About 35 guests — including Donald Trump Jr. and some of the Republican Party’s rising… Read More →
From the Hamptons to Venice, Enrique “MAGO” Martinez has built a career on an eye… Read More →
The Hampton Classic returns to Bridgehampton Aug. 23-30 with eight days of world-class riding, more… Read More →
Christie Brinkley threw the first pitch, Katie Couric stepped up to bat and artists, writers… Read More →
The 78th annual East Hampton summer tradition returned to Herrick Park with artists, writers and… Read More →
The Bridgehampton event turns the tables on the Hamptons pop-up circuit Aug. 21 with more… Read More →
From the opening of the Hampton Classic and Broadway powerhouse Megan Hilty to art openings,… Read More →
The nearly 10,000-square-foot Wainscott waterfront estate on Georgica Pond, known as Goose Creek, returns to… Read More →
The East Hampton Historical Society celebrated its 10th annual Design Luncheon Benefit on Aug. 6… Read More →
MAGO: Making Magic in the Art World
From the Hamptons to Venice, Enrique “MAGO” Martinez has built a career on an eye for art, a talent for connecting people and relationships that span artists, collectors, galleries and institutions.
Spend enough time around the Hamptons art world and chances are MAGO is somewhere in the picture.
He might be installing an exhibition, introducing an artist to a collector, curating a show or standing in someone’s home deciding exactly where a painting should live. Other times, he is the artist himself.
And this spring, he was in Venice.
Enrique Martinez — known almost universally as MAGO — traveled to Italy alongside artist and longtime collaborator J. Oscar Molina for a milestone moment: Molina’s participation in the 2026 Venice Biennale.
“The Venice Biennale with Oscar was a life-changing moment for me,” MAGO says. “It was a team effort.”
Their partnership has grown across exhibitions, film and art fairs, with MAGO moving between roles — curating, installing, advising and making connections between Molina’s work, galleries and collectors.
“My experience with Enrique has been a wonderful one since the day I met him,” Molina says. “The big smile, the charisma, his attention — when you are speaking, his attention is fully there. When he gets to work, his vibe is so enthusiastic.”
Artist, curator, producer, art consultant and founder of Hamptonscurated and Martinez Art Gallery all describe pieces of Mago’s work. But the thread running through those roles is relationships — and the trust that comes with them.
“In the art world, the most important thing in the business is relationships,” MAGO says. “The most important is trust. You want to buy from someone who has a background in the industry in a real way.”
From Queens to the Hamptons
Born in New York to Colombian parents and raised largely in Queens, MAGO also spent part of his childhood in Colombia, where he remembers being surrounded by art, artisans and color.
Back in New York, graffiti, fashion, photography and nightlife provided a different kind of creative education. He drew, painted and expressed himself through sneakers and clothing before getting an early look at modeling, photo shoots and video production.
“I grew up in the middle of Queens, from humble beginnings, with no real thought of how I was going to be in the art world,” MAGO says, “but always knowing that I loved to create.”
An invitation to an Artists and Writers dinner brought him to the Hamptons as a teenager. He returned in his early 20s and began finding his way into the East End art world.
Among the first to recognize something in MAGO was curator and art historian Esperanza Leon, who invited him to exhibit his own work at Solar Gallery in East Hampton.
“I met him through a colleague and invited him to show some of his work with me in my gallery,” Leon recalls. “He impressed me. He was an engaging, professional individual.”
Roughly two decades later, their paths still intersect. Leon is now director of education at LongHouse Reserve, where MAGO has been involved with its “Insider/Outsider” programming.
Learning the business of art
MAGO’s years with Richard Demato at RJD Gallery in Bridgehampton gave him a deeper education in the business.
He joined the gallery in 2016, becoming increasingly involved with its artists, curatorial work, marketing and collectors.
“We all have some learning to do, and he did that passionately, successfully and very quickly became an integral part of what RJD Gallery became in the Hamptons,” Demato says.
It was an education in recognizing work, presenting it, building an artist’s profile and understanding the collector on the other side of the transaction.
“MAGO was born with the rare gift of wanting to bring joy to others,” Demato says. “He makes wise decisions that astute and successful people seek, and they can quickly sense. They and we trust, and admire his decisions and creative curation, and artistic understanding and direction.” — Richard Demato, RJD Gallery
When RJD ultimately left the Hamptons for Michigan, MAGO chose to remain in New York and build the next stage of his career independently.
“I have learned from the inside out the culture of the art world and the business,” he says.
Full circle in Bridgehampton
There is a certain symmetry to MAGO’s current work in Bridgehampton.
The former home of RJD Gallery is now Stella Flame Gallery, where he consults with owner and jewelry designer Stella Flame on exhibitions, artists and events.
“He’s very thorough, industrious, knowledgeable, reliable — all of those things,” Flame says. “He has a great eye, and he’s wonderful hanging the exhibitions.”
The two also curate projects together and introduce one another to artists.
“We have a little bit different perspectives and they complement each other,” Flame says. “I think the combination has been very successful.”
This summer, another MAGO relationship returned to that same Bridgehampton space.
Lucy Cookson first met MAGO when she and her husband, Steve, were collectors at RJD Gallery. Back then, Cookson wasn’t the artist. She was the client.
“I used to take the art off the wall and he would call me and say, ‘I’ll hang it,’” Cookson recalls.
During those visits, MAGO discovered that Cookson painted.
Years later, their roles look very different. Cookson is now a working artist whose watercolor and gouache paintings MAGO represents and promotes. This summer, her solo exhibition, “La Mer et L’Été,” was shown at Stella Flame Gallery — the former RJD space where their relationship began.
The trajectory says a lot about MAGO’s professional world: A collector becomes an artist, a gallery changes hands and a former assistant returns as a consultant, while the relationships continue.
“He’s a charmer. He’s very magical,” Cookson says. “His personality, his expressiveness and light in art — the way it should be — people like to be around him.”
And MAGO’s involvement doesn’t necessarily stop when the sale is made. He works with collectors not only on what they acquire, but how they ultimately live with it.
“I know when I walk into a space or home where that piece belongs,” MAGO says. “Each piece goes in a place of power.”
The art of connecting
Today, MAGO moves among the commercial, institutional and private sides of the art world.
He has worked with the Hamptons Fine Art Fair and art fairs in Palm Beach and Atlanta. On the East End, his work has included LongHouse Reserve, the Southampton African American Museum and Guild Hall.
His work with Molina is one of the clearest examples of how those worlds can converge. MAGO produced a short documentary around Molina’s “Children of the World” installation, later screened at Sag Harbor Cinema, and played a role in bringing Molina’s solo exhibition to LongHouse Reserve.
Those years of collaboration eventually led to Venice.
“I like the producing part,” MAGO says. “I don’t have to be upstage all the time. I like being part of things that matter.”
Still an artist
For all the time he spends developing other artists, MAGO continues to make his own work.
“I was always an artist at heart,” he says.
He is developing a multimedia series centered on ballerinas of different ethnicities, shapes, sizes and colors, incorporating found objects, polyurethane, Lucite, spray paint and, in some pieces, light.
His own art also intersects with his advocacy. MAGO has worked with young people through arts and community programs and participated in Guild Hall’s East Hampton Pride efforts and LongHouse’s “Insider/Outsider” conversations.
It also informs the artists he wants to champion.
“I love working with Lucy,” MAGO says. “Here is a woman, a mother, a grandmother, who gets the opportunity to shine as an artist and to be critiqued as a serious artist. That really makes me happy.”
What comes next
MAGO says he has become more particular about the projects and artists he takes on.
He wants more museum exhibitions for the artists he works with, more international projects of substance and continued opportunities to bring artists into institutions. He also sees his own work becoming a larger part of the picture.
“I think my opinion will matter more and more, and the artists I work with and develop will continue to take success to success,” MAGO says.
His career has taken him from Queens to the Hamptons and from Bridgehampton galleries to Venice, but MAGO still considers the East End home.
“I’m very proud of the man that I’ve become, the reputation I’ve built and the people who support me and surround me,” he says. “I get to live the life I saw myself living and becoming.”
After another summer spent working with artists, collectors and exhibitions, there is one place he hasn’t spent nearly enough time.
The beach.
“In September,” MAGO says. “That’s the only time I’m going to get to go there.”
MAGO: Instagram @hamptonsurated | 212-203-7582
