Sara Rubin here, wondering if I’d really call myself a “collector.” I love amassing certain things—books, seashells—but the idea of being a collector feels like it requires a certain amount of expertise.
Not so, according to Armando Durón, who is a bona fide collector of Chicano artwork. All it takes is passion and a sense of purpose.
In 1981, Durón began acquiring Chicano artwork. “I decided, as a Chicano, I needed to be engaged in the acquiring of our people’s patrimony,” he says. “I realized that the only thing that lasts of any people is their art. That’s how we know the Greeks, the Mayans, a lot of peoples. What survived and who collects that and who interprets that is very important in how a people are perceived.”
That’s might sound grandiose, but it is already proving true, even in Durón’s lifetime. He and his wife, Mary Salinas Durón, have amassed hundreds of works of art in different mediums and thousands of pieces of ephemera—invitations to art shows, brochures and the like.
They change the artwork on the walls of their home (in Montebello in Los Angeles County) about every two years. There’s a lot in storage and at any given time, there are also works on loan to museums; 10 pieces right now are en route to Miami. There are also 92 works installed at the Monterey Museum of Art, the first museum exhibit giving weight to the scale and diversity of the family’s collection. The exhibit Seeing Chicanx: The Durón Family Collection opened last week, part of the new season on display at MMA. It’s one of four new exhibits that are well worth your time, demanding the viewer look a little differently at what your idea of “Chicano art” might previously have been.
The Duróns grew up poor, and went on to have a middle-class life—he is a court commissioner, she works for the FDIC. You don’t have to be wealthy to collect art, Durón says, unless you’re interested in art as an investment, which means the blue chip stuff that sells for tens of millions. (If you are collecting as an investment, he adds, “You might as well buy lottery tickets.”) Instead, you can apply a lens of acquiring what you love.
“The starting point is just to go look at as much art as you can,” he says. “Hone your skills at looking beyond the obvious, so you know what you like. Whether that’s art or dolls or ceramics, you want to wind up with things that you really appreciate.”
Luckily for the public, we now have an opportunity to appreciate this family’s vision, on the walls at MMA until April 28.