The Influence of Latin American Collectors on the Contemporary Art Industry in Madrid’s Salamanca District

Lhe David Bardía gallery is located in a privileged corner located between Villanueva and Núñez de Balboa streets. There, a giant poster with white letters on a black background that reads “contemporary art”, for the most clueless, houses a space full of great masters of the 20th and 21st centuries, emerging and secondary market. They have been in the neighborhood for more than 20 years, with the difference that, at first, they specialized in ancient art.

“We have a lot of national clients, but more and more Latin Americans, especially Mexicans and Venezuelans who come and go with a painting under their arms, sometimes accompanied by a decorator who advises them. They mainly buy emerging art and contemporary painters who are not established like María Álvarez or Álvaro Torroba, who is 65 years old but is still emerging because he is not so well known,” they admit.

A few streets further north, on Jorge Juan, is Gärna, which also sells contemporary art combining a spectacular selection of established and emerging artists. Unlike David Bardía, they have been in this district for a short time and we asked them, how could it be otherwise, why precisely there and why contemporary: “We were looking for a premium client and contemporary art is the most in demand. There is a large audience here Latin American accustomed to investing in art. And almost all of them are collectors. But we are not the only ones. There is a lot of second-market gallery that is moving to the contemporary”.

Is there a lot of contemporary art in the Salamanca neighborhood or is it just our imaginations and we are losing our heads? We asked Lucía Mendoza, president of the Madrid delegation of the Contemporary Art Institute (IAC) and vice-president of the Junta de ArteMadrid: “It is true that many Latin American collectors have arrived and it is probable that some galleries have begun to work with this type of art. It is partly normal, when a new buyer enters, it is logical that the environment adapts. Even my own gallery, which is in Bárbara de Braganza, outside the neighborhood, they are coming more than before”.

The Salamanca neighborhood has long been the most requested by the great Latin American fortunes who are looking for stately homes with history, with large facades and balconies. Imposing houses that need to be decorated. which, one way or another, is influencing the art market.

According to Luis Gasset, general director of Ansorena, “Latin Americans have been looking for new work for some time, which has had an impact on prices. There has been an upgrade in many galleries, which now they can sell more expensive artists. What before was more complicated mainly in contemporary. Painters who had no market in Spain now find it more easily in the Salamanca district”.

It is no coincidence that Opera Gallery has recently joined the already numerous galleries that proliferate in what is one of the most expensive districts of Madrid, which accumulates its fifteenth physical space in the world and the first in Spain. Specifically, at number 56 Calle Serrano. We are talking about 1,000 square meters spread over three floors with works by Picasso, Chagall or Miró, along with others by younger artists such as Saura, Genovés (whose heritage they exclusively represent internationally), or Manolo Valdés, among others.

Very close, District 001 has also just opened its doors, specializing in (this is going to sound familiar to you), contemporary art. Particularly, established Spanish artists. But there are many more. Specifically, the kind of square that makes up the streets that go from Alcalá to Jorge Juan, and from Serrano to Príncipe de Vergara has more than 20 galleries. A long list that continues beyond Goya, Hermosilla and even Juan Bravo.

“Galleries or just art shops?” And it is that from the mythical Fernández-Braso (since the 70s selling art in Villanueva, that is, they know something about this) they believe that “what are proliferating are art shops, and not galleries. Which is not the same” .

Beyond contemporary art… And the Salamanca district

Controversies aside, the truth is that not everything is contemporary art in the Salamanca district. Abalarte, for example, has been open since 2013 selling mainly antiques. Theotokópoulos, which is a gallery with the name of a Greek restaurant that, in reality, is El Greco, has been run since time immemorial by the charming María Elizari and Pedro Ramón Jiménez, and all these years also selling ancient art. “What if there is more contemporary in the neighborhood? Of course. We ourselves, who have been selling old art all our lives, have incorporated it. My husband paints it. Now he has become an artist”, and they laugh. Like them, there are several more examples.

The Álvaro Alcázar gallery had been in Castelló 41 since 2006. In 2018 they moved very close, to a much larger space, but already in crane. However, “last week a new one opened here next door, on Pilar de Zaragoza street. Since we were few,” they declare sardonically.

They sell authentic jewels of the stature of Rafael Canogar or Eduaro Arroyo (in fact, in the last edition of ARCO, their most expensive sale, 300,000 euros, was from the latter to the National Museum of Oslo). And they also recognize the increase in Latin American clients “for a couple of years” who buy from them emerging and contemporary artists, both in painting and sculpture. At least there, in their new neighborhood, they have found a space where they can differentiate themselves from the rest, in a revalued area with great cultural potential. And, if not, at the time.