ARCO 2012: Play, Transcend, Buy

The latest edition of ARCO 2012 has come to a close, leaving the doors open to some kind of generalized optimism. Art analysts and an increasing number of economists describe a somewhat heart-wrenching view in their chronicles based on the current times. A scenario marked by the twists and turns of macroeconomics that more than ever before have put this edition of ARCO 2012 in the crosshairs of investors and buyers who seek profitability in their purchases. This is nothing new after all, yet it’s surprising to see that in the heat of this financial crisis, purchases in both art auctions and fairs are pretty much on a roll. The figures chalked up in 2011, according to Artprice, a consulting firm, show a staggering 8 million euros worth of sales in auctions alone around the world, up 21 percent for nearly a billion euros more than in 2010.

In this context, Carlos Urroz, the new and renovating director of ARCO over the past couple of years, says: “Contemporary art is a not a luxury; it’s a right.” That’s a promising and idealistic assertion, though the reality we’re coping with –based on its being a commercial activity- shows that art collecting –especially in Spain- still belongs to a minority. The acquisition of artistic artifacts continues to be something generally linked to luxury, big-pocket fortunes and companies, an elite-oriented consumption that only reaches out to a handful of people. Let’s take a look at this instance: only 2 percent of the population in China buys art, a figure that accounts for 23 percent of the entire art market worldwide (information provided by Deloitte Consulting and quoted by the Bloomberg agency).

In an effort to face up to this “grand” buying apathy, Urroz brought 215 galleries from 29 nations –Holland was the guest nation- to this year’s ARCO edition. He came up with proposals that proved to be quite effective in the precious meeting: Solo Projects: Focus Latinoamérica, 22 proposals from Latin American artists and handpicked by half a dozen prestigious curators from the region. He repeated the Opening program led this year by Manuel Segade and that gathered European galleries with less than eight years of operations: two dozen galleries from ten countries, some hefty markets like Germany featuring seven booths, even though big efforts were poured in trying to highlight such emerging markets as Belgium, Poland and Rumania. And as something new, the Featured Artist Program –presented by all galleries in their own booths- offered buyer/visitors some interesting individual suggestions. Urroz didn’t forget about collectors and this time around he invited 280 of them and beefed up the First Collector Program. The latter provided new buyers with a collector’s mind with red-carpet treatment and thorough consulting. At the end of the fair, ARCO stretched out its activity program with AfterARCO, an initiative that stormed the city’s public spaces, offered pop and electronic-music concerts, video screenings in city squares, deejay jam sessions, leisure and gastronomy activities, and the like.

Yet in the face of the economic and financial assessment of the fair –inherent to its own mercantile character and the overall panorama of the many proposals and activities that ARCO 2012 gave us- I’d like to wrap things up by giving a more personal approach to this chronicle: the one coming from an active painter who watches and stares at this fantastic firework show in this fair, an event that takes a closer look at two or three artworks within this endless sea of proposals and enjoys them restlessly. Even though ARCO is not the right place for artistic contemplation, as a viewer I do revel in this feast. My impressions are necessarily based on sensations, usually from the viewpoint of the enjoyment of a handful of pieces.

Celebrated author Josep Plá once said “opining is far easier than writing, that’s why everybody is so opinionated.” Obviously I’m going to write –briefly yet as accurate and objective as it gets- about a bunch of creations I watched during my grand tour around ARCO. They struck my attention, met my eye and pried into my sensitivity as a spectator/creator.

The Cuban duet called Los Carpinteros (The Carpenters), made up of Marco Castillo and Dagoberto Rodriguez, awed me once again, this time around with a piece/installation of superb quality and finish at the IvoryPress Gallery: musical instruments (conga, drums, violoncello) with a white-and-metal chrome finish that melt into the floor, forming ponds of that same material in a static and controlled chaos, resembling some sort of programmed accident that looks like a beautiful, clean and bright disaster, an inevitable and surrealist end: music doesn’t sound; it’s rather consumed; it gets liquefied, undone; it’s gone.

Valladolid-based multidisciplinary artist Diego del Pozo Barriuso captures me with a TV screen placed discreetly at the Adora Calvo Gallery from Salamanca. Diego proposes a video-creation piece in which a group of actors speak on camera as ordinary persons and citizens about their personal visions of the new world order. Based on a script full of references to political characters in history, these people end up singing, crying and shouting –now without a script with brutal humbleness and sincerity- about their deepest yearnings of personal affection.

I end with Tàpies, as dazzling as ever –though far more emotional here in ARCO 2012 following his recent passing. Lelong Gallery from Paris hits me with a mural of two by three meters, by the Catalonian artist, that opens its booth as perfect homage: crosses, scratched gestures, carved in earthy materials of honey and clay, thick black lines that define letters, numbers, thin calligraphic lines that make up blood-soaked fingers and hands, caresses and punches in a nearby and warm panel.

His son Toni Tàpies also pays tribute to his father in his own gallery with a recent emotive painting made in 2011. This vertical structure, which is approximately 2 meters high and 1.30 meters wide, presides in a powerful and humble way the entrance of his booth. Canvas in white, clean white cloth, mighty and watery lines made with a thick brush in clay color, the painting represents six hands clumsily drawn that appear to get a hold on a similar number of drawn objects –the latter painted in black charcoal- yet determined to portray a message at any rate, breathlessly and blindly, a tumbler, a pair of shades, a cross and any other small daily object: significance and insignificance of the human. For forever more, Tàpies, thanks, master!

Beyond the commercial nature that whips ARCO into shape, to me it’s almost inevitable the reveling, spectacular and mixed contemplation of a vast assortment of creations brought to us by a bevy of ludicrous human beings. Let’s play!