Madrid, 8 feb. The Spanish contemporary art fair ARCO 2023 significantly increases international participation, with 140 galleries, of which 29% are Latin American, having overcome the limitations of previous years due to the pandemic.
ARCO, which will be held in Madrid from February 22 to 26, will have two curated programs: “Opening”, which will bring together the youngest galleries, and “Never the same. Latin American Art”, with proposals from 11 galleries from countries such as Peru, Argentina, Guatemala, Brazil and Mexico.
This year, the fair looks to the south, with the motto “The Mediterranean: a round sea”, and the attendance of some twenty galleries, from Croatia to Egypt and from Israel to France.
211 Spanish and foreign galleries will participate in ARCO -31 more than in 2022- and more than 400 collectors and 200 confirmed professionals from 40 countries, a record.
Most of the increase in galleries corresponds to international ones, which represent 66% of the total.
“The feeling is very positive,” summed up this Wednesday Maribel López, director of the fair, which will be held at the Madrid fairgrounds (Ifema). So much so that the organization hopes to recover this year the 90,000 visitors it reached in the pre-pandemic.
Simultaneously, there will be an endless number of exhibitions and projects that will fill the capital of Spain with contemporary art.
Galleries that were not at the fair for years return, such as Capitain Petzel, Contemporary Fine Arts, David Zwirner, Mendes Wood DM or Timothy Taylor, and join those that repeat year after year such as Perrotin, Chantal Crousel, Giorgio Persano, Lelong Krinzinger or Thaddaeus Ropac.
The Artist Projects, a space that in the last two years was dedicated to women’s works, this time will no longer have that requirement, despite the criticism that the fair has suffered in recent times due to the lack of sufficient representation of female artists .
“The presence of women is something that is increasingly incorporated in galleries, especially in young ones -López argued- (…); there is still a long way to go, but it has been shortened”. EFE
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