We’ll See Each Other at ARCO (As If It Could Be Any Other Way)
Despite what they say, the ARCO week-long art fair still makes Spain’s capital the big attraction for art professionals and everyone in the country who prides himself on being an art enthusiast. Agreed, it’s just a fair but it has always been something more than that, at least in Spain.
This year, there is not exactly an atmosphere of euphoria; the economic crisis dissuaded collectors throughout 2009, and 2010 doesn’t look much better. The IFEMA has not cooperated to make things easier; on the contrary, last year it raised the price per square metre, as if there had been a boom, and in recent months, faced with the fear that it would not sell the whole space, they proposed on their own initiative, and disregarding the opinion of the selection committee, to lower the level of requirements and include galleries with low standards, dubious careers, or which simply didn’t fit in it. There were protests from galleries which have attended ARCO for many years, those which have collaborated specifically to create the fair’s reputable profile. One gallery owner told us nothing has happened which hasn’t happened before, with every change in the IFEMA management (always with interventionist aims), except that now they had aired their disagreements in the press and were negotiating with very little dexterity. That could be so. However, although it seems that calm has been restored, the ARCO image has been damaged both inside and out, so that, if it has always been difficult to attract the big foreign galleries and great collectors, now, and in the immediate future, it will be even harder, with few buyers and a damaged image. Neither does it seem that Lourdes Fernández has emerged unscathed from all this. She has been confronted with a situation difficult to evade, in an especially disagreeable economic moment, although even before the outbreak she had not been able to earn the confidence of an important number of galleries, or a number of important galleries... She threatens to resign. We will see.
What’s New? And Other Fairs?
As well as the central section, where the most famous and consolidated galleries appear, with fewer foreign cancellations than had been feared at first, this year repeats the ARCO 40 initiative where, together with veteran galleries, younger galleries are included which could not be accommodated in the, shall we say, main section; the criterion here is to bring together a maximum of three artists in a 40m² space, with pieces made in the last three years. Along with these two large areas, the following curated programmes appear: Solo Projects, Expanded Box, Performing ARCO and CinemaLoop. It should be pointed out here how the role of the curator is being strengthened, not only in the Spanish fair but also in many others, at the same time as new names are being given a chance. Perhaps this fact indicates a greater respect for a group of professionals whose work is not always appreciated for its true worth. Los Angeles, the first city invited by the fair in substitution for the “selected country” formula (almost all those that had anything to offer had already appeared) is this year’s protagonist, with 17 galleries.
There are other fairs as well. It is really unusual that, despite the lean years, somebody has decided to carry out a parallel fair experiment. It is called Just Madrid (Lonja and Nave de Terneras - Junta Municipal del Distrito de Arganzuela) and its promoter is Enrique Polanco, who has, as a letter of introduction, an unquestionable surname and career as a collector. His previous experiment, Madrid Foto, was of a very high standard in its first edition, but it is one thing to focus on photography, which provides a specific image from the outset, and another to compete with the status of ARCO; Just Madrid begins like a small fair, with a correct and homogeneous selection of galleries that places it, from the beginning, far ahead of ArtMadrid (Palacio de Cristal of the Casa de Campo) or DeArte (Palacio de Congresos, in the Paseo de la Castellana). Incidentally, ArtMadrid presents Residentes: Artistas latinoamericanos en España [Residents: Latin American Artists in Spain], an exhibition celebrating the bicentenaries of the independence of Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Mexico. The question is whether there will be buyers for so many fairs. Some point out that the situation is improving and suggest as proof of this the records which have been broken at recent art auctions; it could be that, with construction at rock bottom and the setbacks of the stock market, perhaps art, which almost never loses its value when good judgement is used, is becoming the receiver of investors’ funds. Chi lo ça?
Fortunately, There is Life Outside the Fairs.
We attended the presentation of Mario García Torres, who is exhibiting his work in the basement of the Reina Sofía, in the space formerly occupied by the old coal bunkers. The Mexican artist is becoming well-known internationally, and deservedly so. As demonstrated by his recent exhibition in the Fundación Miró of Barcelona and the prize awarded to him by the Espai d’Art Contemporani of Castellón, García Torres is an artist of refined intelligence. ¿Alguna vez has visto la nieve caer? [Have You Ever Seen the Snow Fall?] is a projection of slides accompanied by the voice of a narrator who, for some forty minutes, recounts a little story, sometimes tedious and stopping over questions of apparent insignificance, which, only at the end, is revealed as a deep reflection on the disappearance of lives and events, on how one decides what is significant and what is not, and how to change these criteria, on how history, memory and oblivion are constructed. The great retrospective at the MNCARS, dedicated to Thomas Schütte, was also keenly anticipated, as was the one devoted to Pierre Huyghe, in the Edificio Sabatini and the Palacio de Cristal in the Retiro park, which open the same day.
In Matadero Madrid, there is another exhibition which is sure to be worthwhile, La vida en ningún lugar [Life Nowhere], whose curator is Juan Antonio Álvarez Reyes, a great professional and one of the top contributors to ARTECONTEXTO. Also in the Matadero and not to be missed, are the interventions by Doug Aitken, which can be seen from the 18th February, and the Mateo Maté exhibition, which has been open for some weeks now and offers one of the best shows seen lately.
On the other hand, in the Ciudad Grupo Santander, in Boadilla del Monte (frankly, a little out of the way) a selection is being presented of pieces from the Daros Latinoamérica Collection, located in Zurich and made up of more than 1,300 works. Focusing on the last twenty years, it includes emblematic pieces from the 1960s and 1970s, with pieces by Latin American artists, ranging from such historical figures as Julio Le Parc and León Ferrari to works by Liliana Porter, Cildo Meireles, Óscar Muñoz, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Doris Salcedo, Vik Muniz, Belkis Ayón, José Alejandro Restrepo, Leandro Erlich, José Damasceno, Carlos Amorales and Jorge Macchi, among others. Do go, the excursion is worth it.
There is also life outside Madrid, of course. For example, it would be inexcusable not to see the two exhibitions currently on show at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Barcelona (MACBA), that of Rodney Graham (although we haven’t been able to see it yet, we have been told it is great) and, of course, the retrospective of John Baldessari, one of the emblematic artists of the last forty years, who, at almost eighty, not only still maintains an enviable creative lucidity and an imposing figure, but also boasts that sharp and ironic humour that appears in a good part of his work. Therefore, a trip to Barcelona is a must.
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