ArteBA' 09. 18th Contemporary Art Fair

ArteBA, the contemporary art gallery fair held last May at the grounds of La Rural, Buenos Aires, looked very professional and presented the work of 800 artists from 80 galleries, 20 percent of them from abroad. This fair has a strong cultural connotation because, with its concentration of galleries and sponsors who contribute ideas and funds to the circuit, it promotes today¿s art and facilitates the expansion of its visitors¿ visual horizon. While the organizers ¿ the arteBA Foundation ¿ had no trouble communicating the number of visitors, which reached 125,000 in five days, it is difficult to do an assessment of the sales obtained, and not only because there is such a thing as the post-fair, but also because very few among the interested parties like to speak of the amounts that changed hands. Also, it is known that at any rate prices are negotiated, taking into account many factors, including discounts. This being the case, it is surmised that the work of the newest names and those of lesser value sold very well, and that those by established figures remained with the galleries or moved only slowly. For example, the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (MNBA) announced it was to acquire Pesadilla de los injustos (3 x 4 m., 1961) one of the first paintings in Antonio Berni¿s Juanito Laguna series. Hanging at Sur, a Uruguayan gallery located in Montevideo and Punta del Este, this painting had an asking price of one million dollars, but if the museum acquires it, the artist¿s daughter is willing to reduce the price in half. The public is normally delighted to participate and enjoyed both Marta Minujín¿s Galería blanda ¿ entering into the reconstruction with 180 mattresses of her 1973 ambient work in collaboration with Richard Squires ¿ and Argentina¿s Eduardo Costa Duchamp/Costa bicycles ¿with their modified but usable wheels, in tribute to Marcel Duchamp ¿ in the space next to Caracas¿ Henrique Faría gallery. There was considerable corporate and institutional presence, such as the tribute to three Masters by the Buenos Aires government: Rómulo Macció, Alejandro Puente and Luis Felipe Noé, the latter the country¿s representative at the Venice Biennale. A significant event was the presentation of the Chile Triennial, devoted to ¿explore the frontiers of art,¿ along with the presence of seven Chilean galleries like AFA and Animal, among others. The Chile Triennial is one of the projects with which that country celebrates its Bicentennial as a Republic, between October and December, 2009. The general curator is Ticio Escobar, Paraguay¿s current Minister of Culture, who declared that ¿Chile possesses the configuration of a frontier and its own erect disposition; it allows one to work on different sceneries by segmenting its map into three horizontal bands.¿ In another notable example of cross-pollination, one of Argentina¿s most significant art awards is funded by a Brazilian concern, which selects eight finalists (in this case, from among 400 projects submitted) and finances the projects that are then exhibited at arteBA, once the awards are announced. Tomás Espina received the important ArteBA-Petrobras Visual Arts Award for his moving work (Habitación quemada) la furia de Léucade, which continues his series of works using gunpowder; what was lost, what was immolated in that life-sized room that seemed burned down? Leandro Tartaglia was given Second Prize for the installation Todos los días, which uses the mass-media and the public. Finally, the newest galleries, including two from Mexico and two from Chile, shared the highly vibrant Barrio Joven Chandon, where several artists painted a lively mural, and demonstrated that there aren¿t that many differences in the images of the young in this global world. ArtNexus, as always, was present with a booth in the area devoted to publications.