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11/2/2003

Arco'03

Institucion Ferial, Madrid

ARCO'03, 22nd International Contemporary Art Fair
Madrid, 13-18 February 2003

Galleries from 30 countries in Arco'03 guarantee a comprehensive overview of the international art scene

Key emerging artists from Switzerland, this year's focus country, in "Young Swiss Art"

From 13 to 18 February 2003 Madrid will provide the setting yet again for one of the largest international meetings in the art market. Galleries, artists, collectors, critics, curators and experts in contemporary art from all over the world will gather in the International Contemporary Art Fair ARCO'03, celebrating its twenty-second year with an excellent level of art on show and with Switzerland as the special invited guest country. This year will also focus on programs of emerging artists, "art unknown" projects, a significant representation from North-America, a noteworthy program of international collectors, as well as the influential International Forum of Experts in Contemporary Art, a unique series of encounters attended by approximately 250 leading figures from the art world and around 55 panel debates at the highest professional level.

A total of 280 galleries, including some of the world's most important, representing Europe (214), North-America (27), Latin-America and the Caribbean (27), Asia (8) and Oceania (4), will furnish the ARCO'03 official program with content, offering an exhaustive overview of the different sequences of art ranging from Historical Avant-garde movements to Experimental Art, with stops along the way for Modern and Contemporary Art. All the different media and languages will also be represented in ARCO'03, including painting, drawing, sculpture, graphic works, photography, video and performance, not forgetting the different realms of technological art, such as net art, multimedia, robotics, interactive systems, industrial art, and artificial life, all of them increasingly present at the fair.

This complete overview of international art production is complemented this year by the SWITZERLAND IN ARCO'03 program curated by Martin Schwander, comprising a noteworthy selection of galleries with particular emphasis on what he calls "Young Swiss Art". This program will be accompanied by a series of exhibitions on Swiss art, architecture and photography in the main museums and art venues of Madrid.

Other contents of special interest will be the curated programs ART UNKNOWN and UP & COMING - formerly Project Rooms and Cutting Edge- providing spaces for experimentation bringing an emerging view of current artistic practices to ARCO. These two sections cover around fifteen leading international curators with proposals from 71 galleries which will revise the artistic reality of 30 countries. New languages and supports, new galleries opting for alternative tendencies and ways of intervening in the art market, and young creators still unknown on the international circuit, are the main features of these programs which hope to offer an advance of the art to come.

The curators Bart De Baere, Charles Esche and Barbara Steiner have collaborated in ART UNKNOWN with a selection of 15 artistic projects from different nationalities, specifically created for presentation in ARCO. In turn the UP & COMING program will cover a selection of 52 galleries representing today's emerging art, with proposals from Europe by Agustín Pérez Rubio; Miguel Pérez von Hafe with fragments from Portugal and Brazil; Myriam Solar around a selection of Complex Projects from USA-Venezuela-Holland-Japan; Dirk Snauwaert who deals with the concept of "self-organization and networking"; Eva González-Sancho, on new emergencies; Hou Hanru on new contributions from Asian art; Lauri Firstenberg with a selection from New York, Frankfurt and Berlin; Magda González-Mora with "Scanning", a new museographic design; Omar Lopez-Chahoud with a proposal of young artists; Rosa Martínez with a criticism of gender inequalities within the art world; and finally, Victor Zamudio-Taylor with his proposal "Tracker".

This year these two programs will be joined by another new section: PIECE UNIQUE curated by Marjory Jacobson, focusing on highly significant work from a selection of the New York galleries JAMES COHAN, LUHRING AUGUSTINE, PETER HAY HALPERT FINE ART and SONNABEND.

All these sections are framed within a special project of ephemeral architecture designed by the architect Pablo Berzal, introducing the latest tendencies in urban architecture to the art fair and incorporating interesting designs especially conceived for the open spaces or chill-outs.

Official Opening: (private visit) Wednesday 12 February, 7 p.m.

Professional Visit: (by invitation only) Wednesday 12th February from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. and Thursday 13th February from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Open to the General Public: Thursday 13 February from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m.Friday 14, Saturday 15, Sunday 16, Monday 17 and Tuesday 18 February from noon to 9 p.m.

Further Information:
Dirección de Comunicación y Prensa de ARCO
International Press:
Tel: +34 917 225 174 / e-mail: marieta@ifema.es

Place: Parque Ferial Juan Carlos I. MADRID
Halls: 7 and 9

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