More than 70 galleries will participate in the 15th edition of Swab Barcelona 2022

More than 70 galleries from all over the world will participate in the 15th edition of the Swab Barcelona 2022 fair, which will take place from October 6 to 9 in the Italian Pavilion at Fira Barcelona. For this year's edition, Swab's aim is to show the latest trends in the art world through a program marked by fictitious universes and digital realities from an encouraging and luminous prism. So, in this 15th edition, you will be able to discover many galleries marked by the new surrealism.

As for the selection of the participating galleries, this year it will be the responsibility of the members of the Selection Committee, which will be made up of curators Omar López Chahoud, Jérôme Pantalacci and Domenico de Chirico; and by the collectors Giuseppe Casarotto, Marie Elena Angulo and José Luís Lorenzo.

Like every edition, the fair presents its General Program, made up of national galleries and international exhibitors.
At the same time, true to its vocation of being a visibility platform for new voices, the fair is once again betting on Swab Emerging, which is the subsection of the General Program dedicated to galleries less than five years old that are already gaining importance in the international context. In addition, within the Vídeo Box program, and in collaboration with Y.es Contemporary, the panel New Territories: El Salvador will be held, which seeks to give voice to these areas whose gallery scene does not have a stable structure to give him a voice. On this occasion, the different ways in which the artists are linked to their identity as Salvadorans will be addressed. The notions that exist around this identity are complex, in part because they derive from a variety of sources, including the heritage of indigenous peoples, a colonial past, civil war, and mass migration.

The fair also proposes a special geographically localized program, which this 2022 focuses on the Mediterranean. Thus, a selection of Mediterranean galleries will present the freshest proposals from their artistic context in Swab.

On the other hand, this edition consolidates Swab Ephemeral, the installation section of the fair. This program, curated by Caterina Almirall and Margot Cuevas, presents installation proposals by resident artists in Barcelona's Creation Factories: Fabra i Coats, Hangar and L'Escocesa. The works shown in this section play with space and interaction with the visitor.

Another of the fixed curated programs of the fair is Swab On Paper, the section in charge of Carolina Deu-Cascón that explores the possibilities of paper as a medium and as a technique. This year's edition will include galleries from the Middle East.

Swab is committed to young people and emerging galleries

Within the usual programs, Swab continues to bet on the youngest, with Swab Seed and MYFAF. The first, the most experimental section of the fair, hosts projects that escape the traditional gallery concept and work with alternative exhibition formats. For its part, Myfaf (My First Art Fair) is positioned as the program made up of three young contemporary art galleries, less than two years old, which have not yet participated in any international fair. Swab offers this space for free to help promote new emerging galleries. This year's participants are Armènia Studio (Milan), Galerie Kokanas (Marseille) and LOP o. LorenzelliProjects (Milan).

This year, Swab will continue to accommodate the publishing discipline with the SwabReading program, which aims to merge design and reading, art and editing. As for the satellite activities, Swab Barcelona will hold Swab Thinks, curated by Gisela Chillida, made up of a series of talks and debates with curators and professionals from the art world. On the other hand, the fair will maintain its space for children and families within its programming. This year, Swab Kids, in collaboration with The Superpowers of Art and Retoladors Posca, join forces to stimulate the creativity of the smallest art lovers and promote, in parallel, meetings between parents and artists to to have open conversations about family reconciliation through artistic practice and the use of color.

Visiting hours to the fair are Thursday and Friday from 4:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 12:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. On Thursday, you can only enter with a VIP invitation.