Milú Villela: Supermom to the Rescue at São Paulo’s Museum of Modern Art and Itaú Cultural Center

She found something more destitute than exclusive. Water dripped through the roof. Financial resources were drained. New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art had more Brazilians on its membership rolls than the MAM.

A couple of visits later, Villela left with an invitation to assume the presidency.

Not an obvious choice. A self-described “supermom,” Villela’s resume extended little beyond her front door, though she had founded an experimental private school in the 1970s. Her professional art world experience was confined to “an enormous art classroom” in the otherwise small school.

Though a banking heiress, Villela had maintained a wallflower profile. “Nobody even knew who I was,” she said. The museum board was “taking a shot in the dark.”

She took over in September 1994, and immediately started asking for help. Professionals responded. They volunteered for everything from communications to international relations. An advertising agency donated a fundraising campaign. Villela knocked on doors, and a startling 78% of those contacted opened their wallets. The museum raised $4 million, mostly during the first half of 1995, to overhaul its 1969 building in the Parque do Ibirapuera, São Paulo’s Central Park.

Villela traveled to study best practices at the world’s top museums. She returned to implement business-style management at the non-profit MAM, and then went about breaking down barriers. She opened outlets in shopping malls. She courted public schools. She called on joggers and skateboarders: “Come in even if you’re sweaty.” An early exhibition featured touchable sculptures described in audio and Braille.

Attendance jumped from 12,500 in 1995 to 277,000 in 2003. Individual and corporate memberships both jumped by more than 2,500% over the same period. Through donations and purchases, she filled gaps in the permanent collection, doubling it to 3,812. Breaking with the customary Third World practice of loaning individual works, the MAM began sending entire exhibitions abroad, most recently a show of the late Swiss-Brazilian artist Mira Schendel to Mexico’s Rufino Tamoyo Museum.

In 2001 Villela also assumed the presidency of the Itaú Cultural Institute, a foundation funded by her family’s bank. She instilled the institute with the same public-friendly approach. Boosted by a MAM-style school partnership, attendance increased from 200 to 1,900 a day. A project called Rumos Culturais (Cultural Bearings), anticipated Cultural Minister Gilberto Gil’s call to “democratize” the Brazilian arts. Curators travel to the far corners of the continent-sized country to recruit and support talent. “We’re the only institution in Brazil that is implementing the minister’s idea,” said Villela.

Today Villela’s main focus is on yet a third project – the Brazilian Institute for Volunteerism. Her campaign to encourage social progress through volunteerism earned her the honor of being the first woman from the independent “civil society” to address the United Nations General Assembly in 2002. Now she plans to establish a network of like-minded groups throughout Latin America.

Purchase Brazilian Art on Artprice