Fair Yes, But Not Only That

ArteBANo. 21. Art Fair Buenos Aires

While the primary objective of arteBA (like allart fairs) is selling works, its successive editions have gone beyond the purely commercial purposes and have become the cultural event of the first half of the year in Buenos Aires.

From May 18th to the 22nd a real crowd moved through arteBA although, of course, the mass public is not what moves the needle when it comes to sales. In this sense, the Fair itself began two months before its formal inauguration, when in early March arteBA Foundation, together with the Art Department at the University Di Tella, organized the cycle Collecting Strategies, a series of conferences aimed at the analysis of several geopolitical, institutional and artistic models present in art collections. With the participation of three of the most influential curators of the Latin American scene-(Patrik Charpenel (Mexico), Sofia Hernandez Chong Cuy (Mexico-USA) and Adriano Pedrosa (Brazil) – the cycle was closed with the conference of collections adviser Ana Sokoloff (Colombia-USA), who elaborated on the current situation of Latin American art market, and provided valuable information for those interested in starting the collecting practice, especially in regard to how an artist or a work achieve legitimacy within the art system.

Such actions, which go beyond the specific limits of the Fair and are aimed at the formation and consolidation of local collectors, show that arteBA has managed to maintain its commitment to develop a platform that promotes the growth and international projection of Argentine and Latin American art.

What could be seen during the week of the fair that deserves to be featured? Interestingly, an auspicious novelty in exhibition terms was the greatest height of the panels of the participating galleries. This was no a minor detail, since the almost 4 meters high not only allowed the exhibition of large format works, but considerably enhanced the setting of the works and their lighting.

One of the most anticipated events, both by the specialized critics and the public, was the Petrobras Award, which has been renewed the controversies about the winning works, and at its ninth edition kept the experimental nature of the beginnings. This time, under the direction of Victoria Noorthoorn, Argentinian artists of all disciplines were convened to explore the collaboration and experimentation possibilities, creating projects from the dialogue between three or more creators whose collaboration was unpublished. Meanwhile, the selection and award committees were formed by prominent artists and intellectuals from not only visual arts, but of literature and theater as well. The multidisciplinary dynamic proposed by Noorthoorn required that the Selection Committee should choose 3 of 150 projects with absolute unanimity. The winning work -Splatter morfogenético/Arlt maschine, from artists Lux Lindner, Silvina Aguirre, Laura and Roberto Bilbao Conlazo- failed, however, to cause the stupor that the previous year's winning piece produced: Self-Portrait of my death, of Carlos Herrera, an installation consisting of a nylon bag containing therein the favorite artist objects (a pair of shoes, for example) along with two decomposed stinking squids. While the Herrera’s radical proposal -that forced the viewer to deal with the concept of death by appealing to one of the least used senses by visual artists- provoked notorious comments among both laymen and connoisseurs, the Petrobras Award jury was unwavering in its experimental vocation and this year awarded the coveted prize of 50,000 pesos to a proposed work that, according to the authors, was defined as a "City Hall open to differential knowledge, to the generation of new knowledge through person-to-person interaction, of performance, improvisation and the reality-fantasy genre”. Indeed, during the course of the Fair, the project Splatter morfogenético / Arlt maschinemade several performances in which a group of "experts" dressed in white enunciated different topics to discuss with the public through body language and improvisation. As the title indicates, the figure of Roberto Arlt  -"cursed" character of the Argentinian literature- was essential to the work development, and his presence resulted in an enormous sphinx of the writer with a third eye that alluded to his interest by occultism.

The second edition of the U-TURN Project Rooms, sponsored by Mercedes Benz, was again curated by Abaseh Mirvali (currently leading the Biennial of the Americas), and opted for dialogue between twelve galleries from Argentina, Brazil, Spain, Mexico, Denmark, Switzerland, Colombia and Germany, who presented mostly young artists, with emerging international projection. Two Argentinian artists were outstanding within the set: Diego Bianchi with his sculptures that poeticize deterioration and Eduardo Basualdo with objects that explore the parallels between natural phenomena and psychological events. It was a success a full glass of water leaning precariously on a white pedestal which moved into small circular waves mimicking the physical changes caused by earthquakes. Basualdo, who sold almost all the work exhibited, participated and was represented by the gallery PSM Berlin, which contacted him last year through Mirvali. These gestures demonstrate arteBA’s ability to function as launching padfor young artists through the contacts and relationships that curators, gallery owners and artists enter into in the days that the Fair takes place.

Under theartistic stimulus program that Patio Bullrich has implemented at the Fair for five years, -and that is based in the funding on a special project from an Argentinian artist-, Muntaabski Nushi presented Glass Dreams, an installation of large format recreating three windows in which three performative situations were happening. Inspired by the old TV series The wicked dreamer, each instance requiring public participation: the main one was to awaken Muntaabski dressed in a white dress and lying in a deep sleep, and each participant was introduced in the "window" to relate his reasons for abandoning the dream and waking back to reality. The work, which was very popular throughout the Fair, inquired in the power that even today love, dreams and fantasy can have as engines of desire, and not as escaping ways.

Another sector that tends to generate buzz is Barrio Joven, sponsored by Chandon, a space offering alternative models to the traditional exhibition schemes and sale of works. With 17 selected galleries that exhibited more than 85 artists, the criteria that prevailed in this edition -as the curator Eva Grinstein explained- was to articulate the younger and more irreverent proposals with those that presented more sober projects. Among the spaces coming from the Argentinian provinces of Buenos Aires, Tucuman, Salta and Santa Fe, and international from Chile, Brazil and United States, one stand was outstanding, the stand La Favorita Herrmana (just like that, with double r), a collective of three artists from the province of Rosario -Angeles Ascua, Florencia Caterina and Matías Pepe- that explores the intersections between management, curator, visual and intellectual production, and examines the limits inherent to the exhibition and training spaces and even what is meant by "alternative". Another group of artists who came to Barrio Joven from Tucumán was the one which nucleated around Red Vine Contemporary Art. In this space, a lot of photos, paintings and drawings, placed on a tarp installed in a couple of tables - markets and village fairs style- allowed the public to “rummage around” without rush and choose his work at very reasonable prices. We cannot fail to mention the proposal of Felina Super Heroína, the group of La Plata, Buenos Aires province, who upholstered the entire stand with plush, turning it into a work of art kitsch. Though Barrio Joven never disappoints those who come to discover some novel talent, we must recognize that year after year it has been “becoming a bit bourgeois”, and has lost the self-assurance and the insolence that showed in previous editions.

In regard to the galleries we must mention the good performance and quality exhibition of Jorge Mara La Ruche (Buenos Aires) -which sold the beautiful calligraphy of Eduardo Stupia to Malba, Latin American Art Museum of Buenos Aires-, Oscar Cruz (San Pablo), which exhibited works of Hildebrand de Castro, Lucio Dorr, Michael Wesely, Martin Legon and Mariana Martin Lopez-with an installation in which his paintings hung tablecloths-mode; Zavaleta Lab (Buenos Aires), which sold the King Kong of cannabis made by Fernando Brizuela also to Malba; Nueveochenta (Bogota) whose sample included works by Matthias Duville, Luis Hernandez Mellizo and Saul Sanchez; Foster Catena (Buenos Aires), specialized in photography -Dino Bruzzone, Bruno Dubner, Ignacio Iasparra, Jorge Minho and Elisa Strada-; and Cosmocosa (Buenos Aires), who exhibited splendid works of Kenneth Kemble, besides pieces of Luis F. Benedit and photographs of Faivovich & Goldberg, -from the project that both are presenting in Documenta.

Finally, Julio Le Parc, the great master of Argentinian kinetic, based in Paris, was present in arteBA with the tribute Airports 2000 dedicated him exposing Continuel Movil NTand Lames réfléchissantes, two large format kinetic sculptures made ??in the sixties and recreated for this time under the artist’s supervision. In addition, Infinity Gallery (Buenos Aires) took the opportunity to showcase a stunning red acrylic mobile that caused a furor among the public.

Thus, the twenty-first edition of arteBA closed in the heat of debate about whether it is worthwhile for the galleries –which face high costs stands- that the Fair extends nearly a week, or if it would be better to have less mass audience and concentrate efforts on purchases that are specified in the days before the formal opening. The question hung in the air, and in the future will be seen how the tensions between private sponsors, indispensable for the realization of the Fair-, galleries and the Foundation ArteBA reach a harmonious and happy balance.