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Art is a living entity managed by the constant ups and downs of social existence. Their circumstances are linked to the postulates that a very defined environment wants to give them. For this reason, its reality has been slowly defined throughout history; very slow developments that broke their quiet wandering at the end of the 19th century to, since then, enter into an uncontrollable dynamic that was transforming as new approaches were born. And this is the same as what has happened with ARCO and its particular systems and dimensions.

The Madrid Contemporary Art Fair was created at a crucial moment in Spain, which wanted to be reborn to the new. It was February 1982, the party that governed, first with Suárez at its head and, later, with Calvo Sotelo, was on the edge. In the distance, Felipe González gazed at a perspective that seemed clear to that PSOE, absolutely different from the prevailing poverty of today. The country wanted to get rid of the rheum of the past and open up to new horizons; art was a brand new and appropriate means to do so. Juana de Aizpuru, lucid, daring, courageous and enterprising, tries it and, with the support of Adrián Piera, at the helm of IFEMA, sets in motion what will become a valid reference for a first contact with the most modern art and, especially , with international art; then in Spain only glimpsed by hearsay and almost in black and white.

In the fairgrounds of the Casa de Campo -the first editions of ARCO were held in existing exhibition spaces in the Castellana- and in the Campo de las Naciones, since 1991, a Fair was going to be held that, apart from its last and definitive commercial objective, it has served the vast majority of fans to take the pulse of an art that, for a few years, has not developed anything new or interesting.

ARCO has been more of the same; a showcase to be seen, to offer certain collectors –not the best– works that can be bought, at a better price, at any time; to pretend to be something in the world of art and enter a universe of elusive whims. Yes, it is true, that it has an incalculable value so that an infinity of fans have the opportunity to access -and recreate- an accepted and acceptable production, which is there to be contemplated and for the artistic industry to maintain certain signs of vivification. existence. Also, and we must not forget it, so that, under the protection of its powerful magnitude, other parallel fairs appear that promote what ARCO, the mother and teacher, perhaps does not sponsor, because it is elitist, arrogant, expensive and, at worst, already, lame. However, every February, it arouses great interest and attracts thousands of fans, mainly from the provinces, who want to be present in a week that leads Madrid to become a world center of art and guaranteed business for a city that is decked out in art and of significant propositions towards a reality that remains latent throughout the year but without the media rocketry of this referential week.

Parallel fairs

Let’s put ourselves in the shoes of an enthusiastic fan who goes to Madrid, like every February, to come face to face with what he believes may be the most substantial art. We are going to think that he comes from Granada, Málaga, Córdoba, Alicante, Lugo… or Jerez. It is Thursday and he has boarded an AVE – or an ALVIA, with increasing difficulty finding a ticket. He arrives at the dazzling Atocha of yesteryear, now baptized with the interested last name of Almudena Grandes. We started! As he is well supplied with information, he knows that this year, the Reina Sofía -the first thing he is going to face-, as usual due to the affectionate efforts of a politically mediated director, does not deserve even a look. Gone are the wonders that occurred in ARCO week. Today we are in other ideologized times. On the Paseo del Prado, the great Museum announces the exhibition of Fernando Zóbel, visit, together with that of Lucien Freud -in the Thyssen- that must be left for another weekend in Madrid. It is time to leave the suitcase in the tourist apartment that is not, not even remotely, what was advertised in the internet propaganda.

The first appointment will be at the Palacio de Correos, in Cibeles. There, for a few years, ARTMADRID has been celebrated. Habitual motley of stands that are repeated offering almost the same of the last editions. Except for exceptions, which there are, little to scratch. Crossing the sidewalk, we find the Palacio de Neptuno, next to the sanctuary of Jesús de Medinaceli, prepared for the upcoming avalanches. There is JUSTMAD that doesn’t give us much either; a fair that started well fourteen years ago and has lost much of its initial enthusiasm. The normal and well-known in stands of run-down galleries that share spaces -also a lot in a small space- with new ones that want to make their way. Not much has been found so far.

SAM – Salón del Arte Moderno-, at the Carlos de Antwerp Foundation provides the security of pieces by great artists in the history of recent art. Buenos Barceló, Palazuelo, an Equipo Crónica, several Dalí, some minor Picasso, engravings by Miró; an always enlightening Esteban Vicente and a curious Ángeles Santos. A good starter to get into tune, but, still, almost nothing for what is sought in February in Madrid.

As it is not far away, the Fundación Juan March –directed by a wise manager and countryman, Manuel Fontán del Junco– offers one of the exhibitions that anyone should dream of, that of the surrealist painter Leonora Carrington. A show that is well worth a visit by itself. She will be the protagonist at another time.

Two fairs are in the area of ​​Alonso Martínez and Hortaleza. In the Plaza de Santa Bárbara, HYBRID is presented, a fair that maintains the format that, years ago, constituted those artistic appearances in hotel rooms. It was curious and even fun; today it contributes almost nothing. Already, in Hortaleza street, at the headquarters of the Official College of Architects, we find URVANITY, perhaps one of the most interesting of these parallel fairs to ARCO. Important galleries in the general context of Spanish art – My name’s Lolita, Llamazares, Yusto/Giner, Herrero de Tejada, among others and to name just a few of the Spanish ones – that share space with some well-established international ones.

The Andalusian presence is significant, with very important artists in the current art scene: Paco Pomet, Marina Vargas, Rosa Aguilar from Granada, Laura Vinós and Fran Baena from Cordoba, Miguel Scheroff from Jaen, Pablo Marchante from Seville and San Fernando, Silvia Lermo. A piece by the lucid Marina Vargas was purchased, at that time, for the very important collection of Cristina Masaveu,

Arco superstar

There is no doubt that ARCO is the driving force behind the great week of art in Madrid. The rest is fine; but what is offered at IFEMA is from another world, totally different from what is given at other fairs. Of course, there is also infinitely more nonsense than in other places. If you put aside the striking nonsense, less and less media coverage, of artistic marketing – to appear on the news on Wednesday and Thursday, with Doña Letizia, this year in pink, as the news center-; ARC is different. It is everything and, by extension, it is little.

I explain. It is, by far, where, in Spain, general artistic performance is concentrated; where you can observe the reality of an art with infinite registers and where many of the most significant artists and the galleries that represent them are located. It is, therefore, everything that is supposed in contemporary art. But, of course, it is not, far from it, what it was or what we would like it to be. ARCO is always expected to offer the true reality of the artistic; but we see that it has become a strict fair, a market to sell works, the more the better; to make a profit in times of economic gloom.

Of course, ARCO collectors do not appear to have sadness in their pockets. We poor spectators expect more and we have to settle for what we are given, which is nothing more than the arguments of a safe art where the pieces on offer are the testimony of a consolidated art, but without bringing too much risk. For the rest, the visitor is going to face the infinite ways of an art with many circumstances.

Works that are from modern classicism artists, pieces that are eternal, from imperishable but not current creators. There are galleries specialized in it and in them, Guillermo de Osma, Leandro Navarro, Miguel Fernández Brasso, Helga de Alvear, Miguel Marcos, Rafael Ortiz, Juana de Aizpuru, among others. Artists of all sizes and of all registers. Due to its proximity and locality, I cannot fail to mention the great paintings by Julia Santa Olalla, Rubén Guerrero, Javier Palacios, everything by Alarcón Criado, with extraordinary pieces by Alegría & Piñero, Cristina Mejías, José Guerrero…; Pablo Capitán, Miki Leal, Antonio Montalvo, among others.

By the way, Cristina Mejías from Jerez, present at Alarcón Criado y Rodríguez Gallery, won one of ARCO’s important prizes, the IllySustainArt, in its fourteenth edition. That this 36-year-old from Jerez is one of the most important artists on the Spanish scene, no one should doubt it.

ARCO is, therefore, a true complex where, in four days, an exciting combination of circumstances take place. The viewer must be aware that not everything can be appreciated. It is impossible. You have to know how to digest and assimilate it. Surely it will be difficult to keep much. Needless. What is important is that it has hooked you. We were hooked more than three decades ago. And we look forward to it every year with anxiety. That they have taken advantage of