ARCO Madrid 2009 international art fair news round-up – galleries drop out, public funding prop, Indian art

INTERNATIONAL ART FAIRS

ARCO Madrid, one of the largest and most important international art fairs holds its 28th edition from 11 February to 16 February 2009  in a new location:  Halls 6, 8 & 10 at Feria de Madrid, Spain. 238 galleries from 32 countries are participating.

Financial downturn hits art world – BBC – 16 Feb 209 – video clip – An insubstantial very brief video story about how the crisis is affecting the art fair: some artists are using the crisis as inspiration for their art: interview with art fair director Lourdes Fernandez who says it is more difficult for some dealers this year.

Dealers reported mixed results at Spain’s monster contemporary art fair Arco – Financial Times – 14 Feb 2009 – Georgina Adam reports that Spanish museums budgets have melted and prices of artworks have been reduced. Artists attracting interest/buyers included Georg Baselitz, Amaya Gonzalez Reyes, Eugenio Merino’s take off of Damien Hirst ‘For The Love of Gold’.

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Arco Beep New Media Art Award  – We Make Money Not Art  – 13 Feb 2009 – Post written by a member of the jury about the award, the entries and the winner. The award was won by Ubermorgen.com for its EKMRZ Trilogy, a fascinating triptych about the three kings of ecommerce Google, Amazon and ebay. The Google art work ‘Google will eat itself’ involves the artists raising money with google text ads and using the money to buy Google shares.

Panorama India Artslant provides a list of artists and galleries from India, Arco’s special guest country 2009.

Tatsumi Orimoto performs Punishment at Arco 2009 video – Vernissage TV

Hirst statue stars at Madrid show as dealers aim to defy slump – Bloomberg – 13 Feb 2009 – A Florida collector bought Merino’s sculpture of Hirst committing suicide “Hirst is always trying to think of ways to make his art the most expensive. If he killed himself, then the value of his art would increase a lot.” Despite India being guest country only 13 galleries from there. US galleries dropped from 26 last year to 7 this year. Plenty of bargains. Russian GMG Gallery sold 2 photographs by Anatoly Zhuravlev to a prominent Swiss collector of Chinese art.

Image carousel – Telegraph – 19 images of artists: Isaac Montoya, Filomena Soares, Jose Batista Marques, Enrique Marty, Madeleine Berkhemer, Vivek Vilasini  (India), Jitish Kallat (India), Valay Shende, Eugenio Merino, Yi Hwan-Kon, Samuel Salcedo, Bernardi Roig.

Indian art draws Europeans – IANS via Zee News – 13 Feb 2009 – New trend in Indian art away from works on canvas towards installation and new media apparent in gallery shows and  Panorama, the show of Indian art curated by Bose Krishnamachari. Dayanita Singh in solo show, Shilpa Gupta work finds European buyer.

Gloom at major European art fair as boom in sales seen over  – AFP  – 12 Feb 2009 – This is a prediction story about the mood prior to the event. Galleries predict  limited cash, prices down 25% for contemporary art, buyers will take time over purchases. Artist view: lower prices an opportunity for young. Includes image carousel.

Arco Madrid 2009 opens – calm forecast  – Art Daily – 12 Feb 2009 – This is a facts piece with a promotional tone. It covers details of the move to the new location and the fair’s programmes and projects: India is showcased, three curated shows cover performance art, contemporary art and technology in art, there is a list of talk forums by experts and a description of the section showcasing capsule collections from private museums.

Recession triggers improvement in Indian art quality– SindhToday via IANS – 11 February 2009 – This is a views piece about how the collector base for Indian art is changing and broadening particularly in Europe and is based on interviews with Bose Krishnamachari curator of the special Indian Panorama section and Peter Nagy of Nature Morte, an exhibitor.

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Galleries drop out of ARCO– Artinfo – 5 Feb 2009 – Edited version of Der Standard story below.

ARCO hit by crisis– Artforum via APAvia Der Standard – 3 Feb 2009 – 20 galleries of 270 cancelled – dropouts include 2 from South America, one from Spain and Lisson Gallery London. Portugese Ministry of Culture provided funding to prevent more.

Related links: ARCO website

Related posts:

• Which are the top 10 international contemporary art fairs?Artprice Jan 2009
• Asian art fair in New York cancelled Dec 2008
• New art fair in London to focus on Russian collectors  FT Nov 2008

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Indian contemporary art reaches a new stage of development

TV Santosh

INDIAN ART SHOW

Signs Taken For Wonders: Recent Art from India and Pakistan to January 31 2009

Indian contemporary art is reaching a new audience with large-scale museum surveys such as ‘Indian Highway’ at London’s Serpentine Gallery and ‘Chalo! India: A New Era of Indian Art’ at Japan’s Mori Art Museum. As the Aicon Gallery Signs Taken For Wonders show press release points out, this is a ‘pivotal moment’  when international curators, writers and galleries articulate how, which and whether Indian artists will become part of international art history.

Compared with art scenes in other locations, this new exposure to rigorous and objective criticism is all the more significant for contemporary Indian art which lacks its own museum and curatorial infrastructure. And unlike other emerging Asian markets such as China, there is a limited history of patronage, collecting and connoisseurship. This fascinating cusp for Indian art marks an unusual opportunity for collectors, critics and connoisseurs around the world to assess and shape a response.

Justin Ponmany Salt Friends

 

The Financial Times says that the two London exhibitions, the Serpentine Gallery’s Indian Highway and Aicon’s Signs Taken for Wonders, are the UK’s most ambitious attempts yet to distil coherence into the chaotic rush of art emerging from the Indian subcontinent.

While some of the artists are in both this show and at the Serpentine (MF Husain, Raqs Media Collective) it is worth visiting both shows which together cover many of the emerging names. At Aicon you will see some of the auction favourites  (TV Santosh and Justin Ponmany) as well as up and coming Pakistani art which is absent at the Serpentine . (Aicon Gallery for more images). Visit the Serpentine to see female artists  and video work. These were both given a smidge of approval in a generally bleak review by The Independent.

I thought Nalini Malani had something, painting flights of female figures on clear acrylic panes, where swirling smears of pigment get transformed into snaking bodies – The Independent) and  Kiran Subbaiah’s brief video, Flight Rehearsals, about an introverted young man climbing the walls of his bedroom, was tight and funny.

More positive reviews are linked below.

Artists included in the Aicon show include MF Husain, Adeela Suleman, Amjad Ali Talpur, Atul Bhalla, Bose Krishnamachari, Chintan Upadyay, GR Iranna, Justin Ponmany, Muhammed Zeeshan, Raqs Media Collective, Riyas Komu, Sajal Sarkar, Shibu Natesan, Talha Rathore, TV Santosh and Vivek Vilasini.

Related:

• More reviews: Financial Times on Serpentine and Aicon, Bloomberg, Independent, Standard
• More on Chalo India at Mori Japan, Indian artists, reports from London, events on now, museum surveys
• Devi Museum of Indian art ground-breaking first September 2008 post

What do you think about Indian contemporary art? Take part in the discourse, leave your comments below.

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