Hidden Treasure: Robin Rile Fine Art at the Coral Gables Country Club
Article by Glenn Harris for ARTGUIDEMIAMI.COM
Art Week in Miami is said to be the worlds largest art event. This year alone there were more than two million visitors in Miami for the week. Not only were the streets crowded and nearly impossible to navigate, so was one’s calendar of events and shows to attend. Like finding the perfect piece of art for a collection, finding the right show can take one off the beaten path in search of a hidden treasure.
One of those treasures was The Robin Rile Fine Art exhibit curated by Reed V. Horth and his lovely fiancé Kat Barrow. The exhibition was a story within a story as it was also the rebirth of the Coral Gables Country Club. The club which was originally built by George Merrick in 1923, had been closed since 2005. Nick Di Donato, the president of Toronto-based Liberty Entertainment Group, took over the management of the country club in 2008 and spent $3 million to renovate it. The freshly opulent country club reopened during Art Week and welcomed over 1000 guests.
Reed V. Horth, Art Dealer and Curator for ROBIN RILE FINE ART (Miami) with one of 174 works he curated for his Art Basel exhibition at the Coral Gables Country Club, Dec 2-5, 2010.
The reopening of the old and derelict venue to a modern and luxurious club became Horth’s theme for his collection in which he showcased the old with the new. He presented pieces from the art world icon, Salvador Dali along side developing artists from the University of Miami. The event benefited the University of Miami’s Lowe Art Museum.
As I entered the open expanse of the reception area with its crystal chandeliers hanging from 30 foot ceilings above sparkling granite floors, I found myself surrounded by intimidating sculptured statues on high marble pedestals. I was somewhat taken-aback by enormity of incredible works of art and didn’t know where to start first. In total there were 174 pieces with many pieces valued at over $250,000. At that moment, the poetic movements frozen in time in Richard McDonald piece, Joie de Vivre, Nude, called me to start with it. The bronze piece of three flute playing maidens is of amazing detail and life. From that instance, I knew that I was participating in something very special.
The Venus Di Milo with Drawers by Salvador Dali was one of the prized offerings at the show. It was perfectly placed behind a velvet rope in the country club’s wine vault. The piece is one of only 12 in the world and was brought in by a collector from Puerto Rico for the event. Horth’s passion for the art and the artist is evident as he wove his tale about meeting Robert Descharnes, Dali’s protégé, a few years back and learning more about Dali as the artist and man.
Next to the Venus di Milo with Drawers stood the Faberge Egg offering. The pieces were by Theo Faberge, great-grandson of Carl Faberge the Russian Imperial Court Jeweler. Horth had come to know Theo prior to his death in 2007. From this relationship, Horth is now working with the family and able to represent several fine pieces from the collection.
Horth will quickly share that his first passion in art is sculpture. Be that as it may, there was an equal representation of fine paintings as well. One such artist is another fellow Canadian, D. Bilodeau. As one walked into the central drawing room, the larger than life pieces demanded an audience. The original oil on canvas piece, Universal Individual, was over 6 foot high and 5 foot wide. Massive and striking. The subject of the painting was a black man with dripped white paint but there’s also a fantastical graphic element in the background. Bilodeau contrasts not only the subject but the style of traditional realism with the digital surrealism. It is an expression seen throughout his works. Another striking piece was Light Touch of the same black figure with white paint in a nude embrace with a white woman with brown paint. One visitor to the exhibit referred to it as Adam and Eve and the new name has stuck.
Several of the artists that Horth works with are based locally and participated in the event. M. Rivamonte is a sculptor who incorporates nostalgic parts of fifties era bikes, fans, and other antiques and creates new whimsical figures. Rivamonte was at the gallery and shared his inspirations as being his love of science which is expressed in his quirky robots, spacemen, and cars. His imagination along with his finds from flea markets to eBay are his chosen medium.
As one talks to Horth, one can see that he is in love with art. He loves the art pieces but also all that goes with it in terms of the artists themselves, the history, and the industry filled with collectors, agents, and brokers. He is not a gallery or a collector but a Fine Art Concierge. As with any concierge, the mission is to understand what his client wants and to get it for him at a fair price. He considers himself to be a combination of concierge and private investigator as he discovers pieces that his clients don’t have the skill, time, or ability to uncover. Horth shares his stories from his 14 year career in the art industry of working for client X (privacy of the clients is extremely important in this field) and finding them the perfect piece for a home or office.
Horth also shared why he chose to do a stand alone show versus participate in one of the larger events around town. He chose this venue as it offered him the valued ability to spend quality time with each potential client. Time used to build a rapport and to really understand what they wanted in a piece. This one-on-one approach has allowed Robin Rile Fine Art to differentiate his services from others in the industry. He shared that he or one of his team members would spend on average 45 minutes with visitors walking them through the exhibition and getting to know them. It is for that reason, many of the shows 174 pieces will be going home with a different owner.
This show was not for everyone. That’s just fine with Horth whose enlightened strategy was to provide an experience for the select client versus the masses. Much like the contrasting story of the country club being the tale of the old and its rebirth, he put together an eclectic show of opposites; well-known vs. up-and-comers, serious vs. whimsical pieces, sculptures vs. paintings. Horth and his show was a treasure, delightfully not easily found and off the beaten Art Basel path.
Gables club opens with a bubbly bang
By Tania Valdemoro, Miami Herald
The superlatives from people’s lips flowed as freely as the bubbly champagne they drank. “Magnificent! Spectacular! Excellent!” people said as they roamed around the newly renovated Coral Gables Country Club. The once-private club, built by Coral Gables founder George Merrick in 1923, reopened in grand style Tuesday night, an event that attracted local politicians and at least 1,000 people. “Welcome back to our country club,” Mayor Don Slesnick told the crowd before he cut a large red ribbon at the club’s front entrance. “This is a great night. Nick. We want to let you know how happy we are with the restoration.”
Nick is Nick Di Donato, the president of Toronto-based Liberty Entertainment Group, which took over the management of the country club in 2008 and spent $3 million to renovate it. The country club had closed in April 2008 after the Coral Gables City Commission learned that Granada LLC, the club’s former operator, had stopped paying its monthly $22,500 loan payment for more than a year. In March, the commission paid nearly $1.5 million to Granada to settle a lawsuit the company filed against the city in July 2007.
Under Di Donato, the country club has a new look and feel. “We made it into an event space,” he said. Changes were made to the reception area, the front entrance, the configuration of rooms and the floors. There are now granite and wood floors where there was once carpeting. The outside entrance has new water features and landscaping as well.
“It’s a public space where people can book events,” Di Donato said. The club’s various rooms can accommodate from 40 to 1,000 people.
As they milled around the country club, guests snapped photos of crystal chandeliers or listened to Junior’s Band play in the reddish glow of the grand ballroom. Still others sampled a seemingly endless array of finger foods, from lamb chops to tacos and sushi. More than anything, there is a new ethos to the place, a desire to welcome the community and make it an “epicenter,” as Di Donato put it, where people come to meet friends and celebrate milestones. To that end, Liberty Entertainment Group enlisted Reed Horth, of Robin Rile Fine Art, to curate an art exhibit to coincide with Art Basel Miami Beach. The free event, which is open to the public, runs through Sunday night.
Horth has showcased the sculpture, photography, drawings and prints of emerging artists and so-called “masters,” including Salvador Dali, Richard MacDonald, Frederick Hart and Márton Váró. There are 174 pieces in the exhibit. Carrara marble sculptures from Márton Váró as exhibited at CGCC by Robin Rile Fine Art.
Horth said he was inspired by the fact the club was built in 1923 and it was recently updated. “The concept of the show is a modern play on classical work,” he said.
He showed a bronze sculpture of Venus de Milo by Dali to prove his point. “Dali updated the Venus de Milo. It has drawers. This was done in 1964,” Horth said. John Forte, of Coral Gables, admired “Joie de Vivre,” a sculpture by MacDonald that Horth said was one of the artist’s best works. “This is a happening,” Forte said as he looked around the packed gallery. “I think we’ve been waiting for a long time for the country club to reopen.” He approved of the makeover.
“It’s magnificent. It fits the times,” Forte said.
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