Art Madrid'23 – ART MADRID\'16: THE YEAR OF NEW COLLECTORS

 

 

After the Madrid Art Week, the most important appointment on the agenda of professionals and art lovers of our country, Art Madrid'16 celebrates having a prominent position these days.

 

 

The 11th edition of the Contemporary Art Fair Art Madrid, developed between 24 and 28 February, has received about 20,000 visitors at the Crystal Gallery of CentroCentro Cibeles, figure to which we add the large participation of the public in the various Parallel Activities of our program #ARTEYGÉNERO with talks, workshops and roundtables that have received about 1,500 people.

 

 

 

 

Art Madrid, consolidated as the second great fair of contemporary art in our country, has managed to bring art to a wider spectrum of fans of all ages and first collectors who have enjoyed a very close form of art experience. But, it has also seen increasing presence of professionals, gallery owners, institutions and museums to visit, among others, Isidro Hernández Gutiérrez, curator of the TEA (Tenerife Espacio de las Artes); Catalina Rodríguez, coordinator of Centro Cultural Las Cigarreras (Alicante); Aurora Zubillaga, senior director at Sotheby's Spain; the director of the Museum of Contemporary Art Fenosa Gas Natural (MAC) of A Coruna, Carmen Fernandez; Carmen Espinosa, Lazaro Galdiano Curator Mo; MUSAC representatives and Denver Art Museum US.

 

 

 

 

 

The 11th edition of the fair has been highlighted by the increase in about 40% of the presence of new collectors. Together, with foreign collectors from ARCO, we have received responsible for collections Belondrade (Valladolid), Fundació Lluís Corominas (Lluis Coromina Isern entrepreneur) or Ebro Foods SA Foundation; Iratxe Galindez, Coordinator of the Würth Collection Museo de La Rioja; the Art21 Foundation (Belgium) as well as private collectors as Ernesto Ventos (Collection OLOR VISUAL), Andreu Rodriguez (business group Ticnova), Mª Jose Sobrini (Head of Digital Business Cisco Systems), Emilio Gilolmo (Vicepte. Fundación Telefónica) and responsible for the areas of arts and Culture in Foundation Botin Foundation ICO Foundation and Iberdrola.

 

THE YEAR OF NEW COLLECTORS

 

Joan Miró's sculptures, the work of master Mendive or the art works of Kiko Miyares and Hugo Alonso, were some of the most valued pieces by collectors in this edition. But, the great revelation of Art Madrid'16 has been the canary gallery ARTIZAR, who participated for the first time and risking with a single artist, master Mendive. "Our proposal has aroused much interest and until the last moment of the show we sold almost all the pieces. They were mostly known collectors of Miami and the Canary Islands, but we had pleasant surprises with new collectors", transmitted to us Pedro Pinto, director of the gallery.

 

 

 
 
 
 
 

Patrick Caputo from Unique Gallery Turin (Italy) remarks that his experience has been satisfactory because of "the level of artists and taste in the selection of galleries". "In terms of sales," he adds, "we sold art works by 4 among the 6 artists I proposed, pieces of various formats, so we are very happy."

 

Meanwhile, Eduardo Sanchez, director of NUCA ESPACIO (Salamanca), gallery awarded the Acquisition Prize NOCAPAPER, said "the setting is magnificent and we already had very good references [...] the influx of visitors has been good and varied and sales, being our first presence, I think they went very well and got great impact and new customers. "

 

Pep Llabrés, director of the Mallorcan gallery of the same name, which premiered in the General Program, notes that "the size and location of the fair are the ideal and although the buying public was critical and had more doubts than in the year above, the end has been a great fair in which virtually all customers were new collectors ".
 

 

In the year 2020 in the heart of Barcelona a wandering gallery was born, the same one that in February 2021 would debut at Art Madrid with an exhibition proposal focused on contemporary portraits; with this subject matter it would manage to create a powerful dialogue between artwork and audience and make the seal Inéditad remain in the history of the event that contained it.

Jean Carlos Puerto. Protección. Oil and copper leaf on wood. 60 x 48. 2021. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Since that first time and until today, the wandering gallery has managed to build projects on otherness, has repositioned in the spotlight the discourses on the LGTBIQ+ collective, has consolidated a group of artists who share its principles of resilience and empathy and the best thing is that it continues to bet from the professionalism and commitment to give voice to the difference.

Claudio Petit-Laurent.. El Joven de la Perla. Oil on wood. 30 x 30 cm. 2023. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Inéditad Gallery, thanks to its founder Luis López, its collaborators and the infinite possibilities manifested in the works of the artists it represents, is a gallery that has demonstrated its capacity and courage to stimulate the sensibility of the public through art and seduce a generation that moves between the glass window and the analogical story. Inéditad is a nomadic gallery that has gathered around it a community of artists and has moved the context with exhibition projects that think about LGTBIQ+ art without prejudices.

Pepa Salas Vilar. Las marcas del arcoiris. Oil on canvas. 40 x 50 cm. 2022. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Pride and Prejudice was inaugurated. An exhibition that brings together the works of sixteen artists: Abel Carrillo, Alex Domènech, Carlos Enfedaque, Silvia Flechoso, Jamalajama, Daniel Jaén, Claudio Petit-Laurent, Jean Carlos Puerto, Fernando Romero, Pablo Rodríguez, Pepa Salas Vilar, Jack Smith, Pablo Sola, Bran Sólo, Elia Tomás and Utürüo. Painting, illustration, photography and digital art are the manifestations that bring into dialogue around fifty neatly threaded pieces, in a discursive line that discusses such a latent phenomenon as discrimination. To achieve this, the artists invited to the exhibition question themselves whether: Does discrimination exist within the LGTBIQ+ collective?

Pride and Prejudice Official Poster. Image courtesy of the gallery.

With approaches on and from the body, the proposal invites to celebrate diversity, proposes to question and self-question the prejudices and attitudes of society against the collective. Pride and Prejudice is a space for dialogue about the constructs imposed on us by society. It is also an oasis in which to deconstruct with tolerance and respect the subjectivities that sometimes prevent us from approaching the production of the participating artists, simply because "the beautiful" does not fit in an androgynous body. The subjugation of stereotypes are pressed with determination to find the beauty of diversity in other palpable facets of reality.

Pablo Sola. All men are dogs. Photography. 2014. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Throughout these three years Inéditad has stimulated the vindictive projection towards bad practices, has questioned estates around the LGTBIQ+ body and the most admirable thing, is that these capacities have resurfaced around the dialogue and the visual narrative of the stories that are told from the visual: Artworks that are people, art that is, per se, humanity. Overcome impositions and accept what is different in order to continue fighting against homophobia, biphobia, lesbophobia or transphobia and defend the equal rights that all the acronyms of the collective deserve in our community.

That's Pride and Prejudice: One creature, the happiest in the world. And maybe other projects and other people have said it - or felt it - before, but none so fairly.

Silvia Flechoso. Hola, soy maricón. Oil on canvas. 73 x 54 cm. 2023. Image courtesy of the gallery.

From June 8th until June 22nd you can visit Pride and Prejudice. Carrer de Palau núm. 4. Canal Gallery space. Barcelona.