Colombia, guest country of honor at ARCO Madrid 2015

Colombia is the guest of honor at the 34th International Fair of Contemporary Art, ARCOmadrid 2015, organized by the Fair institution of Madrid (IFEMA), which will be held from February 25 to March 1. The Government of Colombia has organized an extensive program of exhibitions and activities, which will constitute a cultural display in Madrid and will announce the development of the contemporary Colombian art.

"The invitation to Colombia, guest of honor at ARCOmadrid2015, proves the great international visibility for the contemporary Colombian art at the present time", Fernando Carrillo Flórez, ambassador of Colombia to Spain, noted.

"I invite you especially to visit more than 20 exhibitions covering the last five generations of Colombian artists". "The presence of Colombian art in Madrid will be present for two and a half months through the active participation of artists, curators, critics, galleries, museums, independent spaces, art and publishing houses dedicated to art."

For Carolina Ponce de Leon, advisor for visual arts of the Ministry of Culture of Colombia, the presence of Colombia as guest country at ARCOmadrid 2015, "it represents the most relevant participation of the Colombian art abroad throughout its history."

"The level of the event, the diversity of the artistic proposals, the generational mixing of artists, and its simultaneous display in prestigious cultural and artistic institutions in Madrid is an unprecedented opportunity for experiencing the complexity, richness and vitality of contemporary Colombian art," Ponce de Leon says.

For Jaime Ceron Silva, Colombian curator "it is undeniably the presence of Colombian artists in exhibitions, residencies or publications in the most diverse places in the world, which is no longer subjected to cultural stereotypes, but the genuine interest in situations involving their work".

Arco Colombia at IFEMA

A meeting place

The institutional Stand of Colombia at ARCOmadrid 2015, organized by the Colombian Government, will be one of the key areas to understand why today the Colombian art attracts the international look. The space will feature the big bets for museums of contemporary art, the Art Museum of the Bank of the Republic, the Art Museum of Medellin, the Museum of Antioquia, La Tertulia Museum, and the Art Museum of the National University and the Modern Art Museum of Bogotá.

They will also announce the projects of independent avant-garde spaces in Cali, Medellin, Barranquilla and Bogota, as well as Lugar a Dudas, Espacio Odeon, Casa Tres Patios, Flora Ars+Natura, Taller 7, La Agencia, La Mutante, NC-Arte, La Usurpadora and La Nocturna. Likewise, they will explain what has happened with the latest versions of the National Salon for artists, the Medellin MDE meetings, the International Art Fair of Bogota ARTBO, the International Biennial of Cartagena de Indias and the Festival of Performance of Cali. Finally, they will exhibit catalogues and art magazines, produced by Colombian publishers, especially independent publishers, such as Jardín, La Silueta, Tragaluz, Robot, Paralelo 10, Laguna libros and magazines like Errata, Art Nexus and Arteria.

At IFEMA, other Colombian institutions dedicated to the promotion of contemporary art will be found there. An example is the Bank of the Republic, which has just been awarded with the prize for collecting that annually gives the ARCO Foundation and it will be given on February 25 during the fair.

Ten galleries, twenty artists

Under the coordination of IFEMA and with the support of the Chamber of Commerce of Bogotá and the International Art Fair of Bogota ArtBO, the Cali Chamber of Commerce, the Secretary for the town culture of Medellin and the SURA group, ArcoColombia will gather in the pavilions 7 and 9 ten galleries that "will show the diversity of what is being done in Colombia", Juan Andrés, curator in charge of the selection of galleries and artists Gaitán says.

Galleries such as Casas Riegner, Doce Cero-Cero, El Museo, Instituto de Visión, LA Galería, Nueveochenta, Sextante y Valenzuela Klenner will take part fat the event from the artistic district of Bogota. Other galleries will also participate, like La Oficina from Medellin, the Jenny Vila Gallery, from Cali. It is a source of galleries as diverse and rich as the panorama of the art of Colombia.

A space for dialogue

Likewise, Forum ARCOmadrid, bringing together international renowned experts, will have the Colombian participation in two debates, one on private collections with public vocation in Colombia, and the second on the conceptual photography in Colombia in the 1970s. It is a space for reflection and analysis of collecting and photographic experiments in the Latin American country.

caption: artist María José Arjona will carry out a performance at Caixa Forum

Parallel program in Madrid

About 50 events in Madrid will be organized around the project ArcoColombia and will start on February 11. This parallel program is divided into two sections: "Focus Colombia" and "Colombia in Madrid".

Focus Colombia

It is a program coordinated by the Colombian curators María Wills Londoño and Jaime Cerón. This initiative of the Colombian Government brings together twelve exhibitions of artists, both individual and collective, around the relationship between art and nature and the link between the subjectivity and history.

In this sense, Focus includes exhibition projects such as Tejedores de agua: El río en la cultura visual y material contemporánea en Colombia (Waterweavers), curated by José Roca and with the support of Alejandro Martin; and Autorretrato disfrazado de artista: Arte conceptual y Fotografía en Colombia en los años 70, curated by Santiago wheel.

Focus also includes special individual projects, curated by Ceron and Wills, and curated for this occasion to prominent Colombian artists, which will be presented in spaces such as La Tabacalera, el Museo de Artes Decorativas, CA2M, Centro Centro y Matadero.

All the artists who are part of the collective exhibitions, as well as of individual projects have been in a active manner in the Colombian creative context over the past forty years. "In general, they are artists who search on the necessity for naming the limits outside the dominant cultural representations in the building of the historical, social and political reality of the country", Wills and Ceron explain.

Similarly, Focus includes four pieces of video art of Colombian artists who will be projected during the ARCOmadrid 2015, on the largest screen in Europe with LED of high resolution, located at the Plaza del Callao, one of the most crowded areas downtown.

Colombia in Madrid

This program complements Focus Colombia with several exhibitions that will bring outstanding names of the contemporary Colombian art scene to the city.

It is the case of Oscar Murillo, who by an initiative of the Embassy of Colombia, presents De marcha ¿una rumba? no sólo un desfile con ética y estética by Daoíz and Velarde. The display aims to draw a point of contact between dissimilar geopolitical and cultural situations like Madrid and La Paila - birthplace of the artist – looking for the interaction of the European urban space with the Colombian countryside.

Also, María José Arjona will present a performance at the CaixaForum in Madrid, among other proposals. The artist, who has worked together with Marina Abramovi?, explores in his work the body as tool and place for thinking. For his part, the Acorazado Patacón collective exhibition, curated by the Colombian Juan Cárdenas and the Spanish Daniel Silvo, will be presented La Tabacalera.

Another special exhibition will be ‘La Lechuga’, a unique piece which is part of the collection of the Bank of the Republic and that will be exhibited at the Museo del Prado between March 3 and May 31, 2015.

In addition to complete the Colombian presence, cultural centers, art galleries in Madrid and institutions have joined the program that like the case of Casa de America they will devote a month to Colombian culture in the framework of its programming.

In order to facilitate the visit to the exhibitions, the visitors may use the Bus of Bogota, since February 23, a free bus service that will tour museums and art centers hosting the exhibition program each day.

More details at: www.arcocolombia2015.com