Arco is consolidated as a gateway for Latin American art in Europe

After visiting Arco several years in a row, the idea that history repeats itself like a spiral begins to spin in my head.

He assails a kind of

the feeling that time had stopped.

The unrolled stands on the carpet with some recurring works;

the constant flowing racket generating the eddies of the huddles with their whispers;

the controversy that always jumps, monopolizing the limelight and the headlines.

However, the truth is that nothing remains unchanged.

With each edition, not only the fair itself but also the art ecosystem evolves.

A reliable sample comes from Latin American participation.

Over time, the attention paid to the creators, gallery owners and collectors of that region has positioned Arco as the most solid connection point between the artistic scenes on both sides of the Atlantic.

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Some time ago the fair turned to Latin America.

A logical move, given the correspondences.

This 2022 of the return to relative normality, 24 galleries from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay have participated (in total there are 185 from 30 countries).

It is not the year with the highest participation (in 2017, for example, they added 41 out of a total of 200), but the figure is representative of the interest.

Several editions consecrated Latin American countries as special guests: in 2019 the leading role was given to Peru;

in 2017 to Argentina;

in 2015 to Colombia;

in 2008 to Brazil;

in 2005 to Mexico.

Given the political instability, Chile declined the proposal to become the featured country of 2021.

There are also usually fixed curated spaces in which the focus is on the art of those latitudes.

In this edition, eight galleries and nine emerging Latin American artists exhibit their works in the section

, curated by Manuela Moscoso and Mariano Mayer.

“All these actions have strengthened the dialogue”, certifies the Colombian curator Catalina Lozano, who has participated for several years with curatorial projects in the

section of the fair.

"Arco is the place in Europe where Latin America is best represented, and where galleries always feel welcome."

For the Ecuadorian curator Pili Estrada, who this year participates, like Lozano, as a jury for the Illy award, the interest shown in the creation of the region has favored Latin America climbing positions on the global art board.

“Arco has been the most relevant piece”, she values.

The attention that has been given to those countries has also promoted the movement of some galleries towards Europe, which now perceives Latin American art “as something of its own”.

Years ago the Colombian Fernando Pradilla opened a space with his name in Madrid (in Bogotá he directs El Museo), and little by little others have been disembarking such as the Brazilians Mendes Wood and Jacqueline Martins, both with a branch in Brussels.

“In the curated sections, projects very focused on the long term are selected,

they are galleries that start working with young artists and grow with them”, adds the curator.

And that, as she explains, translates into an evolution of the creative scene that is solidifying over time.

Work by Jonathas de Andrade exhibited at the Continua Gallery in Havana, within the section Never the same in Arco.

FERNANDO VILLAR (EFE)

The Guatemalan project Ultravioleta has participated in the section

with work by emerging Argentine artist Eduardo Navarro, conceived expressly for Arco.

It is not a typical gallery but, as Cristina Rodríguez, curator and collaborator of the project, explains, “a platform created by and for artists”.

"Given the lack of support from the State, independent projects arise above all that seek to generate spaces for creation and thought," she adds.

After “six or seven” editions participating in Arco, the director of the space, Stefan Benchoam, is clear that “the fair provides the strongest bridge between Latin America and Europe”.

And he underlines an important fact: not only do they have room, but they are taken into account.

And that is what makes the difference.

"There is an interest in listening to the Latin American proposals, addressing the concerns that come from there."

The world is consolidated as a unique and interconnected environment, but vestiges of the past of the different countries and regions still survive.

Catalina Lozano calls these idiosyncrasies “her own genealogies”.

The issues that define the current moment are common, but Latin America approaches them from a specific point of view.

It is something that is seen, for example, in the work of Wynnie Mynerva.

With his controversial video

In which she documents an operation in which the vagina was sewn up, the Peruvian addresses an issue that dominates the global debate: gender identity.

Her circumstance as a Latin woman, raised in an environment that she herself defines as one of "violence" and "misogyny", contributes the dissonant notes in the discourse on freedom and the fight for individual rights that she raises.

This peculiarity is also one of the ideas reflected in the selection of artists who participate in

, which address the climate emergency, a global issue, from a local perspective.

One of those creators, the Chilean Rodrigo Arteaga, represented by the AFA gallery in Santiago, talks about problems such as "monocultures and the hyper-industrialization of the countryside", which affect his region, Valparaíso, but can be extrapolated to many other parts of the planet. .

The interest of European collectors, as recognized by the managers of the consulted spaces, usually blows in their favor in Arco.

Also that of Latin Americans, with a solid presence in Madrid these days.

Hence, many of the galleries that were unable to travel last year due to the pandemic welcomed the option offered to them of sending work to be exhibited in a section that was baptized as Sender.

"I think that in this edition there is a spirit of celebration, because it means the return to engaging in dialogue with the European public, to meet curators and collectors," says Santiago Gasquet, director of the Argentine Piedras.

"The level of all Latin American spaces is very good, they are very representative of the region," adds Alexandra Morales, director of the Peruvian Crisis.

And she finishes:

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