Arc 2022: political art, but less controversial

Spaniards, Franco is back.

At least to Arc.

Legend has it that the dictator is resurrected at the great Madrid fair of contemporary art in even years.

The prognosis turned out to be infallible this Wednesday on the opening day for professionals, although the resurrection was more discreet than other times, far from the scandal that led to discovering the cryogenic dictator in a Coca-Cola fridge (by Eugenio Merino, in the 2012 edition ) or in the unexpected portrait of a Finnish artist coupled with a caustic motto:

(by Riiko Sakkinen, in 2020).

On this occasion, the gallery owner José de la Mano exhibits different samples of the visual chronicle of late Francoism signed by the Basque artist Ramón Bilbao in the mid-seventies, which had not been exhibited in public since 1977.

More information

PHOTO GALLERY: Arco 2022, in images

His paintings include a portrait of Franco in what appears to be the crosshairs of a firearm and a series of portraits of the last ones shot by the regime, a dozen FRAP and ETA terrorists.

“It is one of the most complicated periods in the history of Spain and it is logical that it appears at the fair, although sometimes it does so only in the form of a knock-on effect.

We have searched for a different solidity and sediment”, said De La Mano.

The shadow of the dictator also appeared in the space of the Filomena Soares gallery, where Pilar Albarracín portrays herself on fire with the biography of Franco signed by Ricardo de la Cierva in her hands.

Its title leaves no room for ideological doubt:

.

While the dictatorship was being discussed in parliament, gallery owner Rocío Santa Cruz presented Antoni Campañà's photographs of the Civil War, found four years ago in an abandoned box in her garage.

And she also sold, in a somewhat more discreet way, another series by the photographer on a caricature of Franco (and another of Hitler, and another of Mussolini).

For his part, Riiko Sakkinen returned to the fair fighting back on another political front, with a portrait of Pedro Sánchez entitled

(2021)

in which the giant face of the Prime Minister appears next to the names of Lenin , Stalin, Fidel Castro or Pol Pot.

The work is inspired by the after-dinner conversations that Sakkinen, who has lived in the Toledo town of Pepino for 20 years, has with her brother-in-law.

“He is convinced, like much of the right, that with Sánchez we have returned to communism.

Actually, I have not seen many differences with Aznar, Zapatero and Rajoy.

They are like the Lacasitos: different colors to hide the same brown”, affirmed Sakkinen.

The Finnish artist also signs a portrait of Juan Carlos I,

(2020), and an

of patriotic scarves with messages so excessive (“This is Spain and whoever doesn't like it leaves”) that there are those who suspect they are lies.

“Everything is true, I am a realistic artist”, smiles its author.

The sutured vagina of the Peruvian artist Wynnie Mynerva, the most controversial in this edition of Arco.Álvaro García

In this edition, political art will wreak less havoc than other times, but it is present in the pop canvases of women victims of violence signed by María Acha-Kutscher (ADN), in the hydrofeminist banners by Cecilia Bengolea (Àngels Barcelona), in the reflection on the food industry by Tania Blanco (Comfortable Format), in the burkas of the new series by Cristina de Middel (Juana de Aizpuru) or in the works of the Cuban Hamlet Lavastida (Crone), imprisoned in his country and later exiled to Poland .

Although none of them manages to make the same noise as the Peruvian Wynnie Mynerva, who she exhibits in the Opening section, dedicated to thriving galleries, the video of her operation to sew up her vagina.

"Deep down, it's not that it's so new either", Thaddaeus Ropac ironized along with the works of Martha Jungwirth,

82-year-old artist rediscovered with her reinterpretations of Goya's majas, semi-abstract but with the parts very visible.

Although it did not cause the same scandal, Miriam Cahn's phantasmagorical figuration did not prevent us from distinguishing erect members in her paintings exhibited by Jocelyn Wolff and Meyer Diegger, international names who remain faithful to the Madrid event, like Perrotin, Lelong, Chantal Crousel, Krinzinger or Giorgio Persan.

Instead, Hauser & Wirth failed for the second year in a row.

international names that remain faithful to the Madrid event, like Perrotin, Lelong, Chantal Crousel, Krinzinger or Giorgio Persano.

Instead, Hauser & Wirth failed for the second year in a row.

international names that remain faithful to the Madrid event, like Perrotin, Lelong, Chantal Crousel, Krinzinger or Giorgio Persano.

Instead, Hauser & Wirth failed for the second year in a row.

road to normal

It will still not be just any year, but Arco has shown remarkable optimism on its opening day, announcing a somewhat more normalized edition after the summer event and in a reduced format for 2021, as brave as it is soulless: only a hundred galleries and 20,000 visitors, a fifth of those who used to pass through the Ifema fairgrounds, on the outskirts of Madrid, before the pandemic.

Only seven months after that last call, an electricity typical of better times reigns in the corridors, despite the obligation to have a vaccination certificate and to protect yourself with an FFP2 mask, which stopped any attempt to return to normal.

Even so, 185 galleries from 30 countries are participating in the fair this year and 350 top-level collectors are expected to attend, a hundred more than in 2021.

“The 2021 edition should never have been held in July, they were very bad dates.

This time I see a complete return to normality and even a certain euphoria”, pointed out the gallery owner Juana de Aizpuru, stainless at 89 years old.

The fateful memory of Arco as an ephemeral hospital during the peak of infections, back in the spring of 2020, seems completely forgotten, but attendees are aware of the fragility of the sector: Spain lost 37% of its turnover that year.

Between 2011 and 2019, it had grown by 46%, more than the United Kingdom and France.

The fateful memory of Arco as an ephemeral hospital during the peak of infections, back in the spring of 2020, seems completely forgotten, but attendees are aware of the fragility of the sector: Spain lost 37% of its turnover that year.

Between 2011 and 2019, it had grown by 46%, more than the United Kingdom and France.

The fateful memory of Arco as an ephemeral hospital during the peak of infections, back in the spring of 2020, seems completely forgotten, but attendees are aware of the fragility of the sector: Spain lost 37% of its turnover that year.

Between 2011 and 2019, it had grown by 46%, more than the United Kingdom and France.

A work on paper, a dominant genre alongside textile art, in the corridors of Arco, at the Ifema fairgrounds (Madrid).

Alvaro Garcia

All in all, the fair reaches its 41st edition and has become an unavoidable reference.

The celebration of its first four decades of existence, which should have taken place in 2021, was postponed until this year.

In a new curated section, entitled

, the fair has summoned 19 galleries that have marked its history to exhibit, in a museum-caliber octagonal labyrinth, works by its most significant artists.

They show that Arco has not only been a market or a party in which to be seen, but also a container of the best contemporary art in the last 40 years, from the igloos of Mario Merz to a work on fabric by Etel Adnan, recently deceased and present at the fair twice.

It was believed that this would be the fair for digital art and NFTs.

In reality, they were conspicuous by their absence, except for an experiment in

code by Daniel G. Andújar in the Àngels Barcelona space.

NFTs are practically conspicuous by their absence, while works on paper and, especially, textile art triumph

On the other hand, works on paper and, especially, textile art, which has been thriving in the market and in art institutions for some years, triumphed.

In this edition of Arco it is omnipresent, from the tapestry by Mercedes Azpilicueta on Catalina de Erauso, a trans nun at the service of the Spanish conquest who would make Paul Verhoeven's

(Nogueras Blanchard) pale, the braided canvases and the sheets dyed with pigments natives of Belén Rodríguez (Alarcón Criado and Juan Silió), the critical discourse on colonialism in

by Armando Andrede Tudela (Dvir and CarrerasMugica), the hanging sculptures by Kapwani Kiwanga (Jérôme Poggi) or the monochrome canvases by Ángela de la Cruz (Helga de Alvear).

Without forgetting the work of pioneers such as Aurèlia Muñoz, Marta Palau or Magda Bolumar, whose

, paintings made with sackcloth, are now claimed by Marc Domènech.

“You are going back to the primitive and the rustic to express something new.

In the end, an oil on canvas is also a textile work”, recalled the Barcelona gallery owner.

At his side, Silvia Ortiz, from Madrid's Travesía Cuatro, confirmed "a recovery of manual knowledge" that has meant that "textiles are no longer perceived as a minor genre".

Its exhibitor was presided over by a sculpture by Teresa Solar, which anticipates the project that she will present at the Venice Biennale, a few meters from the latest works by June Crespo (in CarrerasMugica and Heinrich Ehrhardt), who has also been selected for the great art event contemporary.

Those who preferred more confirmed stars went to the Senda stand, where an unpublished sculpture by Jaume Plensa valued at 500,000 euros is exhibited, or to Elvira González, where Olafur Eliasson shows his helpful hanging works,

a video installation that plays with his classic optical illusions and unexpected watercolors made a few weeks ago during his time in Madrid.

In the face of sound and fury, he won the delicacy by a landslide.

You can follow BABELIA on