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Back to Hemos estado en Arco

Inmaculada Jimenez Caballero, School of Architecture, University of Navarra, Spain

We have been in Arco

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 10:50:19 +0000 Published in Navarra Newspaper

In the winter calendar, along with Fitur, Madrid Fusion, Madrid Cibeles Fashion Week and others, one more year ARCO. This time celebrating its 30th anniversary. It would be interesting to make a comparison between the contemporary art of 1981 and that of 2011, but on this occasion I would like to expose two issues in my opinion worthy of consideration taking advantage of the ephemeris.

The first concerns the new modes of the Contemporary Art market. For the first time, in January 2011, the first international contemporary art fair was held at network: VIP International Contemporary Art Fair. The development, participation, galleries, clients, business, even cost of the "entrance" made the model of the Madrid fairgrounds quite obsolete. Once again, the attention is shifted to the network. What will become of the show component of the visitors, when the really important operations in the art market are not carried out in the framework of a conventional fair?

At the same time, in some European cities, the so-called Troc-Art Fair has been held for years. It consists of buying contemporary art by means of resource to barter, or rent to buy. One walks through the halls, and leaves next to the selected work a sticker with his offer: I exchange Anthony Asael's photograph for 52 sessions of Kenko Teiso, Rohan Graeffly exchanges a work for a exhibition for a month in a gallery in Liege or any other artist rents his work made of recycled aluminum cans for 120 € / month. By the way, children also participate in this fair, encouraging Education in art and initiating them to collecting. What will become of contemporary art when anyone can display on their wall a work by a renowned author and when in each "cocooning" event the work that dominates the room is as different as the model dress worn by the hosts?

The second idea is the participation of the administrations in a fair that is, after all, a market. I don't know if it would be reasonable to help local travel agencies by buying one of the dream trips that the different companies offer at Fitur. Nor if the way to help antiques businesses would be to buy pieces from antique dealers at Feriarte to swell the collections of regional museums.

The way to help an artist, as Antonio Lopez says all the time, is to provide him with work, that is to say, by commissioning his work. One way to help artists would be to be able to present in ARCO the work of all those who do not have a gallery that can present them in that market and have the quality of their work to be able to exhibit it. To carry out this subsidiary work where the private initiative does not reach. If we consider that the administration should be present in these commercial events.

The discussion is always healthy and brings us closer to interesting and novel ideas.