17th edition of SWAB Barcelona

The 17th edition of Swab Barcelona is presented as a journey through the emerging voices of contemporary art, with a special focus on the creative scene of East Asia. From October 3 to 6, the city will become a meeting point for the latest global artistic trends, with 70 galleries exhibiting more than 200 works, 23 of which will be local and 47 from 20 different countries, offering a broad view of the international creative landscape.

With a total of eight exhibition programs and one special one, the fair is firmly committed to emerging art, positioning Barcelona as a world benchmark and giving visibility to its cultural fabric. The programs include the General Program, Swab Seed, MyFAF, Design, Focus Tokyo - Seoul, Emerging LATAM, SOLO Show by Vila Casas and Video Box , while the special program is PERHUTANA , an initiative of the Indonesian center Jatiwangi Art Factory that proposes the creation of a collectively owned forest.

Swab not only allows for creative connections with other regions of the world, but also turns the city into a platform for the exchange of ideas and collaborations between artists and collectors, also fostering the growing interest of collectors Asians towards European art.
Betting on emerging art is key, as it is the contemporary art of the future. The more affordable prices of this type of art allow it to be brought to a younger audience, demystifying the idea that art is just a luxury investment.
In addition, the fair wanted to give Asia its own voice, a voice that starts from its own territory and breaks with the often dominant Western vision. While few Asian fairs are firmly committed to emerging art, Swab Barcelona breaks down barriers in this regard.

After the success of the last edition, Swab 2024 will be held again in the Textile Pavilion of Fira de Barcelona, located at Avinguda Rius i Taulet, 10.

The General Program is the backbone of Swab Barcelona, bringing together 33 outstanding galleries from the contemporary scene, both local and international. Its national diversity reflects the globalization of art, offering a broad view of the most relevant creative trends.

a-topos' (Paris, Marseille), Abbozzo Gallery (Toronto), ADN Galeria (Barcelona), Alessandro Albanese (Milà), ATM (Gijón), Beta Contemporary (Barcelona), BLOOM (Düsseldorf), CHAxARTxRTM (Rotterdam), Contemporary Cluster (Rome), Dilalica (Barcelona), ESCAT GALLERY - Casa Granados (Barcelona), ethall (L'Hospitalet), Galería Fermay (Palma de Mallorca), Kahmann Gallery (Naarden), LaiSun Keane (Boston), Neven (London) , Noaddress (Rio de Janeiro), Palmadotze (Santa Margarida and the Monks), Pantocrátor (Barcelona), Raffaela de Chiricco (Milà), Rafael Pérez Hernando (Madrid), Reiners Contemporary (Marbella), Set Espai d'Art (Valencia) , Shazar (Naples), Siddiq Projects (Hamburg), Sissi Club (Marseille), Soho Revue (London), Split (London), Stain Projects (Palma de Mallorca), Tempesta (Milan), VANGAR (Valencia), Yafteh (Tehran ) and Zielinsky (Barcelona/Porto Alegre).

'Jutting marbled mosaic', Brendan Pattengale

Swab Seed is the space dedicated to 10 self-managed projects that are committed to experimentation and artistic innovation. This program gives visibility to emerging initiatives that question established norms, thereby shaking up the global art scene with new perspectives.

AllArtNow (Damascus/Stockholm), CASA ESPACIO (Barcelona), Chilli Art Project, (London), OLA Lab (Barcelona), NAAN Gallery (Tirana), Post Modern, Collection (Amstelveen), Silica (Cannes), Sorondo (Barcelona) , TAKEOVER (Beirut) and Tiny Art Gallery (The Hague).

With the support of the Swab Barcelona Foundation, MyFAF offers a unique opportunity to three emerging galleries that have not yet participated in any international fair. The program grants these spaces to facilitate their entry into the global circuit, giving them the opportunity to project themselves internationally.

PLATO (Évora), Studio/Chapple (London) and TUBE (Palma de Mallorca).

The Design program, new this year, focuses on collectible design. It is a bid to explore the boundaries between art and design, a field very present in Barcelona, which wants to show the creative diversity that defines contemporary culture in this area.

Max Radford (London), Pepe Valenti (Eidenhoven), Anabelle Schneider (New York), and Vasto (Barcelona).

Curated by artist Kelvin Kyung Kun Park, Focus Tokyo - Seoul presents six exhibition space projects from these two cities, which interrelate tradition and future. Under the title 'Tentacles of Thought (from an Octopus)', this section offers a selection of Korean and Japanese projects that show their cultural influences, as well as the various interpretations and artistic visions. This dialogue between Tokyo and Seoul addresses issues such as nationalism and urban transformation, highlighting the cultural and artistic uniqueness of each city.

Gallery 2 (Seoul), Ingahee (Seoul), MJK Gallery (Tokyo), ooooon (Seoul), The White Tokyo), and Space Willing N Dealing (Seoul).

'Willing n dealing', Park Nohwan

Emerging LATAM , curated by Santiago Gasquet, brings together six spaces in Latin America with less than five years of experience. This program emphasizes hybrid projects that offer a critical look at the Latin American reality, highlighting the emerging and vibrant art scene of the continent.

Andrea Brunson (Chile), Collectio (Chile), Crudo (Argentina), Escombro (Mexico), Paseolab (Lima) and Tramo (Argentina).

SOLO Show by Vila Casas is a program, organized with the Vila Casas Foundation, that establishes a dialogue between Barcelona and Taipei, presenting eight artistic projects that explore the connections and differences between these two cities and highlighting Taipei as a reference in the contemporary scene .
These eight very diverse proposals seek to establish dialogues and synergies between two very different contexts, creating a bridge between emerging artists and offering a transversal perspective of contemporary art.

Shishishibook (Taipei), EQUAL (Taipei), ss space space (Taipei), SUAVEART (Taipei), FASE (Barcelona), Halfhouse (Barcelona), Raccoon Projects (Barcelona) and Espai 19 (Barcelona).

Dedicated to the audiovisual, Video Box presents four artists from Taipei, curated by Yipei Lee. Entitled 'Intimacy: The Moments of Social Skin', this section delves into the geopolitical, gender and power forces that shape the contemporary Taiwanese social context, offering a deep insight into the country's audiovisual production.

PERHUTANA is this year's special program, developed by the Indonesian collective Jatiwangi Art Factory (JaF), which integrates contemporary art into local life in a rural area of Indonesia. The project, which takes as its starting point the movement started during the past Documenta 15, proposes the creation of an extensive forest of collective property as an alternative to technocentric development models.
This initiative aims to recover 8 hectares of industrial land and transform them into a community forest, a direct response to the challenges of rampant industrial growth.

And finally, Swab Kids is the space dedicated to the little ones, with the aim of promoting creativity and artistic development. This edition has the collaboration of the multidisciplinary workshop Little Japan, which will guide the children in the creation of a cherry blossom (Sakura), symbol of Japanese culture. This activity not only encourages creativity, but also introduces the little ones to the world of contemporary art and raises art from a collective perspective

'My shadow and I',Hojan