With good sales expectations but without a guest country, the Covid passport and FFP2 mask will be required from all attendees / Two out of three galleries of the 185 participants are foreigners at a fair that pays tribute to the gallery owners who made it great
Anticipating the future but looking proudly at its past. This is how the new edition of ARCO is presented. La 40 (+1), according to those responsible, will be a historic, concentrated, more international and safer edition. Deliberately smaller than the 2020 edition, the last one before the outbreak of the pandemic, ARCO 2022 will have 185 galleries, 61% of them international. Without a guest country, it will celebrate its long history and will require a covid passport or negative diagnostic tests and an FFP2 mask from all its attendees.
Longing for full normality, the appointment with contemporary art will take place from February 23 to 27 in pavilions 7 and 9 of the Institución Ferial de Madrid (Ifema). It will once again be the meeting point for historical avant-gardes, contemporary classics and emerging art. It will also recognize the decisive contribution of the galleries that have made the fair that Juana de Aizpuru created in 1981 great and that has earned its place in the international concert of the art market.
Twenty veteran Spanish and foreign gallery owners loyal to the event over these four decades will play a relevant role this year. Sergio Rubira, María Inés Rodríguez and Francesco Stocchi are the curators of the ’40 (+1) Anniversary’ commemorative programme, which will emphasize art created by women, compensated with 60 female creators compared to 40 male creators for the persistent imbalance of the fair.
“We will show a kind of imaginary museum with all the galleries that have had a clear commitment to the fair or have helped its internationalization,” said Rubira. Leandro Navarro or Giorgio Persano will be in this section with mythical pieces that did not find a buyer: from an igloo by Mario Merz to a painting by María Moreno passing through works by Rogelio López Cuenca or Dora García.
“Our will is to return to full normality in this edition, in which we return to our usual dates and pavilions and with a more encompassing dimension”, congratulated Maribel López, director of an event that was held in July last year and an edition more than atypical and that has never given in to the coronavirus despite the difficulties. “We are the only contemporary art fair that has held its call every year, even in 2021, with an exceptional edition,” recalled Eduardo López-Puertas, general director of Ifema.
The fair, which will be deliberately smaller, will feature 185 galleries from 30 countries, compared to 210 in 2020 and 130 in the jilted edition of 2021. “We don’t want to change the ARCO model, but we do want to concentrate it, aware that with fewer galleries everything works better, “says its director. With more than a thousand artists, there will be 159 galleries in the general program and 42 in curated programs such as ‘Never the same’ dedicated to Latin American art and ‘Opening’, with the most avant-garde proposals.
Without venturing attendance or sales forecasts, the fair will open its doors in a climate of optimism. «We are in a very positive moment and both professionals, gallery owners and collectors have shown a great desire to participate. The intensity of the demand is very high and we hope that collectors will also arrive at the fair with the determined will to buy”, said the director. To make it easier, this year the cost of renting the stands has been reduced by 15%.
Ifema has accumulated a long experience in these two years of pandemic and wants to make all its events safe. Thus, all those attending ARCO 2022 will be required to have the EU digital covid passport or the Spain Travel Health QR from third countries. Failing that, a PCR or an antigen test with negative results carried out 24 hours prior to the first day of access to the fair.
Realism and good vibes
One of the galleries that has been loyal to the fair for three decades is that of Leandro Navarro. Sergio Rubira highlighted his work “defending realism, which meant that he was excluded from some places.” He thus decided to “invite a selection of realist women to the gallery.” Íñigo Navarro, son of the founder, Leandro, will show works such as ‘When leaving home’, by María Moreno, Mari, the wife of Antonio López, who died two years ago. Painted in 1980, Leandro Navarro bought it in 1982. It was not sold at ARCO and was bought back by Antonio López, who donated it for the occasion.
Íñigo Navarro anticipates a “very special” moment for a fair “that has managed to get ahead and with good results in times as difficult as last year”. He does not have everything with him in the face of a market “oscillating and that has gone through everything in the six waves of covid that we have had.” “There are ups and downs and saw teeth but I perceive good vibrations and desire to buy,” he concludes.