there are some things that we can’t live without. But in general, both entities are very well-defined and separate.

M.G. - What were you doing before you started the gallery?

R.C. - I came back to the United States in 1974, and I formed a publishing house. We published books, encyclopedias-I helped publish the first Cuban Encyclopedia. I published other Cuban culture publications and self-study programs, English courses for Hispanics. In 1977, we formed a company for that purpose, and the company was very active until the year 2000. It continues to exist, but the volume of operations is minimal, because in the year 2000 my wife and I decided that in order to expand our horizons in the art world, we were going to not only continue our collecting passion, but we were also going to open up a gallery that specialized in precisely the field that had become our focus of interest.

For about a year and a half, we simply bought inventory for the gallery, because we are believers in gallery-owned inventory. Over 85 percent of our gallery’s sales volume in dollars is acquired paintings owned by the gallery that are then sold by the gallery, and maybe 15, at most 20, percent in dollar volume in consigned work. That tends to be the contemporary work of represented artists, because in today’s secondary market that deals in deceased masters, if you’re not ready to buy, oftentimes the works will not be available. So we are constantly buying and selling in that field of deceased Cuban masters, and, on the other hand, we represent 13 living artists. The bulk of our consigned work comes from those represented artists.

M.G. - How many of those artists are living in Cuba versus Cuban-Americans from here or living here?

R.C. - Ten live in Cuba, two live in Miami and one Cuban émigré lives in Paris.

M.G. - Is that something that evolved? When you started out, were you mostly just dealing in the secondary market and you started adding the contemporary, or was that part of your plan to begin with?

R.C. - It was part of the business plan right from the old days when I was the vice president and director of the Cuban Museum in Miami. I spent 15 years on the board of the Cuban Museum of Arts and Culture in Little Havana. We believed that our involvement in Cuban art should not be one that segregated or discriminated [against] artists for any reason other than the quality of their art. We integrated living artists with deceased artists in our exhibitions at the museum, and artists who live in Cuba vis-a-vis artists who live in exile. And that concept of one cultural entity throughout its historical evolution was our model for the gallery also. So from our first exhibition when we opened the gallery we included living and deceased artists, and we included artists living in Cuba with artists from the exile community. In those days, the idea of mixing artists from Cuba and the exile community was very controversial. We had massive demonstrations in front of the gallery from the very beginning, some definitely verbal insults and some physical violence: pushing, spitting, tire-slashing.

M.G. - Did you also have that reaction at the museum?

R.C. - Yes, in the ‘80s we were [targeted with] terrorist threats and actions. Two bombs exploded in front of the museum. One totally destroyed the building and about 25 paintings that were on exhibition inside the building. Of the 25, maybe four or five were saved; the rest were beyond saving. Another bomb placed in the museum blew up one of the cars of one of the directors. Those were tough times. It was a very intolerant climate in the arts and politics in general. In 1989, after various incidents at the Cuban Museum, the U.S. District Attorney’s office confiscated our collection and initiated a grand jury investigation regarding our possible violation of the embargo laws because they claimed that art was a Cuban product and it was illegal to possess it in the United States. We filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Government for violation of First Amendment rights.

M.G. - How did that fall under the First Amendment?

R.C. - Well, it was a very creative, but very fundamental, legal construction. The First Amendment protects your right to free speech, and a corollary of that concept is free access to information. So informational materials have had constitutional protection, including the press, also film, music and books, all kinds of publications. They are considered more than a product. So we said, the arts historically have been a source of enormous information to mankind. Professor Juan Martínez from Florida International University wrote a brief to the court basically outlining, from the Egyptians and even before, specific cases of what we know as mankind thanks to the arts, and what we wouldn’t know if it hadn’t been for the arts. The concept of the arts being informational material had not been defined by the U.S. Courts. We went to Federal Circuit Court with Judge Kenneth Ryskamp in 1989, who ruled totally in our favor and said art is definitely, and historically has been, informational materials. It falls under the protection of the First Amendment, consequently no lesser law can impede the free flow of informational materials. So the whole case of the U.S. District Attorney collapsed because the embargo could not apply to the arts, and it was not only Cuban art, but in those days, it was also Vietnamese art, Libyan art and Korean art were being embargoed. If you study art law, our case is studied as the case that gives art the constitutional protection of the First Amendment. Our case is case law; it’s precedential. It was an extraordinary experience for us, being immigrants to this country and ending up suing the U.S. government in their own courts and winning. It’s something that I don’t think happens anywhere else in the world.

M.G. - Specifically in Cuban art, there was a period when there were a lot of forgeries. Can you talk about that?

R.C. - It’s a problem that hasn’t been resolved. Particularly deceased artists, those whose works are being sold in higher numbers, get forged and sold on the U.S. market, and collectors, who are doing this because they love the art, are getting robbed, getting taken by these fraudulent transactions. So we have a situation where it’s very difficult for some people, unless they consult with experts, to protect themselves with investments. So it’s very important that that be a consideration for any collector, particularly of Cuban art. Some of the better-known living artists from the island are also being forged.

M.G. - Why Cuban art so much, because of the lack of access?

R.C. - Precisely, because of the divide between the sources, the history, the knowledge on the one side, and the collecting on the other, and the money. And then there’s the interruption of clear, continuous provenance. In normal conditions, talking of a painting from the early ‘20s and ‘30s, you can trace the various collections that have had that painting. With Cuban art, there’s always the argument, ‘Well, I can’t tell you who owned the painting in Cuba, because it got to me after it was smuggled out of the country.’ So there are issues that complicate the chain of custody of the painting.

M.G. - So how do you dig through that?

R.C. - We have to rely mostly on expertise. We have two libraries of Cuban art books that we are constantly consulting. Also occasionally we rely on scientific testing, when the monetary considerations justify that. It is expensive and time-consuming, but it has been a tool that has been used successfully. And we have worked with some retired FBI calligraphy experts regarding signature analysis. I provide a free-of-charge service at the gallery, and we get, on average, once a day someone coming in asking us whether this painting is a forgery or an original. If I believe that my opinion is not sufficient, I provide referrals. We’ve done it for auction houses, insurance companies, even the government has requested that we get involved in expert analysis of works for the courts.

M.G. - Has there been much enforcement?

R.C. - Not at all. That is precisely what we have been talking about-the need for much more enforcement and better legal instruments for the police. We’ve been working with the FBI. They have a unit here in Florida for art crimes. We first got involved with them a year ago with the theft of a major collection, and it so happened that the thieves brought the paintings to our gallery, so we were able to call the police, and they grabbed them then and there, inside the gallery. But with forgeries, it’s a much more difficult process. The only way that you could win is if you can prove that the seller knew they sold you a forgery, and then it becomes fraud, and there is no statute of limitations until the moment you discover it is a forgery. The burden of proof is on the buyer, not the seller. So we need a better set of laws regarding consumer protection in the arts.

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M.G. - Do you think that there is a better level of trust at this point in buying Cuban art, or do you think there’s still some trepidation because of the forgeries?

R.C. - I advise all of my clients to be extremely careful and to check everything that they buy and to buy from institutions that guarantee return of the monies if there is a problem. That should be a requirement of any collector. Very few entities guarantee, in writing, return of the money independent of the statute of limitations.

M.G. - What have you seen as far as the trajectory of the market?

R.C. - It’s going up immensely. The prices of Cuban art have really moved up, particularly of these deceased Modernist artists, the prices have multiplied.

M.G. - Was there a particular point where you saw a sharp increase, or has it just gone up steadily?

R.C. - Well, the boom years of 2006 and 2007 certainly marked a rise in pricing. Now that the economy has not been as good, the prices have leveled off and some prices have dropped with regard to those high prices of ‘05, ‘06 and ‘07.

M.G. - Is it hard when you see works come into the gallery that you really like? Do you have a collector’s temptation to want to keep them?

R.C. - It’s not hard, it’s horrible [laughs]. I have to thank my son Sergio, because he is the more level-headed, business-minded person, and also my daughter-in-law, Luisa. She’s an art historian from FIU, and she’s also involved in client relations. She’s been with the gallery about eight years. Just today we sold a painting that I would love to keep, but it had to go. By René Portocarrero, it’s a work from 1966 titled Portrait of Flora. It was exhibited in the Venice Biennale in 1966, and it’s an award-winning painting, a masterpiece. We acquired it from a private collection just four months ago, and it’s going to a very good collection of a good friend and client.

M.G. - What is the scope of the clientele? How much of it is local, national, international?

R.C. - Things are changing in that regard. Fortunately for us, five-six years ago we decided to go national and not put all our eggs in Miami, and we started an aggressive program of fairs outside the city of Miami. Now, in the downturn of the local economy-which is especially difficult for the art world because many of the collectors were in the construction or real estate industry or mortgage banking or related industries-we have found that that safety net of collectors around the United States and some European collectors have saved us from a free fall. We do continue to work with some local collectors that have been fortunately isolated from economic global problems. We do have some international clients, but it’s really mostly a national clientele. We’ve worked very hard at various fairs in the Northeast, and also Chicago, Houston now. We really have not ventured as much to the West. It has the geographic proximity, but it doesn’t have the cultural proximity.

M.G. - You haven’t been back to Cuba?

R.C. - I’m not allowed to go back by the Cuban government. I think the problem is more with what we do now, which is an independent gallery that represents artists from the island. The artists work exclusively with us, some worldwide exclusivity, and some U.S. exclusivity. It helps us immensely to control the direction of the career of these artists, to properly promote it, maintain the order of the market.

M.G. - So you can’t do studio visits. How do you handle the communication, exportation? Do you have other people who go on site in your business?

R.C. - Fortunately, my wife has been able to go to Cuba on various occasions-also my son, my daughter-in-law, they’ve been allowed. From the U.S. point of view, I can travel to Cuba anytime I want. The gallery has a license. Any full-time employee of the gallery can go to Cuba to conduct business without any limitation on the U.S. part…I’m looking forward to the day when, after 50 years of ostracism, I can be allowed back in.

M.G. - The artists there now, how are they treated?

R.C. - The artists are the privileged people in Cuban society. They are among the wealthiest, because they are one of the very few categories of workers in Cuba that can legally sell their products, art, in hard currency, to foreigners, either persons or entities, galleries. They get paid directly from us in U.S. dollars. We have to do it through the Cuban National Bank, so the dollars get converted to their equivalent to U.S. dollars, CUCs [Cuban convertible pesos]. The government charges a banking fee.

M.G. - What about the emerging artists? Are they subsidized when they leave the academy by the government?

R.C. - No. It’s swim or drown, and that’s a problem. The problem in Cuba today is that there are not enough galleries to help the emerging artists. They graduate thousands of very talented people, but then there is virtually no opportunity for them. They have to throw a bottle into the ocean and hope that it lands on some island out there and somebody opens up the bottle and reads the message and then starts caring for their work.

M.G. - So have you discovered artists there?

R.C. - We work with a group of artists that were very young, starving emerging artists when we started, and now they’ve developed. Some of our artists have been with us on an exclusive worldwide representation for 10 years, since we started the gallery, and some have been with us seven, eight, five years. We just had a very successful exhibition of a lady, Irina Elen González, in her 30s, this month. She sold close to 90 percent of her show. Her price range is anywhere from $4,000 to $15,000. She’s been with us for five years, and now she got her first one-person show. She goes back to Cuba next week.

M.G. - Who do you think are rising stars, ones to watch?

R.C. - Miguel Florido is a very successful young artist in his 30s. He’s already sold at auction at Christie’s and Sotheby’s in the $15,000 to $20,000 range. He started with us 10 years ago. We represent him exclusively worldwide. He’s a very talented artist. Vicente Hernández is in his late 30s, a surrealist artist. He’s all about massive migration. He’s doing very well. He’s also been exhibiting and selling at auction in the $10,000 to $20,000 range.

M.G. - Any new blood that you’re looking at bringing in?

R.C. - Yes, we just signed an artist who arrived from Cuba two years ago. His name is Dayron González, an expressionist artist whose work is very strong and has to do with the life of children and adolescents in a closed society. It’s a direct reference to his experiences. I’m not politically active, but I do give opportunity to artists independent of their beliefs if I think that the quality of their work is important.

M.G. - Is it hard to play favorites? Do you have any?

R.C. - There are three artists of the Vanguardia period that are my favorites: One of them is Carlos Enríquez. I also like [Fidelio] Ponce [de León] very much, and Portocarrero. The more expensive artists are not my favorites. I love Lam, and we collect Lam, of course, but he’s not really my favorite Cuban artist. Ponce is very low-priced. He started doing his work in the mid-’20s, ‘30s, and he died in 1949. He’s an expressionistic artist, very distinguished, symbolic, spiritual. He doesn’t have the color of the tropics as much as Lam, not as decorative, so it’s not as popular.

M.G. - What are your plans for the fairs?

R.C. - We’re bringing a very strong Modernist show to Art Miami, including Wifredo Lam from the ‘40s, and also Víctor Manuel García. It has been a fruitful year because some local collections that were very active have gone into crisis and had to sell their works, so we’ve been able to pick up some important works. The display will be mostly contemporary for MIA, the Miami International Art fair. We did Art Basel last year. We sold Lam’s The Lovers [Les Fiancés, (1944)] for $3 million, a self-portrait of the artist marrying Helena [Holzer, a German scientist]. It was in the Basel catalog, and people, when paying for their tickets, were asking about it.

Cernuda Arte is located at 3155 Ponce de Leon Blvd. Coral Gables, Florida, 33134. Phone: 305 461 1050 / www.cernudaarte.com / cernudaarte@msn.com