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  1. Join Date
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    The Museum of Me

    Robbie Antonio’s new house in Manila, designed by renowned architect Rem Koolhaas, will be filled with portraits of himself, by world-class artists such as Julian Schnabel, Marilyn Minter, and David Salle. Is the 36-year-old real-estate developer a patron, an egomaniac, or both?



    The fortune for this unchained ambition comes from Century Properties, the publicly traded real-estate company founded by Antonio’s father, currently valued at around a half-billion dollars, according to Antonio, who manages the day-to-day operations. Most of their projects are in Asia, but Antonio also founded a separate, New York-based company to do developments there—including a collaboration with I. M. Pei on a luxury condominium, the Centurion. The family’s wealth is estimated at $300 million.

    Antonio is constantly on the hunt for new Obsession commissions. In March, at New York’s Art Dealers Association of America Art Show at the Park Avenue Armory, he saw a display of Karen Kilimnik’s storybook-style portraits of women. “Does she do men?” he asked the gallery representative. (Kilimnik has not yet been drafted for the Obsession project.)

    The artists he has enlisted in this quest seem bemused by Antonio’s aggressive approach but powerless to resist it. “His enthusiasm for all kinds of things is endearing—he kind of pulls you into his orbit,” says painter David Salle, who did a double portrait of Antonio next to Stealth, putting the lord alongside his manor, an updated riff on the Gainsboroughs and Sargents of old.

    The Los Angeles-based painter Kenny Scharf portrayed Antonio as “a chic space alien,” complete with antennae. “We had dinner, I took his picture, and we talked a lot,” says Scharf of getting to know Antonio. “He wanted it immediately, and I told him he couldn’t have it immediately. He was very impatient.

    “He’s a good-looking guy, and he obviously likes that part about himself.”

    One thing that has helped persuade the artists to participate—beyond the $50,000 to $100,000 that Antonio is paying for each piece—is that he has done his homework. Photographer David LaChapelle recalls that, when Antonio showed up for their first meeting in Los Angeles, “he had a book of mine with literally thousands of Post-it notes.” Two months later, LaChapelle photographed Antonio against a flamboyant “millionaire’s pinball machine” backdrop.

    LaChapelle takes pains to put the Obsession series in perspective. “The tradition of wealthy people wanting portraits of themselves goes back as far as art history,” he says. “It’s very easy for people to criticize him, but the more art, the better. It will be up to him to have a well-rounded project and not just a vanity project. And the collection will set him apart.”

    Perhaps. Certainly having a Koolhaas house-museum is a distinction that few can claim. Plenty of people have tried to commission a Koolhaas home, but he says he was waiting for the right client—and the perfect project. “We were desperate to do more houses,” he says. “It is particularly exciting because, if you do a house, inevitably you have to engage with a person. So nothing more intimate exists.”

    Somehow, Antonio’s hyper-specificity about what he wanted struck a chord. “Actually, I’m surprised they never kicked me out of their office, because I gave them, like, 50,000 images of what not to do and what to do,” says Antonio.

    “Half of them were contradictory to each other,” says Koolhaas of the requested features. “Then we decided to basically not be our normal, occasionally dogmatic self but to completely adopt his point of view and see where it would end.”

    Even Antonio’s architectural references were outsize. When it came to the 25,000-square-foot Stealth, he and Koolhaas used the floor plans of the Whitney and the Guggenheim as comparisons.

    “It’s an enormous vision,” adds Koolhaas. “We’ve never had somebody with so many things he liked, so many things he wanted.” Originally, Antonio wanted Koolhaas to design a revolving building that would rotate a few times a month. “But I thought that would be detrimental to my budget,” Antonio says. Perhaps the most fantastical element in the finished house is near the bar on the first floor: a circular section of the wall behind it can actually flip open, hinging at the top and leading out onto the garden—giving new meaning to the phrase “man cave.”

    Most of all, it was the distinctness of the Obsession project that appealed to Koolhaas, who notes dryly that “in every suburban house you see a Richard Prince Nurse.” Koolhaas says he was attracted by the notion that Antonio was testing “how far you can take patronage, or how far you can get art to represent yourself, or how you can [make] your own reputation through art.”

    That was the only vote of confidence the collector needed. “I really went for it,” Antonio adds.
    The Museum of Me? Robbie Antonio?s Rem Koolhaas?Designed Home, Full of Portraits of Himself | Vanity Fair
    Last edited by _Cathy_; June 25th, 2013 at 04:14 PM.

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  5. Join Date
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    so..........

    he's like obsessed with himself

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    Manila Times article from Vinj

    A P1-billion ‘Museum of Me’
    June 23, 2013 10:08 pm

    by RIGOBERTO TIGLAO

    Once in a while we hear of reports that make you think that we’ve hardly changed from medieval times when a very tiny aristocracy lived in unimaginable luxury while the peasant masses wallowed in horrible misery.

    In the late 1960s, it was the report of champagne flowing out of fountains at a party in the mansion of one of the Lopez political-economic elite clan. In the ‘80s, we had the reports of Marcos crony Herminio Disini buying a castle in Austria, together with its “baron” title, and of course Imelda’s 3,000 shoes and liters of the most expensive French perfume in her bathroom. I’m not sure if in this decade it is Chavit Singson’s submarine and Bengal tigers.

    Now, an article in the US magazine Vanity Fair (July 2013 edition) would make Imelda’s collection of shoes seem so pedestrian.


    Would anybody buy that from him? That portrait of Robbie Antonio probably cost P11 million, just one of 35.

    The article reported that 36-year-old “Robbie” Antonio has contracted the famous Dutch architect Rem Koolhass to design and build his new residence “in Manila’s most exclusive neighborhood,” apparently Forbes Park. Its cost: “upwards to $15 million,” according to the magazine.

    In the manner that techno-billionaire Bill Gates dubbed his mansion Xanadu and the late Michael Jackson called his, Neverland, Antonio named his, “Stealth”. Google Rem Koohass and you’d find it hard to believe he accepted a commission for designing a residence—unless rather than the cost of the house, the $15 million refers solely to the architect’s fee.

    But that’s just for starters. “Stealth” isn’t just a luxurious residence. It will be an art museum dedicated to Antonio’s face.

    Antonio has commissioned six of “the world’s top contemporary artists” (read: most expensive) to paint a series of portraits. Not just portraits of whoever or whatever, but of Antonio himself in different poses and different painting styles, from the cartoonish by the New Yorker Kenny Scharf (pictured) to what can be described as psychedelic by the Englishman Damien Hirst.

    That’s why Vanity Fair despite of its gushing article on Antonio couldn’t help make fun of him by headlining its article : “The Museum of Me”.

    Vanity Fair reported: “So far, two dozen portraits are under way or completed, with nearly $3 million spent on them. Antonio is aiming for 35 in the series “by the end of the year, all of which will be housed in a special gallery within Stealth, open only to invited guests.” He calls the series of 35 paintings “Obsession”, obviously very aptly named, and expensive. That’s $250,000 (P11 million) a piece.

    And not only paintings, according to Vanity Fair: “The performance artist Marina Abramoviæ, a friend of Antonio’s . . . is contributing a piece to “Obsession” that she calls “The Chamber of Stillness”: a basement room in “Stealth” with a waterfall view that could actually lock him in for periods of up to 60 minutes and force contemplation.”

    Who is Abramovic? In 2010, the Museum of Modern Art held a retrospective and performance recreation of Abramoviæ’s work: that has been the biggest exhibition of performance art in MoMA’s history. An art student in New York told me Abramovic would very easily charge $2 million for her “Chamber” in Antonio’s residence.

    I couldn’t believe what I was reading: $15 million for the house (assuming total cost, and not only for the architect’s fee), probably $2 million for the lot, based on published Forbes Park prices, plus $3 million so far for paintings, which would increase to $8.8 million when all 35 are finished.

    That’s $25.8 million—equivalent to an unbelievable P1.1 billion for Antonio’s monument to himself. One could sense a slight hint of disgust over such display of wealth in the Vanity Fair article, pointing out that the $15 million cost of the Antonio’s house “is in somewhat stark contrast to the average annual Filipino-family income of $4,988.” And Vanity Fair didn’t even mention Antonio’s black $1 million Maserati he drives around in Manila that gets flooded with just an hours’ rain.

    “Museum of Me” owner “Robbie” is Jose Roberto Antonio, the third of the four sons of luxury-condominium developer Century Properties’ founder and owner Jose Antonio, a stock broker who shifted to property development when the market crashed during the political crisis from 1984-1985.

    The Vanity Fair article described Robbie’s source of wealth:

    “The fortune for this unchained ambition comes from Century Properties, the publicly traded real-estate company founded by Antonio’s father, currently valued at around a half-billion dollars, according to Antonio, who manages the day-to-day operations. Most of their projects are in Asia, but Antonio also founded a separate, New York-based company to do developments there—including collaboration with I. M. Pei on a luxury condominium, the Centurion. The family’s wealth is estimated at $300 million.” This $300 million figure appears to come from Forbes magazine’s list of the richest 40 Filipinos in which Robbie’s father Jose is listed 26th, with a net worth of $300 million.

    Its ongoing projects, as Antonio described them in a gushing Philippine Star article who dubbed him “The Renaissance Man of the Century”: “The Milano Residences has the bold look of Versace, Azure Urban Resort Residences through its Paris Beach Club has the fun-loving luxury of Paris (Hilton who is its endorser), while Trump Tower Manila serves as the pinnacle of luxury.”

    I was wondering what kind of income one would need to be able to splurge on a P1 billion vanity, so I checked the BIR’s list of the country’s top 500 taxpayers for the years 2009, 2010, and 2011. Funny, I couldn’t find Antonio in those lists, nor his father Jose nor any “Antonio” for that matter.

    What’s P1 billion? The Ramon Aboitiz Foundation, which funds such activities as microfinancing and scholarships, is capitalized at just P250 million. The tycoons John Gokongwei and Ramon del Rosario are cleverer in getting more bang for their buck. By donating P250 million each to Ateneo and La Salle, these universities’ business colleges are named after them, and there will be thousands upon thousands of students as long as these institutions exist who would gaze at their schools’ names and remember these tycoons. How many people would contemplate Robbie’s visage in different styles in his mansion?

    The tycoon Henry Sy put through college 1,500 students in the 20 years since he set up his foundation. Low-profile executives and bankers are quietly funding poor students through college as much as their purses allow, as in the case of Stephen CuUnjieng who has 11 scholars at the Ateneo de Manila. Antonio’s P1 billion for his “Museum of Me” could have funded a four-year Ateneo college education for 2,500 students

    But he preferred to splurge on the stratospheric fees of a top global architect and six Manhattan-based artists to build a monument to himself. Antonio though typifies many of country’s ruling class: Third world citizens living the lifestyles of the First World’s haut monde, even ridiculously trying to outdo it.

    With this kind of elite, do you still wonder why our country remains in such deep quagmire, with the gap between the rich and the poor growing every generation?
    A P1-billion ?Museum of Me? | The Manila Times Online

  7. Join Date
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    who is this guy and what does he do that he has that much money?

  8. Join Date
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    Quote Originally Posted by uls View Post
    so..........

    he's like obsessed with himself
    He's not that good looking though. His bone structure is very cave man (cromagnon)

  9. Join Date
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    Quote Originally Posted by uls View Post
    so..........

    he's like obsessed with himself
    That's an understatement it seems.

    Quote Originally Posted by foresterx View Post
    who is this guy and what does he do that he has that much money?
    The family builds "high end" condo projects from what i know. Source of funds? I have no idea but i'd guess if you're spending your cash that way, it's usually not hard-earned. They have models such as Paris Hilton (resort living... uhm... right next to the skyway), whatever name architects from abroad, etc. But still, if i were going for high end developments, my money will be on Ayala Land Premier and Rockwell at this point.

    I wonder if OB and him are friends though.

  10. Join Date
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    Quote Originally Posted by vinj View Post
    That's an understatement it seems.



    The family builds "high end" condo projects from what i know. Source of funds? I have no idea but i'd guess if you're spending your cash that way, it's usually not hard-earned. They have models such as Paris Hilton (resort living... uhm... right next to the skyway), whatever name architects from abroad, etc. But still, if i were going for high end developments, my money will be on Ayala Land Premier and Rockwell at this point.

    I wonder if OB and him are friends though.
    ha ha ha! I know the irony on resort living beside skyway. Is that Azure? I could just imagine how much worse the traffic in the area will get after that project is finished. And I definitely agree on Ayala for high end properties.

    kawawa si Greenlyt

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