The Argentine real-estate developer and collector Eduardo F. Costantini has acquired the entire Daros Latinamerica Collection in an unprecedented move. Costantini will add the 1,233 works by 117 artists (previously housed in Zurich) to the collection of his Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (Malba), a leading South American museum. Plans for an expansion of the museum building to make room for the works are already underway.
One of the most significant institutional acquisitions of Latin American art in decades, the deal not only returns the entire collection to the region but also repositions Malba and Costantini’s collection—now totalling nearly 3,000 works—as among the most important holdings of Latin American art worldwide.
Eduardo F. Costantini Photo: Alejandro Guyot, courtesy Malba
The Daros collection is particularly rich in art produced after 1950. Curated by Hans-Michael Herzog, it contains key works by the Cuban American artist Ana Mendieta; the Brazilians Hélio Oiticica, Lygia Clark and Cildo Meireles; the Argentine Julio Le Parc; the Chilean Alfredo Jaar; and the Venezuelan Gego.
With this acquisition, 75 artists are entering the Malba collection for the first time, including the Colombian Doris Salcedo, the Venezuelan Jesús Rafael Soto and the Mexican Betsabeé Romero. Other works reinforce existing holdings: no fewer than 104 pieces by Guillermo Kuitca will arrive in Buenos Aires, along with 50 pieces by León Ferrari, 26 works by the Cuban collective Los Carpinteros and nine by the Venezuelan Carlos Cruz-Diez, to name just a few.
Modernist heart
Since its founding, Malba has focused on art from the region spanning the early 20th century to the present. Its Modernist holdings are particularly strong, including works by Diego Rivera, Tarsila do Amaral, Remedios Varo, Joaquín Torres García, Wifredo Lam, Roberto Matta, Cándido Portinari and Antonio Berni. The museum also houses some of the most valuable works in the Latin American art market, including Frida Kahlo’s 1949 Diego y yo (bought by Costantini for $34.9m in 2021) and Leonora Carrington’s 1945 Las distracciones de Dagoberto (purchased for $28.5m in 2024).
Cildo Meireles’s Missão/Missões (Como construir catedrais) (1987), a work in the Daros collection Courtesy Malba
The Brazilian curator Rodrigo Moura, a former chief curator at El Museo del Barrio in New York, took over as Malba’s artistic director in December 2024.
“Suddenly, it feels like being in charge of a different museum,” he tells The Art Newspaper of the recent acquisition. “This is spectacular. It changes everything. Malba’s great strength has always been the Modern period, and the Daros collection starts from the Constructive period, so both collections complement each other perfectly. For me, it opens up a new curatorial perspective in terms of narrative, spatiality, materiality and geography. I feel proud to be part of this historic moment for the institution.”
A change of identity
Costantini adds: “This acquisition is fundamental for the museum. It is the second most important milestone in Malba’s history, since its inauguration in 2001. This is unlike anything else, not even to the purchase of Diego y yo or Las distracciones de Dagoberto, which were record-breaking and extraordinary works. This changes our identity.”
For Malba’s founder, the acquisition brings “very important pieces” to Buenos Aires. “They disrupt our identity, modify the collection, make it more comprehensive and strengthen it,” he says. “And because of its scale, it necessarily requires a place to be exhibited. So we are going to expand the museum building, which is also great news, to add more exhibition galleries, storage and conservation facilities.”
Doris Salcedo’s Untitled (1998), part of the Daros Latinamerica Collection, becomes the first work by the artist in Malba's collection Courtesy Malba
The expansion project will extend into the building’s basement and increase Malba’s total space to approximately 90,000 sq. ft. Construction is set to begin in late 2026, with the inauguration of the new space scheduled for 2029, according to Costantini. The Daros collection is currently stored in a warehouse in Europe, where it will remain until June 2026. In September, coinciding with the museum’s 25th anniversary, a selection of the newly acquired works will go on public display.
The Daros collection was founded in 2000 by the Swiss collector Ruth Schmidheiny and her then husband, Stephan. Since Ruth’s death in 2019, the collection had remained inactive, and Costantini was curious about its future. He met with the Schmidheiny family in November in New York and quickly closed the deal. “We agreed on 90% of the terms in a single meeting,” he says.
José Alejandro Restrepo’s Musa paradisiaca (1996), from the Daros collection Courtesy Malba
When Kahlo’s 1940 El sueño (La cama) recently came up for auction—selling to an anonymous buyer for $54.7m—many in the art world speculated that Malba’s founder might be among the interested parties. “No,” Costantini says. “My focus was elsewhere, on something more important. I had something much bigger on my hands.”