Do Read : Whitewall Magazine

On Alberto Mugrabi

So we fully realize that you're waiting patiently for yummy details of the Rush Arts Event, but truth be told the most exciting part of the evening was when we dug into our brightly colored gift bags and found Whitewall Magazine waiting for us. The sheer weight of this beautifully glossy gift was enough to make our palms sweat with excitement, but it wasn't until we realized the article on Columbian-Jewish Art collector Alberto Mugrabi (that we've been waiting on for months) was hidden within it's pages that we really got energized.

See, one of our very own lovely writers was the eager intern to NY based fashion photographer Jesse Shadoan and was present when the pictorial was shot in Mugrabi's Grammercy Park home. Mugrabi, so slick in his style and patient in his delivery, was a perfect host by all accounts and seemed only partially aware that his personal art collection could redeem the failing art market with one "stoop sale" - well, perhaps not a stoop sale...

But his home alone is truly a gallery space. The door opens to a small hallway where a wall sized Basquiat hangs alone, welcoming you into the great room. The walls are pristine white and a 3,000 lb (yes, 3,000 lb) white marble table, carved to look like the city of Los Angles, pulls you to the center of the room and just as you start to wonder how a 3,000 lb slab actually got into such a delicate NYC apartment a bright stash of the iconic Warhol Brillo, Campbell's and Heinz boxes, stashed near his kitchen, redirect your eye and you notice the breakfast table, reminding you that you are in fact in one man's living space and not a rare gallery in a far off fantasy land.

The walls leading to his bedroom were strategically padded with black silk (don't quote us. It could be another durable fabric) making your voice dissolve into the walls and cause otherwise normal conversations to seem smoky and hushed. The ceiling has various levels and thick, squishy carpet melts beneath your feet as you cross over to the hallway that leads to his bedroom. And again, don't quote us, but something tells us he likes it quiet.

There is a glass chandelier dripping from the ceiling above the marble tomb of a coffee table and when questioned about it's origin a small grin smears from the corner of his mouth as he says, "Ikea." A former staple at Bungalow 8 and studio 54, its not hard to feel at ease around this nonchalant, intuitive genius whom you might typically be intimidated by. He makes direct eye contact and nods in encouragement when you speak. He almost seems interested in other people and what they have to say - But what else can you expect from a man who has grown to be called, "the man of 400 Warhols" largely based on his father's example?

AB: "... As my dad started collecting art, he included my brother and me. He gave us the auction catalogue, and told us to look and tell him what we liked. That was the way he got us interested. We were asked to give our opinions about what we thought, liked, didn't like. We had no idea about anything, so the way I went about it was that I would like the picture the more expensive it was. We went to auctions with my dad and he would tell us what paintings he was interested in. I would sit next to him, and every time he stopped bidding because it was too expensiveI harassed him and would say, "Come on, you have to do one more, one more, which would really annoy him."

Tony Shafrazi: Then the multiple image of Marilyn by Andy Warhol comes up in the May 1988 auction at Sotheby's,and you are with your father at the auction. Your father stops -

AB: My father stopped bidding for the painting and I started nagging him. My dad didn't react, so I raised my hand and they took the bid. My dad ended up buying the painting; he was very happy, but he was furious with me. A few weeks later Sotheby's offered to buy the picture from him, but instead of selling he decided to build something around the picture.

TS: So that became the beginning of a big story. Soon after that, as a result of that purchase, I remember Le Figaro spoke to your father -

AB: They asked him if it was true that he brought the Marilyns, was it true that he bought one of the world's most important paintings, and he said, "I didn't buy one of the world's most important paintings, I bought a piece of Amercian Culture..."

excerpt from Whitewall Magazine, The Green Issue.
Spring 2009.

Thank you whitewall! Amazing job indeed.

And perhaps Malcolm Gladwell is right to argue that "success is not a random act" (pg. 155) and it actually does have everything to do with class and placement. That "middle class parents... expected their children to talk back to them, to negotiate, to question adults in positions of authority... [that] it was common for middle class children to shift interactions to suit their preferences..." (pg. 103, 1o5). And we're not passing judgement, please don't misunderstand us, but The Outliers greatest rival is The Secret for a reason - we're just saying... And we certainly know many human contradictions to this "rule," but hey... Mugrabi's experience does support this theory.

The Swills