Celia Sierra and María Muñoz |
Madrid (EFE) of this 42 edition.
ARCO 2023 faces the third day this Friday with the presence of 211 galleries -66 percent international- from all over the world that offer visitors a showcase of the best and latest in contemporary art.
Picasso shrouded
The ADN Gallery (Hall 9 B16) houses “Aquí Dirió Picasso”, a hyperrealist sculpture by the genius artist signed by Eugenio Merino. The piece, with a price of 45,000 euros, criticizes the use as a tourist attraction of the painter’s image in connection with the 50th anniversary of his death. It is the piece with the most media attention of the fair.
The mask
The most expensive piece is by Chillida and has no title. The Bilbao CarrerasMugica gallery (Hall 7 B13). Made in 1998 in corten steel, it has a price of 3.7 million euros and weighs 1,500 kilos. The fair is an opportunity to see it: it comes from a private collection and if it is finally acquired, it will probably also be by a private collector, according to its gallery owners.
art at war
The Voloshyn Gallery (Hall 7 A18) in kyiv is the first gallery from Ukraine to come to Madrid with work by Ukrainian artists such as Nikita Kadán and Mykola Ridnyi. The latter denounces the conflict in paintings with slogans such as “Stop Putin” or “Decolonize Russia”, which were made during the first days of the invasion, when the gallery was turned into a bomb shelter.
Violence and haute couture
The Peter Kilchmann gallery (Hall 9 A07) brings one more year to Teresa Margollés, a fundamental name on the contemporary scene in Mexico who denounces the violence of drug trafficking. On this occasion, the piece is a haute couture dress, which combines sequins with pieces of car glass after a shooting in Sinaloa. The work was presented at the Venice Biennale.
The most quoted
Women this year do not have their own space in ARCO. Artists rarely come close to the top of the most sought-after. The Guillermo de Osma gallery (Hall 7 B19) has what is probably the most expensive piece signed by a woman, a beautiful painting from the cubist period by the painter María Blanchard for a price of 220,000 euros.
a common space
The Mediterranean is the great protagonist of ARCO 2023 (Hall 7B 16), which has chosen it as this year’s theme and has created a project that almost looks like an exhibition. Among the exhibited pieces are those by Hana Miletic, a Croatian artist who recovers Yugoslav textile techniques, passed down from generation to generation, and who offers small, medium and large format pieces.
Anniversary of Juan Munoz
This year marks the 70th anniversary of the birth of this internationally famous Spanish sculptor, and the fair has been filled with his enigmatic sculptures. David Zwirner (Hall 7 B03) and Elvira González (Hall 9 B02), bring some of his highly prized pieces, which in the case of the former cost around 800,000 euros. They are a unique opportunity to see them.
Essential Ibarrola
The José de la Mano Gallery (Hall 7 A07) hosts a project by Spanish artists around 1957 from Equipo 57 and the El Paso group. In it there are a series of sculptures -they are not for sale- that Agustín Ibarrola made in prison with his own saliva and bread crumbs that his companions provided him. Until now the family had them and they can only be seen at the fair.
“Woman and Dove” by Miró
“Femme et oiseau” (Woman and Dove), a precious burlap by Joan Miró, is also one of the most expensive at the fair: two million euros. It is located in the Mayoral gallery (Hall 7 C01), it has gone through private collections since it was painted by the Mallorcan in 1960 and it will probably return to private hands, so it is essential to see it in this edition.
women who cry
Orlan, known among other works for her “performances” of cosmetic surgery, proposes in RocioSantaCruz (Hall 7 A14), several pieces of “Crying women are angry”. The works are a twist and a review of Picasso’s recognizable paintings of Jaqueline Roque and Dora Maar in a contemporary key.
