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13/2/2007

Arco 07

IFEMA - Feria de Madrid, Madrid

International Contemporary Art Fair

Leading galleries from around the world have marked their calendars for the 26th International Contemporary Art Fair, ARCO, one of Europe’s principal art markets, which will bring together the best of today’s art scene in Madrid from 15-19 February. This event, organised by IFEMA, will attract collectors, corporate buyers, artists, curators, and other agents from the international art world, drawn by its track record of quality and the richly diverse variety of work on display. Keynotes of the fair are its selection of high-end galleries, joined at this edition by nearly 49 first-time exhibitors with a solid international reputation, and the commitment to acquire major works on the part of important corporations and institutions, backed up by the professional organisation of this latest edition of ARCO.

All of this, added to the event’s specialisation in the primary market, and its global vision of the contemporary art scene, including the most representative work of the 20th and 21st centuries, make ARCO one of the most attractive showcases for art today. ARCO’07, with its 271 galleries, will feature some of the leading names on the international gallery circuit, along with fresh young galleries just bursting onto the worldwide scene, as well as spotlighting new media through its PROJECTS and THE BLACK BOX sections—the former devoted to emerging art, and the latter to electronic and audiovisually-based pieces.

Another exciting feature of ARCO’07 is its large contingent of Asian galleries, with South Korea as the special guest country, showing a new dimension through a fascinating selection of projects by high-profile artists. The diversity of ideas and content at ARCO’07—ranging from a tour of the lively Korean scene to the exuberance of Brazil, in a preview of its special guest pavilion in 2008, side-by-side with the emerging Latin American trends and a new generation of artists working with the latest high-tech and audiovisual equipment—make this newest edition of the fair one of the best indicators of what’s hot and what’s not in today’s art world.

ARCO’07 also marks a new chapter in the art fair’s history, with its new Director, Lourdes Fernández, combining continuity and innovation, aimed at meeting the new challenges of today’s international art scene, and further consolidating the event’s status on the international circuit.

271 Galleries from 29 Countries

ARCO’07 will feature 271 art galleries—84 Spanish, and 187 international—from some 30 countries at this 26th edition. The fair’s continual renovation is highlighted by the fact that many of these galleries, 49 in all, are first-time exhibitors at ARCO. Europe is the best represented continent, with 193 galleries, including major contingents from Germany and Austria (the ARCO’06 guest country), as well as the rest of Central Europe and Portugal. The Americas will be present in 55 stands, headed by the 23 US galleries and a high-profile group of Latin Americans, once again confirming ARCO’s status as the gateway to Europe for Latin American art. Noteworthy here is Brazil, with 13 galleries, providing a taste of its ARCO’08 pavilion, when it will be the special guest country. Asia, for its part, will be represented by 22 galleries—not counting the Korean Pavilion—and Iran will be at the fair for the first time.

Nearly 50 New Galleries

A total of 49 galleries are taking part in ARCO for the first time this year, highlighting the event’s major commitment to attracting top-flight art spaces characterised by their support for young and emerging artists, and for their solid international programming, as shown by participation in the leading art fairs.

These newcomers—all of them from abroad, except for one Spanish gallery—confirm the art fair’s international stamp, and its solid reputation on the world’s art scene. The variety of these exhibitors, ranging from young galleries to leading established houses, but which share an ongoing commitment to discovering new talent, shows how ARCO’s prestige continues to grow year after year, attracting some of the world’s top galleries.

Most of these first-timers will be holding their ARCO premier in the PROJECTS section; specifically, 23 galleries, all of them young ones, promoting emerging art. In THE BLACK BOX¸ another four new galleries will be present, specialised in new media art; over in the GENERAL PROGRAMME, a total of 26 new galleries will be taking part, including big names from the UK and Germany, as well as others that are full-fledged members of the international art-fair circuit. A Look at Asian Art.

With the participation of South Korea as this year’s special guest country, ARCO will, for the first time in its history, put the spotlight on the continent of Asia, featuring one of its emerging international art centres, with an exciting local scene. A pavilion designed by Jung-Hwa Kim, Director of Museums Korea in Seoul, and curated by Jeong Ah Shin, Chief Curator of Sungkok Art Museum and a professor at Dongguk University, it will offer visitors a chance to see new dimensions in Korean art, featuring an attractive selection of projects by high-profile artists, and work created with everything from traditional media to the latest high-tech equipment.

As every year, the special guest country will also bring to Madrid a programme of parallel exhibitions and events, providing a wider vision of Korean art and culture. The programme is part of a larger project to raise Korea’s cultural profile in Spain throughout 2007, Korea Now. Highlights include an exhibition commemorating the later artist Nam June Paik, considered the father of video art, to be inaugurated at the Telefonica Foundation in February. Other shows will include Generation Post-New-Age in Korea, featuring work by 12 experimental artists, at the Canal de Isabel II; Traditional Korean Design through the Photography of Joo Myung Duck at the Círculo de Bellas Artes; and Forty-nine Rooms, a public art installation at Casa Encendida. Besides the visual arts, different events related to other contemporary art forms, such as film, music, and dance, will also be held around the city.

Projects

Promoting the international distribution of emerging art has been, down the years, one of the major traits of ARCO’s programming, as it has incorporated specific areas devoted to cutting-edge work. This year, the section PROJECTS brings together, in a unique way, the latest creative trends through a wide-ranging selection of galleries which are truly showcases for the art of the 21st century. A new structure and layout will give coherence to this great space for experimentation.

There are 69 galleries included in the PROJECTS section, some of them already regulars at major international art fairs, which will be presenting risk-taking work by artists who have yet to make their mark on the international circuit, side-by-side with more established figures, but all joined by one common denominator: they represent the new trends, the new media, that are making waves on the international art scene. Attracted by the originality and, especially, the quality of these emerging art projects, the selection this year has been shared by a team of curators and the ARCO Organising Committee. On the one hand, 30 galleries have been chosen by the curators Carol Lu, Chus Martínez, David Liss, Paola Santoscoy, Virginia Pérez Ratton, Fernando Cocchiarale, Moacir dos Anjos and Ricardo Resende, all of them from Europe and the Americas. On the other, the remaining 39 galleries have been chosen by the Organising Committee from amongst the applicants to this section. What stands out is the diversity of their origins and means of production, ranging from painting and photography to the dominant media in emerging art, such as video, installations, and electronic art.

The Black Box

New technologies, audiovisuals, and electronic art will have their own showcase in THE BLACK BOX, now a veteran section which continues, year after year, to show the flag for electronic projects and experimental art, with the aim of promoting collecting and firming up its niche within the market. Carolina Grau, a London-based Spanish curator who has put on many shows in the UK and Portugal, and Marc-Olivier Wahle, a curator and critic who is currently Director of the Palais de Tokio in Paris, selected 12 projects from Germany, Austria, Portugal, the UK, Italy, Switzerland, and Spain to participate in this year’s space, clearly showing ARCO’s solid commitment to new art forms. This can be seen in other actions, such as the organisation of a panel debate which will analyse the complex and sophisticated economic and structural situation of these media, as well as that of the second edition of the ARCO-BEEP Electronic Art Awards.

General Programme

Together will all of these projects, for another year, the GENERAL PROGRAMME will be at the core of the art fair, with a total of 206 galleries selected by the Organising Committee from out of 550 applicants. The quality and international impact of their rosters of artists have been, once again, the guiding criteria behind this selection, which at ARCO’07 is marked by the high number of exciting new exhibitors. Of the galleries selected, 125 from abroad and 81 are from Spain, a proportion (40% vs. 60%) which has become the fair’s established norm. This year’s General Programme is again characterised by its strikingly wide-ranging representation of styles, with a major contingent of Modern Masters, and top names from the international gallery scene, specialising in work running the gamut from the historic avant-garde movements to the latest trends.

Experts Forum

For the fifth year running, ARCO is organising its International Contemporary Art Experts Forum, a professional forum representing all the various players and agents in the art market. This year the forum is presenting a new format. Targeting collectors, gallerists and curators from the world’s leading museums and art centres, as well as academics and art critics, the 5th International Contemporary Art Experts Forum will be divided into several programmes that will be developed throughout the year.

The calendar for ARCO’07, scheduled for 15th to 19th February 2007 in Madrid, will include eleven cycles of lectures to be held concurrently with the art fair. New markets and possibilities for contemporary art, collecting, new systems and channels for art creation, young contemporary artists and the market, copyright and group exhibitions, are just some of the issues for debate. Coinciding with the participation of Korea as this year’s focus country, the programme will also set aside a major space for reflection on Asian art expression and practices. The cycle Asian Maps will address contemporary art scene in Asia, a crucial new axis for the art world today.

Collectors, directors and curators from the world’s major museum and art centres, opinion leaders and exhibition policy makers from different countries around the world will be taking an active part at the Forum. The various cycles are directed by: Menene Gras, Ricardo Antón, Antoine Vigne; Vicente Matallana; Isolde Brielmaier, Juan Antonio Álvarez Reyes, Georg Schoellhammer, Darío Corbeira, Anton Vidokle, Pablo Álvarez de Toledo Müller, Pablo Álvarez de Toledo and Philippe Pirotte, rounds off the list of directors in this professional art forum offering debate and reflection on issues concerning the art object and its distribution.

Collecting

Enhancing the art fair’s role as an active agent on the art market has been one of the essential goals of ARCO’s organisers this year, in which collecting will once again be the star. ARCO’07 is focusing especially on collectors, buyers and, most especially, corporations, investment funds and institutions, which have already committed to making major acquisitions during the event. Furthermore, the private collectors’ programme will once again be a prime mover at the art fair, putting the spotlight not only on international collecting—with major contingents from different countries—but also on the growing Spanish collecting scene, which is making an important contribution to revitalising the market. Approximately 300 collectors from around the world will arrive in Madrid as part of a revamped edition of the Guest Collectors programme. A new feature is that there will be exclusive pre-inaugural showings during two-and-half days, aiming to provide these VIP visitors with an ideal setting for seeing all of the work on display and making their acquisitions in a more elite, and totally professional, atmosphere.

Moreover, corporate collecting will take on a new dimension this year; an example is the sponsorship of the automotive firm Hyundai, which will be running the ARCO VIP Lounge, and the commitment to buying artworks on the part of major corporations which have already earmarked large acquisition budgets for ARCO’07, as well as institutions—especially those taking part in the Project Salas programme—which have announced that they will take advantage of the art fair to invest and expand their art holdings.

Hyundai, Sponsor of the VIP Lounge

One of the most solid examples of corporate commitment at this edition of ARCO comes from the South Korean automotive company Hyundai, in Spain part of the Bergé Group, which has a major contemporary art collection. Its support for ARCO has materialised through sponsorship of the art fair’s VIP Lounge, an exclusive space reserved for collectors, buyers, and art personalities, to be enhanced by a selection of works from the Bergé Collection’s holdings. The collaboration of Hyundai, which will further contribute to South Korea’s special guest programme, also includes serving as the Official Car for ARCO’07.

Opening: Wednesday 14 february 2007

Feria de Madrid
Apdo. de Correos 67.067 - Madrid

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