SPECIAL: Bogotá International Art Fair opens with “new realities” in the Colombian capital

By César Mariño García

BOGOTÁ, Nov. 24 (Xinhua) — Under the motto “New spaces, new realities,” the Bogotá International Art Fair, better known as ARTBO, opened its doors to the public at the Ágora Convention Center in the Colombian capital.

Its 19th edition, which will take place from November 23 to 26, has the participation of more than 300 artists from around the world.

ARTBO has become a platform for the circulation of reference art both in Colombia and Latin America.

Artists from nations such as Argentina, Chile, Spain, the United States and France make up the main section of the exhibition, which has the participation of 45 national and international galleries.

The five floors of the Convention Center house nine curated sections, in addition to two spaces called Design and Meetings, which forms a new model of fair-boutique in Colombia.

The purpose is to continue promoting the productive sectors of art and culture from the South American country.

The manager of Cultural Programs of the Bogotá Chamber of Commerce, María Paz Gaviria, told Xinhua that young promises of Colombian art are also represented within the framework of this year’s ARTBO.

“We have the possibility of seeing artists’ books and design galleries curated in this space,” added the manager of the Bogotá Chamber of Commerce, managing entity of the fair.

The cultural official highlighted the importance of the event to consolidate the reactivation of the artistic circuit in Latin America, by encouraging business relationships between collectors and galleries, under the principle of seeking the internationalization of participating artists.

“As in so many other sectors of culture, the plastic arts have been collected at a time of difficult production, but these events and these fairs generate circulation and commercialization of plastic art,” said Paz Gaviria, referring to the fact that this is generated both in Colombia as on the continent.

As a special component, in one of the spaces the work “La paloma de la paz” by maestro Fernando Botero, who died last September, is exhibited as a tribute to one of the most recognized Colombian artists in the world.

“This is a tribute to one of the Colombian artists who has raised the voice of Colombia in the world and who also contains that message of peace in critical moments, both in Colombia and in the world,” said Paz Gaviria.

Botero donated the work in 2016, the year in which the Peace Agreements were signed between the Government and the then guerrilla of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

The 11 sections of the exhibition have artistic proposals, both traditional in their techniques and formats and unconventional, in which the search for answers to the future of society can be seen.

For her part, curator Claudia Segura told Xinhua that the exhibition is a “very good platform to approach contemporary art practices.”

Segura, who participates for the first time as a curator of ARTBO, is the curator of exhibitions and collections at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona, ​​Spain.

The curator of this section where works by artists represented by important international galleries are exhibited, commented that the fair is also a platform that allows us to talk about art as an “element of social transformation”, but above all “a platform to make ourselves Many questions”.

“I want to believe that art always responds to its social, political, historical and symbolic context, because it offers us new ways of approaching current conflicts and gives us tools to resolve them,” he added.