Madrid (EFE) sales boosted by an “exceptional” offer.
The director of the fair, Maribel López, explained that “the contents of the fair have been exceptional, the efforts of the galleries have been incredible, the projects are designed for each stand.”
The visitor numbers exceed 93,000 in 2020, with which, in his opinion, “we are back to real normality” after the pandemic.
The director’s statements are in line with those of the gallery owners, who have perceived a rise in international visitors and a large influx of professional public, some 38,000, but also new collectors.
ARCO 2023 has brought together some 400 international collectors, who are paid for hotel and travel, a record for the fair.
sales year
Íñigo Navarro, from the Leandro Navarro gallery, noted the increase in the number of international collectors, although he did not sell the most expensive pieces he brought, a Juan Gris and a Miró, both for over a million euros.
In the Malborough Gallery they did not sell their most expensive piece either, a Chirino that exceeds half a million, but they assure that the fair also serves to give visibility to this type of offers and they noticed an increase in Latin American collectors.
Guillermo de Osma told EFE that the most expensive pieces are not the ones that are most often sold at this type of event: “We are not in a fashionable world, it is normal for sales to take time to close.”
visibility of women
On the first day of the fair, which began last Wednesday, the Association of Women Artists put on a “performance” to denounce the low presence of artists at the fair and demand more specific measures to give them visibility.
In 2021 and 2022, the fair already allocated “Artist Projects” to women, a series of spaces distributed by ARCO with special or more complex proposals.
“This year of the twenty spaces, fifteen have been for women, so the number has been positive. It is a gesture that we had made these two years to explain that importance. We will be vigilant in case it is necessary to do so in the future, it is important that we do not lose that perspective”, said the director.
Institutional purchases
Institutions such as the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid come to the fair every year to buy works and this year the Ministry of Culture of Spain granted this art center 400,000 euros, with which it bought works by established and young artists.
Pieces were also acquired by the Aldo Rubino Foundation for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Buenos Aires or the Francesca Thyssen Foundation for TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary in Madrid.
The ARCO Foundation acquired ten works by artists from different countries, eight of them women, since “there is an exercise in the fair to give them visibility,” according to the director.
In this edition, the International Contemporary Art Fair had four curated sections, including the Mediterranean, as the main theme, and the participation of 211 galleries from 36 countries.