ARCO 2025: a fair that looks to the future

Recently, the 44th edition of ARCO was held at the Madrid fairgrounds, which completely occupied halls 7 and 9 with galleries, cultural spaces, specialized magazines, companies and the artist's book and contemporary publishing fair better known as ArtsLibris, where Bonart Cultural was present. Overall, this new edition of the fair has generally met the expectations that had been placed on it, both by the organization and by the participants. Regarding the audience, almost 100,000 visitors attended. A number that can be considered remarkable, since it is an important and necessary event that the cultural community, not only of the capital of Spain, but of the rest of the State, as is the case of Catalonia, waits for all year and that during the five days that the fair lasted, the AVE trains were full both in and out, which means that we Catalans are interested in a fair of these characteristics. The pity is that in Barcelona, for example, we do not even have an ArteMadrid, a fair that also fulfills its function in a smaller space, but which at the same time is closer to visualize the works. But, in addition, the so-called “Art Week in Madrid” consists of other fairs that are quite important and that must be taken into account, since they have a diverse audience that prefers proposals different from ARCO, such as those offered by Hybrid, JustMad, Urbanity, SAM and MIAD.

Focusing on ARCO, this edition has not been as media-driven as in previous years, mainly because no works have been exhibited that could be considered controversial, whether from a political, social, religious or sexual perspective. We only need to remember the installations or sculptures by Eugenio Merino that have caused so much commotion in previous years, since the piece Lavado de cara that he has presented now is not as spectacular as the previous ones. It is a dishwasher where several politicians appear who have been the protagonists of the media in recent months, such as Trump, Musk, Abascal, Le Pen, MiIlei, Netanyahu or Meloni, among others. Their portraits are printed on the plates, specifically there were 16 of them. The artist precisely points out that “provocation must be in art. Every work challenges some logic”. The piece was shown by the Barcelona gallery ADN and was sold for €22,000.

Lavado de cara, Eugenio Merino (2024)

Other works within this media framework include a piece by Miguel Benlloch, presented by The Ryder gallery in Madrid, which showed a blue work jumpsuit with fragments of mirror, based on an incident that happened some time ago where several workers were stabbed while protesting a labor problem. The Junta de Andalucía has acquired the work. Also, an installation by Ramon Mateos at the Freijo gallery in Madrid, entitled 7291, exhibited a chain curtain with the number 7291, referring to the number of deaths in Madrid's nursing homes during the Covid epidemic. Coincidentally, the president of the Community of Madrid did not visit the stand on the day of the inauguration.

Of the little over 200 galleries that have participated, 16 of them come from Catalonia, distributed in the General Program and the Artist Projects, in addition to a considerable presence of publishers, creators, authors and booksellers in the ArtLibris section. The Zielinsky gallery in Barcelona, which also has a headquarters in Sao Paulo and which had previously been at ArteMadrid, has exhibited the work of Latin American artists such as Cisco Merel, Vera Chaves, Denis Milan and Felipe Mujica, all of them artists of the gallery, who have offered different proposals, but who have in common the representation of popular or constructive traditions from materials of natural origin.

Estand de la Galeria Zielinsky a ARCO.

The Senda, Mayoral and Marc Domènech galleries are perhaps the ones that have most committed to established artists, but also to some emerging ones. At Mayoral, the young Barcelona artist Marria Pratts, who we had previously seen at Urvanity, has exhibited fully abstract works, all of which have a great expressive vitality. Within the scope of Artist Projects there was a spectacular piece by Alicia Vogel, which the Maria Cristina Masaveu Foundation acquired.

La Senda with an enormous sculpture by Jaume Plensa, an artist who currently exhibits at the gallery, Peter Halley with a large polyptych, which we were able to see recently at the gallery and Yago Hortal, with his colors and shapes that seem to draw the space, have been the three most outstanding artists. It is also worth mentioning Xavi Bou who has shown his orthographic work in the Artist Projects space.

As for Marc Domenech, a piece of considerable dimensions by Modest Cuixart, entitled Homenaje a Eude from 1959, was exhibited, which deserves to be in a museum due to its uniqueness. The Miguel Marcos gallery has exhibited one of the best-known and characteristic works by Bernardí Roig, where a half-naked man appears hanging on his back with his face crushed against a crumpled sack.

Homenaje a Eude, Modest Cuixart (1959). Galeria Marc Domenech

In the Rocio SantaCruz gallery there was an installation by Dionís Escorsa that caught our attention, since at first it seemed that we were in a dining room of a farmhouse, where there was a table and a jug of wine. On one of the walls hung a watercolor of a landscape that his grandfather painted in Tavèrnoles, with the peculiarity that a projector was directed towards the painting showing what happened during the course of the day, that is, from dawn to dusk. It was connected to a meteorological service in the Plana de Vic.

Regarding ArtsLibris, in addition to the presentation of the new issue of BONART, I wanted to highlight Espe Pons & Jordi Jové, with the artist's book Flucht, by photographer Espe Pons, which takes us through the various places where Walter Benjamin stayed shortly before his death in Portbou while fleeing the Nazis. A small publishing house like Âfriques Edicions, run by Pere Pich, has shown a series of artist's books, such as Ellas huyen by Marta Callen and La casa del buit by Maria Chinchilla and Abraham Mohino. Finally, Lanipsebooks usually brings to the fair a set of very well-maintained books with excellent engravings by Barceló, Chillida, Tàpies and Perico Pastor.

El campanario, Dionis Escorsa. Galeria Rocío SantaCruz