With an atypical climate for this time of year, almost springtime, the Spanish capital is preparing to open the ARCOmadrid 2023 international contemporary art fair this Wednesday, one of the world landmarks on the art agenda, which is held until February 26 at the Ifema premises, with notable Argentine participation -the largest in Latin America- and a motley program that extends to the rest of the city, such as the Lucien Freud exhibition at the Thyssen Museum, the gallery night on Doctor Street Fourquet or the conversation between the Argentine Tomás Saraceno and the Swiss curator Hans Ulrich Obrist.
“Madrid is culture” reads on the signs located on the Paseo del Pradoa few meters from the Subway Art Station, where the main Madrid museums are concentrated -Prado, Thyssen, Reina Sofía- that expect this week the visit of almost 500 collectors and professionals from the art world who arrived at Arco, which opens tomorrow to guests and professionals, and to the public on Saturday.
The warm jackets set the tone for the arrival of winter in this city, although the day has an almost spring afternoon that reaches 17 degrees and allows you to walk lightly dressed until the time of sunset, when it gets dark and they light up in unison. the lampposts of Atocha street, a wide street that ends at the Plaza del Emperador Carlos V.
More of 90 thousand visitors, 1,300 artists, 500 collectors from all over the world and 212 galleries from 36 countries These are the numbers that are expected to star this week in the Spanish fair, which will have “The Mediterranean” as its central theme and which will be inaugurated on Thursday at noon, as every year, by the Spanish kings, Felipe and Letizia.
“The Argentine presence will be really very important this year at the fair,” the director of Arco, the Spanish Maribel López, had said in an interview with Télam about the albiceleste representation that will include stands of Herlitzka+Faria, Pasto, Rolf Art, Ruth Benzacar, W-Galería, Constitución, Diego Obligado de Rosario, Hache and Sendrós.
Not counting, of course, the host country with the largest number, only a handful of nations (Germany, Poland, Italy and France) have more galleries than Argentina, whose presence extends outside the fair, through a only show by Facundo De Zuviría, “Estampas porteñas” at Fundación Mapfre, which coincides with another exhibition by the surrealist Leonora Carrington, in the calendar of must-sees. Also as part of the night of art galleries, which extend their opening until late at night, in the Lavapiés neighborhood, where Dr. Fourquet street is located, there will be a performance-exhibition by the artist Clara Esborraz , a native of Rafaela, which he titled “The End of the City” and was presented in Buenos Aires at the Piedras gallery.
This edition of Arco will host a decentralized section dedicated to Pablo Picassothe artist who will be commemorated throughout 2023 with exhibitions and tributes about the 50 years of his death. Taking advantage of the influx of public that the Fair brings these days, the ADN gallery will install with the title “Picasso died here” a burning chapel that bears the signature of Eugenio Merino (Madrid, 1975), who has created a hyper-realistic figure of the painter , who can be “seen” shrouded in a striped shirt, white pants and dark shoes, so that whoever wishes can contemplate the recumbent body and take a couple of selfies.
“Here rests our beloved Pablo Picasso. 1881-1973. We miss you,” reads the headstone. According to Merino, it is a critical reflection on the process of “touristification” of Malaga and how the figure of Picasso is being used for commercial purposes. The artist became known in previous editions of Arco thanks to sculptures such as “Always Franco”, in which he put the dictator in a freezer decorated with the Coca-Cola design or a zombie Fidel Castro.
The opening of the art galleries, at night, coinciding with Arco, also extends to those that occupy space in the Barrio de las Letras, which was once the home of great 17th-century writers, such as Lope de Vega and names of streets like Cervantes, very close to the splendid Ateneo Library, where the exhibition “Assum Preto” by the Brazilian artist Lucas Arruda, who is inspired to paint by the rebellious nature, the forests and the wild flora of the Amazon, will be seen among the shelves and shelves .
The exhibition of the Brazilian is curated by the Swiss Han Ulrich Obristone of the prominent figures invited to the fair, permanent curator of the Serpentine Gallery in London, where the Argentine Tomás Saraceno will exhibit from May, Precisely this week, Saraceno and Obrist will have a dialogue open to the public at the IvoryPress headquarters , a space founded by Elena Ochoa Foster, dedicated to art and design with a specialized bookstore and publishing house, on Calle del Aviador Zorita.
The Halls 7 and 9 of the Ifema property, 30 minutes from the city center, will be the central stage of the Madrid fair where works by prominent artists will arrive from prestigious galleries such as Perrotin, David Zwirner, Esther Schipper and Thaddaeus Ropac, among others. But in addition, the cultural institutions of Madrid vibrate in unison with the celebration of the fair and places such as the Thyssen Bornemisza Museum, and the exhibition of paintings by Lucien Freud, “New perspectives”, the National Del Prado Museum with its impressive permanent collection and the temporary “The future of the past” or the Reina Sofía Museum, temporarily in charge of an Argentine until new authorities are appointed.
But they also wait for the public art spaces such as the Matadero, the Dos de Mayo Art Center, the Casa Encendidawhere you will see the work of Christine Sun Kim, the American artist recognized for appearing at the American Superbowl where she performed the national anthem in sign language, or the Sala Alcalá where you will see a large exhibition by Juan Muñoz, “Everything I See It will outlive me” and its well-known sculptural figures.
Returning to the fair the main section will house the Buenos Aires Herlitzka+Faria, Pasto, Rolf Art, Ruth Benzacar and W-Galería, while in the Opening by Allianz sector -a map of the bets of international young galleries- the Buenos Aires Constitución will be presentamong a total of 20 galleries.
In the “Never the same” section, curated by Mariano Mayer and Manuela Moscoso, there will be a selection made up of 11 international galleries that represent Latin American artists and their historical link with Spain, where the stand of Diego Obligado from Rosario (Andrea Ostera), Hache (Florencia Böhtlingk) and Sendrós (Andrés Piña) from Buenos Aires.
Finally, as part of the traditional delivery of the “A” Awards for Collecting that the Arco Foundation grants each year, this time it will be received by the Argentine couple Juan Vergez and Patricia Pearson de Vergez, for their “Latin American Private Collection”.
The support of painting and women artists stands out in what can be considered the Argentine shipment to Madrid, with works by the photographer Andrea Ostera (Diego Obligado), paintings by Florencia Böhtlingk (Hache), by Ulises Mazzucca (Sendros), by the recently deceased Elda Cerrato, Mirtha Dermisache, Gonzalo Elvira, Gerardo Goldwasser, Anita Payró, Alejandro Puente, Susana Rodríguez and Martín Weber (Herlitzka & Co).
There will also be sculptures by Manuel Brandazza (Pasto) from Rosario, works by Facundo de Zuviría, Marie Louise Alemann, Narcisa Hirsch and Walther Mejía (Rolf), Sofía Durrieu and Ana Gallardo (Benzacar) and Graciela Gutiérrez Marx, W-Galería.
In the Opening by Allianz section, dedicated to young galleries, the Constitución gallery -based in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of La Boca- will participate for the third consecutive year, this time with paintings by the missionary Martín Farnholc and Ana Won from Tucumán, within the framework of a set selected by the curators Julia Morandeira and Yina Jiménez Suriel.
Organized by Ifema Madrid, the international contemporary art fair ARCOmadrid 2023 will take place from February 22 to 26 in the Spanish capital, with the participation of 212 galleries from 36 countries, while the presence of Argentine galleries will have the support of the Argentine Foreign Ministry and the accompaniment of Meridiano (the Argentine Chamber of Contemporary Art Galleries) and the arteba Foundation.
