ARCOmadrid was officially presented in public today at MNCARS in Madrid. The act was chaired by Luis Eduardo Cortés, president of IFEMA’s Executive Committee, Fermín Lucas, director general of IFEMA and Lourdes Fernández, director of ARCOmadrid.

La Feria de Madrid is holding the 29th International Contemporary Art Fair, ARCOmadrid_2010, from February 17th to 21st, making it once again the opening event in the international art fair calendar. This year the fair is hosting a total of 227 galleries from 25 countries and around three thousand artists with work covering all the current trends visible in the art world today. This year ARCOmadrid throws a special spotlight on its invitational programme, featuring a city for the very first time instead of a country. The focus this year is on Los Angeles, chosen because of its vitality and multiculturalism and its specific weight as one of the world’s art capitals.

ARCOmadrid is an excellent opportunity to rev up the engines of the art market, especially at a moment when we are seeing the first signs of recovery. According to latest reports from the Art Market Confidence Index (AMCI) drawn up by Artprice, prices have risen by 1.2% and the all-important confidence index among professionals is up by between 20% and 40% since last March.

Working alongside a team of curators who are responsible for giving the fair its special character, the art fair’s planning committee has been working with the goal of driving the art market forward. It wishes to underscore its reputation as a high-quality event with a complete cross-section of art to excite the interest of collectors and buyers. In this regard, the fair has prepared a Guest Collectors programme in which it invites many major collectors from around the world to visit the fair and see what it has on offer.

One of the most noteworthy new introductions at the upcoming edition of ARCOmadrid_2010 is the focus on Los Angeles as the fair’s special invited guest. This is a new twist to its Panorama section, shifting from its usual focus on a country to a single city. The idea is present a more homogeneous portrait of what’s happening in a specific urban area that is, in itself, one of the major art capitals of the USA. It is L.A.’s dynamism energy and creative diversity that has situated it at the forefront of the world’s art market.

With a selection of 17 galleries, curated by Kris Kuramitsu and Christopher Miles, the difference in Panorama is the selection of artists coming from different generations, backgrounds and degrees of fame, and a huge variety of works in terms of technique, genre and leaning. Above all else, the selection wished to faithfully reflect the vitality and diversity of the art scene in this great city. According to the curators, “this 21st century metropolis has an artistic culture with a huge cross-generational wealth, largely thanks to its influential position over the last few decades, its network of private art school and academies, as well as the art departments in public and private universities.”

The core section of ARCOmadrid_2010 comprises General Programme+ARCO40, featuring a selection of 170 galleries, chosen by the fair’s Advisory Committee and subsequently confirmed by the fair’s Planning Committee, showcasing works that provide a cross-section of the best of art from around the world.

ARCO40, a subsection of the General Programme, brings exciting young artists from Spain and worldwide into a fruitful creative dialogue. True to their core mission to showcase emerging talents, these galleries weave an international network of the happening art of today and tomorrow. Galleries in this section are showing work by a maximum of three artists, in fixed 40m2 modules. Exhibiting alongside the galleries in the main section, these new cutting-edge works are sure to capture the attention of the public and of collectors and buyers at the fair.

 
Besides the General Programme+ARCO 40, another cornerstone of ARCOmadrid_ 2010’s innovation is its curated programmes: SOLO PROJECTS, EXPANDED-BOX, CINEMALoop and PERFORMING ARCO which feature the latest trends in art.

Without any geographical or artistic boundaries, a team of 10 curators has been put together an eclectic selection of 34 projects for the SOLO PROJECTS section at ARCOmadrid_ 2010. Here we can expect to see the most emerging and experimental works of the moment. SOLO PROJECTS is predicated on conceptual discourses that look to explore and question the synergies of artists from all over the world and to open up a dialogue from highly diverse positions. This always interesting section contains a wealth of experimentation reflecting the concerns of contemporary artists.

This selection was made by Jacopo Crivelli Visconti, freelance curator, Brazil; Juan de Nieves, freelance curator, Spain; Sergio Edelsztein, director of The Center for Contemporary Art in Tel Aviv; Iván López Munuera, critic and freelance curator, Madrid; Shamin M. Momin, Associate Curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art; Adriano Pedrosa, freelance curator, writer and editor, Brazil; Susanne Neubauer, freelance curator, Germany; Maria Inés Rodríguez, chief curator at MUSAC (León), curator of Programation Satellite at Jeu de Paume and editor of Point d’Ironie, Paris, France; André Magnin, freelance curator, Paris; and Olesya Turkina, critic and exhibition curator, and Senior Research Fellow at the Russian State Museum in St Petersburg, Russia.

Yet again, this year ARCOmadrid_ 2010’s EXPANDED BOX programme is presenting works by artists using innovative new technologies and digital tools. The very best of new electronic art can be seen in the eight spaces comprising the EXPANDED BOX programme, curated by Italian art critic and independent curator, Domenico Quaranta and sponsored by BEEP_Data logic.

For the third year running, performance art has its own space at ARCOmadrid. The programme of PERFORMING ARCO, sponsored by Mango, and chosen by its artistic advisor Javier Duero, gives the visiting public a chance to contemplate various live performances and catch up with happening tendencies in live art taking place on the Spanish and international scene.

Rounding off the exciting curated programmes this year is CINEMALoop, a section dedicated exclusively to video art and audiovisual installations. Selected by the freelance curators, Carolina Grau and Paul Young, this section, coordinated for the first time with LOOP, the International Video Art Fair and Festival in Barcelona, is looking to consolidate the discourse of video at the art fair. CINEMALoop is divided into three sections: first of all, video installations brought by three European galleries; secondly, the loop screening of various video art pieces; and finally, an exhibition of videos on various individual screens which spectators can choose from.

 
The final piece in the art fair is the section ARCO Instituciones, aimed at publicising the work of public and private organisations actively supporting the art world through collecting. Moreover, visitors have a space for publications on culture and art, especially contemporary art, all grouped together in the Art Publishers and Magazines sections.

In parallel with all these sections and programmes is the annual Experts Forum, now in its eight year, which brings together artists, collectors, critics, curators, theorists and other players in the art world to discuss issues of interest. The forum rounds off ARCOmadrid_ 2010, the International Contemporary Art Fair, a must visit event for anyone seriously interested in discovering the latest in contemporary art.

The crisis has strangulated the art world just as much as it has damaged every other aspect of the economy. Sales have plummeted and art spaces have sunk deep into debt. The luckier ones are still on life support, but the vast majority has undergone a silent decline and painful demise. They are casualties of a situation in which discretionary income is a thing of the past.

Print by Elena Jimenez

For most, art purchases are considered to be optional and superfluous in times like these. Money has been diverted to other uses. Even those who used to acquire art works, are no longer willing to consider parting with their cash so easily. You can hear their mantra in every gallery in America: “I love the work”…followed by a prolonged pause and then…nothing. The painful truth is that, at least, these are the people who make it to the gallery. Many a former collector has become reluctant to even go to openings and receptions out of concerned that he or she might be put on the spot by an overly eager dealer.

The ensuing tension is easily felt at any of these events. Everyone knows that everyone else (artists, gallery owners and patrons) is hurting bad. It is the big, ugly elephant in the room. Nobody acknowledges the pain and so everyone walks away at the end of the day no wiser or better-off than they were before. A gallery space full of sleepwalkers is an excruciating thing to watch.

The worst side effect that I have seen from this pitiable state of affairs is that relationships among those in the art business have become uptight and difficult. Artists are unhappy with the lack of sales and so are galleries. The artists point the finger at the dealers while they, in turn, hold collectors accountable for the negative cash flow. Remaining in the black has turned into a laborious and excruciating challenge. Convincing the cynics of the rewards of buying art is ludicrous at best.

Print by Elena Jimenez

So as the water drains ever so slowly from the small pond that is the art scene, fish of all sizes and colors are left gasping for a sale. The smaller fish (emerging artists, small galleries) die first. The larger fish (well established artists and galleries) are able to lay dormant for a while longer, hoping for that rain that will restore the pond to its prior vibrant state. In the meantime, associations turn sour. Connections are severed. It’s a big fish devours small fish cruel world.

Acceleration has now become a primary factor in the changing landscape of the art world. It has brought about a kind of sudden, unanticipated death that has not only stopped growth, but also triggered the disappearance of art from so many of its usual settings. In a glimpse of an eye, Art’s natural habitat has been compacted, downgraded, damaged beyond recognition.

The apparently firm, unyielding bedrock on which our feet rested has crumbled, disintegrated in a matter of months. Artists, galleries, even larger institutions are trying to claw their way up from the edge of the precipice and the success of their efforts has been mixed at best. We are no longer contending with the natural ebb and flow of a fragile ecosystem in which all players (artists, collectors, gallery owners, critics) are bound to each other to achieve balance, renewal and continuity. Instead, this is the scorched aftermath of the economic meteorite impact. A free for all, big fish eats small fish scenario.

Adaptation is now the new black. Artists lower their prices in an attempt to move their work. Galleries recalibrate their exhibition schedules and the type and amount of work that they can circulate. Strategic adjustments such as lower commission rates, payment plans, reduced hours of operation have sprouted from the burnt soil, but it is still very early to judge whether they will ensure survival or

The most infrequent species of all, the collector, has now practically vanished from the landscape. There are sightings every so often, but the great majority of people that now visit galleries belong to a very distinct variety of reticent consumer, the kind that scurries, no questions asked, and leaves as indistinctly as it arrived.

Many factors will determine the return of a thriving environment in the art business. Some of them, such as the economic recovery of the country at large, are out of our immediate control. However, there are areas that we can bolster from the ground up by engaging everyone involved (buyers, gallery owners, artists, framers) in a more cohesive, flexible and united effort to restore the art scene in Albuquerque. The strategies are simple, yet sometimes counterintuitive: lower your prices, advertise wisely, moderate your commissions, encourage collaboration with the artists, direct prospective buyers to other galleries and art venues, insist on quality of product, diversify your offering and improve affordability through payment plans. These are not magic wands, but rather the seeds to a more fertile market in the near future.