Art Madrid'23 – Swab, the seventh edition of Barcelona emerging and contemporary art fair

Swab, Barcelona Contemporary Art Fair, ??which celebrates its seventh edition, will feature more than 60 galleries from 20 different countries. The fair will be held at the Italian Pavilion of the Fair of Barcelona, from 2 to 5 October, with the work of 165 artists of various nationalities. 
 
Swab Fair will be organized around seven different programs. A general program with the participation of 25 galleries (12 foreign), the Solo Program that will include projects that revolve around the concept of identity, origin or the Latin American cultural imprint. It is a program bicomisariado by Direlia Lazo and Carolina Ariza in which participate the Cuban artist Adrian Melis, Panamanian Jhafis Quintero, Venezuelan Luis Molina Pantin and Ana Alenso, Cuban Humberto Diaz, Chilean Alejandro Leonardt and Guatemalan artist Regina José galindo. 
A new program, Too Hot to Handle, curated by Ethel Seno, will feature new projects American artists represented by galleries with a common theme: a mixture of pop-art sensibilities with social messages. The artists represented in this program (David LaChapelle, Manuel Ocampo, Olek and Victor Castillo), use photography, painting and crochet as working medium. 
 
Positions of Drawing is a programm directed by Oscar Molina and Monica Alonso Alvarez Careaga and composed by 8 Spanish galleries presenting projects dedicated to contemporary drawing artists. The galleries participating are: Addaya, Centre of Contemporary Art (Alaro, Mallorca) with artist Andrew Senra, Angeles Baños Gallery (Badajoz) with Manuel Antonio Dominguez, Espacio Valverde (Madrid) with Elena Alonso, Fernando Pradilla (Madrid) with Juan Francisco Casas, Elizabeth Hurley (Málaga) with David Escalona, ??Kir Royal (Valencia) with José Luis Serzo, Liebre Galería (Madrid) with Guillermo Peñalver and Rafael Perez Hernando (Madrid) with Javier Calleja. 
Swab also have two programs dedicated to Asian and American galleries. Asian participants: Pantocrator Gallery (Shanghai), Project illim (South Korea), Sun Art Gallery (Shanghai), JARB (Seoul) and Gallery 1000a (Gurgaon). American galleries: Black Square Gallery (Miami), Fever Gallery (Buenos Aires), SABINE + BQL Gallery (Bogota), Hall 4 (Buenos Aires), Perfect Gallery (Bahia Blanca), Rea, one day gallery (Buenos Aires) and Art Room 1101 (Miami). 
 
Finally, MYFAY Programme will bring together 4 galleries with less than two years old who have never participated in fairs that represent artists born after 1970. It is a curated program by Zaida Trallero and Rosa Lleó. Within this program find alejandrogallery (Barcelona), Cyan Gallery (Barcelona), La Encantada Gallery (Barcelona) and Vanja Contemporary (Brighton). 
In addition, a full program of activities will be held during the fair: Fly to Swab, SWAB STAIRS, an initiative that emerged in 2011 in collaboration with Kognitif, TMB and Barcelona Inspira, and gives to design schools in Barcelona  the opportunity of create some vinyl-adhesive that will be placed on the stairs to the subway stations of downtown Barcelona. Do you Know what the local art scene looks like the ?, is an acctivity curated by Martina Millà in collaboration with the Joan Miró Foundation to show a series of banners with the works of some young artists along the Paseo de Gracia, Swab Thinks: Ideas, words, Networks; organized by the Independent Studies Program (PEI) MACBA directed by Beatriz Preciado, presents on 3 and 4 October some lectures, debates and panel discussions about the direction of contemporary art. Finally, Swab Performance, a new activity within the show that revolves around the art of action and will be developed in different spots of the city.
 
Swab is the only Contemporary Art Fair founded by a collector, and this makes the fair more accessible to the general public. It is an exhibition that invites visitors to discover, enjoy and understand contemporary art in all its breadth.

 

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.