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12/2/2008

Arc08

IFEMA - Feria de Madrid, Madrid

Brazil’s starring role as special guest country, a main attraction at the 27th Madrid International Contemporary Art Fair, along with its brand-new space and revamped artistic programme.

As they do every year, art gallerists, collectors and professionals from around the world will throng to ARCO8, the Madrid International Contemporary Art Fair, for an edition presenting a renovated layout and restructured programming. New proposals for a revamped architectural design will be some of the attractions on view at this 27th edition de ARCO (13 - 18 February, 2008), along with Brazil’s starring role as special guest country and a high-end selection bringing together 295 galleries from 34 countries, with more than 50 major new exhibitors. Of this total, 224 galleries were selected by the Organising Committee for the General Programme, which will feature a new section for the very latest contemporary art (ARCO40). Moreover, a prestigious international team of curators will present a fascinating selection for the Solo Projects and Expanded-Box sections, as well as for the new section Performing ARCO, which will showcase live performance art for the first time at ARCO.

With last year’s commercial success as the backdrop, and an increasingly higher profile on the international art scene, ARCO has once again sparked market interest, with a strong demand for participation—more than 500 applications-resulting in a selection with an especially noteworthy presence of the world’s three major art centres: New York, London, and Germany. Moreover, the spotlight is on Brazil as one of the key emerging markets internationally, with one of the most exciting art scenes going today.

The international circuit is showing strong interest in the Spanish art market and Spanish collectors, and with good reason: according to the Family Financial Poll published in December 2007 by the Bank of Spain, Spaniards continue to consider artworks their third-place choice for investing, after real estate and financial instruments; moreover, the growth of investment in artworks and antiques grew one point, with 19.3% of investors having such holdings. This is also reflected in the latest report by the analysts Artprice, which affirms that Spain is now in the world’s top ten countries on the contemporary auctions market, with a volume of sales topping 2 million euros, and accounting for 3.5% of the pieces auctioned internationally.

ARCO8 spatial project
ARCO8 will mark a fresh starting point, with a new layout and design for the art fair, now located in the two recently inaugurated pavilions of Feria de Madrid, resulting from its recent expansion: halls 12, 14, and 14.1. This move has been a determining factor in the new spatial project, designed by the prestigious architect Juan Herreros. His design will contribute to improving the distribution of the exhibition, restructuring its programmatic contents and activities, and configuring a clearer, more accessible layout for visitors.

The two new halls are both larger than before, and one has two storeys. The uniting of Hall 12 and the ground floor of hall 14 into one big space has resulted in the venue for the GENERAL PROGRAMME, the nucleus of the event, whereas the upper storey, 14.1, will house the curated programmes, along with ARCO40—a new segmentation of the GENERAL PROGRAMME – and thus be the showcase for the latest emerging young artists, as well as the programme presenting Brazil, this year’s special guest country. Another major new aspect of the spatial distribution will be the relocation of the traditional International Contemporary Art Experts Forum, which this year, for the first time, will have its very own space within the same halls as the rest of ARCO.

Brazil, special guest country; Latin America, a region in the spotlight

Latin America has always been one of the key targets for the International Contemporary Art Fair and at its next edition, ARCO8 will have the opportunity to put the entire South American continent in the spotlight thanks to the presence of Brazil as its special guest country. A total of 32 galleries will be showing in Madrid the very best of Brazilian art, which has been garnering an enormous amount of attention on the international market in recent years. Brazil at ARCO8 will comprise a major showcase for promoting contemporary Brazilian work, thanks to the selection by curators Moacir dos Anjos and Paulo Sérgio Duarte, two experts known for their constant activism on behalf of Brazilian cultural life.

The artists and galleries selected reflect an art scene in a constant state of rearticulation and hybridisation, with a much more wide-ranging mixture of than the international public’s standard vision of Brazilian art. The most prominent artists whose work will be on show at the fair include leading photographer Vik Muniz, the electronic artist Eduardo Kac, and pioneering video artists Rosângela Rennó and Leonora de Barros. Up-and-coming young artists featured at the art fair will also be showing fascinating work, including pieces by the photographer Cao Guimarães, the video artist Mariana Manhães, the graphic artist Fabiano Gonder, and the painter Rodrigo Andrade.

The Brazilian selection at the art fair will therefore be a surprising breakthrough, featuring the presence of the major galleries of this Latin American giant, to be complemented with an expansive exhibitions programme, film series and concerts at Madrid’s top museums and art centres. Amongst these, a highlight is the installation to be shown at the Reina Sofía National Art Centre, by Jose Damasceno, a key figure in the art of the 1990s.

Moreover, Sala Alcalá 31 will feature the show, Contraditório (Contradictory): Panorama da Arte Brasileira, curated by Moacir dos Anjos, and showing some of the most important work being createdin Brazil today. This marks the 30th edition of the exhibition Panorama da Arte Brasileira, organised every two years by the Sao Paulo Museum of Modern Art – MAM SP, and will feature 25 artists, exploring the very expression “Brazilian art” in a scenario of increasing internationalization of the arts on a worldwide scale.

For their part, the Canal Isabel II Foundation will be the venue for an interesting selection of photography- and video-based work by Rosangela Rennó and Eder Santos, and Casa Encendida will feature an intervention by Lucia Koch and Marcelo Cidade, as well as a show of videos by Cao Guimarães. Moreover, the National Film Library will be programming an interesting cycle of Brazilian cinema from the past 15 years, as well as a series of short subjects, to be rounded off with conferences and panel debates featuring Brazilian and Spanish filmmakers and actors. Together, they will bring the Brazilian creative creative scene all over the Spanish capital.

GENERAL PROGRAMME + ARCO40
The GENERAL PROGRAMME will continue to be the central hub articulating the art fair, with the participation of 224 galleries: 67 from Spain, 157 from 29 other countries. This year, and given the high level of demand, a special effort has been made to expand this section—with 21 galleries more than the last edition—and make room for a larger number of participants, based on the main criterion of the quality of their roster.

However, the most original aspect this section, which is the backbone of the art fair, is the incorporation of a new subsection, ARCO40, which brings together a set of galleries providing a new vision of contemporary practice, with works created within the past three years by a maximum of three artists, all presented in stands of 40 square metres each.

New participants

Another highlight of this edition is the large number of new participants in the art fair: 118, of which 76 galleries (seven Spanish and 69 from abroad) are participating for the first time in the International Contemporary Art Fair. This trend is very positive for the art fair, confirming growing interest in ARCO and the Spanish market on the international scene, as well as the innovative spirit of an event that, this year, will feature such new attractions as top-flight exhibitors and the return of heavyweight galleries which have played a key role in the art fair’s history, which will undoubtedly be especially interesting to major international collectors.

Amongst the most notable newcomers are five Spanish galleries—two showing at ARCO for the first time, and another three that had put in an appearance in the Projects section last year—as well as a notable contingent of establishments from the world’s two main art centres: New York and London. Germany, Brazil, Italy, and the Netherlands, among others, are also strongly represented.

Curated programmes
Another source of innovation at ARCO8 are the curated programmes, which are changing their structures as well as their names: Solo Projects, Expanded-Box and Performing ARCO will feature the participation of 76 galleries selected by a team of international curators. Twenty three of these galleries will also have a stand in the GENERAL PROGRAMME + ARCO40.

One of the major new features is that it incorporates a programme devoted to the discipline of performance art, which will have its own space. Performing ARCOis the title of this section devoted to forms of live works, as well as the galleries specialised in exploring this kind of artistic representation. The selection arrives thanks to two prestigious curators: Lois Keidan, director of the Live Art Development Agency at London’s Rochelle School; and Berta Sichel, director of the Department of Audiovisual Arts at the Reina Sofía National Art Centre in Madrid.

Another curated programme, Solo Projects, will comprise a space devoted to the presentation of projects by a single artist, providing new visions of the international contemporary art scene. The selection of the 43 galleries taking part in this programme has been made by a varied group of experts: Colin Chinnery, Chief Curator and Assistant Director of the Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art in Beijing (China); Carolina Grau, independent British curator; Vasif Kortun, Director of the Platform Garanti Art Centre, in Istambul; David Liss, Director of the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto; Tsutomu Mizusawa, Chief Curator of the Museum of Modern Art Kamakura & Hayama in Kanagawa (Japan); Adriano Pedrosa, Independent Curator in Sao Paulo (Brazil); Virginia Pérez-Ratton, Director of the ARS TEOR ETICA Foundation in San José (Costa Rica); Mª Inés Rodríguez, Paris-based independent curator; Paola Santoscoy, Associate Curator of the Rufino Tamayo Museum in Mexico City; Paula Toppila, Project Manager of Pro Arte Foundation in Helsinki; and David G. Torres, a Spanish art critic and independent curator.

Lastly the Expanded Box section will present emerging work exploring the influences and uses of new technologies. This programme will present 20 new media art pieces (eight with a stand featuring a single artist, and twelve pieces on screens) selected by Claudia Giannetti, an academic, writer, and exhibitions curator who is an expert in this field.

An Art Experts Forum fully integrated into the art fair
For yet another year, the International Contemporary Art Experts Forum will bring together renowned experts, professionals and theorists from the art world to discuss such current themes as: “MEDIA ART: Strategies and trends”, “Public and Private Collecting”, “Art Interventions in Public Space: The Actuality of Place”, “Performance Trans.Actions”, “The Politics of Vision: The Place of Art”, “Sponsorship and Contemporary Art” and “Intellectual Property and the Visual Arts”, “New Directions: From the Biennale to the Fair, Curating and the Market,” and “Art in Spain, a Debate”, as well as two cycles of conferences devoted to the visual arts in geographic areas attracting growing interest today: “Asian Maps: India” and “Guest Country: Brazil”.

Together with the programme of conferences, there will be a series of talks involving artists, international curators, and consultants for major collections, among other professionals, for them to exchange views on the art world and contemporary trends.

Other presences
The art fair will be rounded off with the section ARCO Institutions, aimed at promoting and supporting the promotion of those public and private organisations involved in the art world through collecting. Moreover, visitors will find a space for art publications, especially contemporary art, as part of Art Publishers and Magazines.

Moreover, 2008 will be an opportunity to renovate and strengthening the collectors’ programme, aimed at promoting international collecting—with the presence of leading figures from different countries—as well as Spanish collecting, which is becoming increasingly consolidated and widespread. More than 200 collectors from around the world will come to Madrid in February 2008 to take part in a new edition of the Guest Collectors programme. For yet another year, the art fair will be open exclusively for collectors during two and a half days, thus providing them with a more appropriate atmosphere for getting a first look at all of the work on show, and make their acquisitions in an exclusive, completely professional setting.
Bergé sponsors the VIP Lounge

One of ARCO’s most solid backers in the corporate sector will be coming to the fair for the second year in a row: the Bergé Group, which has a major contemporary art collection. Its support for the event will be manifested through its sponsorship of the VIP Lounge, an exclusive area reserved for collectors, buyers, and art-world personalities, where a selection of works from the Bergé Collection will be on display. Moreover, the group’s automobile brand Hyundai will, once again, be ARCO’s Official Car.

Other companies, organizations, and institutions will be providing support for the latest edition of ARCO, showing how the private sector, including corporate institutes, back contemporary art.

These include the Silken Hotels, with their sponsorship of the ARCO8 Spatial Design, which has been the work of the architect Juan Herreros. This project has made it possible to completely revamp the art fair, committing to an innovative layout of the exhibition space, as well as restructuring the event’s programmes and activities, while configuring an art fair having traffic patterns that are clearer and more accessible for visitors.

The International Contemporary Art Experts Forum will have its own sponsors, including the María Cristina Masaveu Foundation, which is backing the Sponsorship and Contemporary Art series of the Forum, and the Banco Santander Foundation, sponsoring the cycles New Directions: From the Biennale to the Fair, Curating and the Market, and Public and Private Collecting.

Moreover, ARCO8 will host three initiatives for supporting and promoting contemporary work, with the collaboration of three companies whose commitment to this area has been prominent in recent years. Beep/Datalogic will once again sponsor the Third ARCO-BEEP Electronic Art Awards, to be given to an artwork shown at the fair based on new technologies.

For its part, illy Café sponsor the illy Award for young Brazilian artists under 35. The aim of the award is to unite art and sustainability, bringing to the international art community the company’s own attitude of sustainable growth, offering visibility and market opportunities to emerging artists from the coffee-producing countries where illy acquires its green coffee, specifically, Brazil, India, Colombia, Guatemala, Costa Rica, and Ethiopia.
Furthermore, Ron Brugal will sponsor, for the second year in a row, its Emerging Artists in ARCO Award, an acquisition prize, highlighting its focus on the latest art. This initiative aims to promote the contribution of the youngest artists to today’s scene. In addition, this Dominican firm will sponsor the event ARCO Party Time by Brugal, to be held on 13 February at Madrid’s Círculo de Bellas Artes.

Professional visit 2 days : Wednesday 13 & Thursday 14, from noon to 9 pm
General public: Friday 15, Saturday 16, Sunday 17, from noon to 9 pm
Monday 18, from noon to 6 pm

Feria de Madrid
Parque Ferial Juan Carlos I Madrid
Wed 13 Thu 14, noon - 9 pm, Fri 15, Sat 16, Sun 17, noon - 9 pm, mon noon-6pm

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