MADRID.- One more year, Art Madrid reinforces its position as one of the most outstanding contemporary art fairs in the Art Week, closing its fourteenth edition with very positive results: more than 20,000 people visited the fair and the vast majority of the participating gallerists claim that they are very satisfied with the sales balance made during the five days celebration.

This edition, the fair has once again surpassed the numbers of visitors being, in the general public’s opinion, one of the most welcoming, close and pleasant fairs in its route. Furthermore, this edition has achieved excellent impressions on behalf of the professional sector, outlining this year for having a greater role in national and international media. Secondly, the Activities Program also stood out for receiving great acceptance from the general audience and an excellent review from the professional sector. This year the program was dedicated to video art, it was curated by Mario Gutiérrez Cru, director of the Proyector Video Art Festival and held at CaixaForum Madrid and Sala Alcalá 31.

In general, the media has highlighted the new and more qualitative selection criteria of both the Committee and gallerists, presenting strictly contemporary selections and leaving behind the so-called “secondary market”. Furthermore, in this edition, all current artistic disciplines have been accommodated, from painting, sculpture, photography, video art to the more hybrid disciplines also including living arts such as performance. The most outstanding reviews have been associated, on the one hand, with the new One Project program, curated by Nerea Ubieto; and on the other hand, with the Copying Claudia performance by the artist Pachi Santiago (Zielinsky Gallery). Undoubtedly, critics have also especially celebrated the new media installation within the series Repúblicas Mínimas by the Guest Artist, Rubén Martín de Lucas.

As the critic and curator Alfonso de la Torre, member of the Art Madrid Committee, explains, the fair “has come of age”, highlighting “the quality of the galleries selection” that this year have been exhibited “with greater clarification of the space, which has allowed a better reading and appreciation of the works”. Likewise, De la Torre states that the fair “has become a space of inclusive essence, allowing access to diverse audiences, especially the youngest viewer, outlining the existence of emerging artists and, together, new collectors who have adopted the collector’s passion. Innovative proposals and rigour, without excluding emotion, why not, they have proven to be foundings for the ideas of a renewed Art Madrid”.

HIGHLIGHTS: THE GALLERISTS MAKE BALANCE
The fair has generated a high volume of sales and the vast majority of gallerists are very satisfied with the sales balance made. In general, the increase in the presence of private and institutional collectors is worth pointing out, from local and regional entities to international entities. Also, professionals from the Public sector have visited the fair; in charge of cultural institutions, museums or art centres such as the Ministry of Culture, MUSAC, IVAM, MARCO, ARTIUM, CA2M, CEART or the Picasso Museum; specialists and academics from national universities such as the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid or the Universidad de Nebrija; as well as representatives of private collections such as Iberdrola, Repsol, Iberia, Mercedes-Benz and Inelcom have toured the art show.

The assistant gallery Mariana Rey, directed by Marita Segovia (Madrid), comments that “the experience has been positive, highlighting the sales of the Edgar Plans’ paintings and the Pilar Pequeño’s photographs”. Pablo Moure, gallerist of the space directed by Nuria Blanco, Moret Art (A Coruña), explains that “the balance has been very positive. The fair has worked very well, there has been a lot of public and, as a novelty, there have been many young people who have been encouraged to buy art, and many of them have been really excited with their new works. We have exhibited a very Galician and multidisciplinary proposal and the audience liked it a lot. In sales, Lino Lago’s works stood out, but we have also sold pieces of the rest of the artists: Xurxo Gómez-Chao, Iván Prieto, Miguel Piñeiro and Daniel Sueiras.

The gallerist and director Bea Villamarín (Gijón), says that, although she lacks the finalization of sales of large format sculpture works, they are “very happy because the audience has responded very well in relation to the Carlos Tárdez’s work as well as the pictorial proposal of the rest of the artists, especially with the work by Patricia Escutia, who is not only the artist who has sold the most but for whom they have asked us the most”.

Also, one of the gallerists especially satisfied was Víctor Lope (Barcelona), whose selection integrated by the works of Patrik Grijalvo, Kepa Garraza, Jacinto Moros and Dirk Salz, together with the solo show of Alejandra Atarés in the One Project program, have been acquired both by private collectors and by collectors of large foundations. In addition, the gallery owner Víctor Lope is grateful to have been highlighted and awarded as one of the two best booths of this edition. In Miquel Alzueta’s booth (Barcelona) the works by Jordi Alcaraz, Hugo Alonso and Andrea Torres Balaguer were very successful; in Hispánica Contemporánea’s booth (Madrid-Mexico City) the sales of works by Mel Bochner, Hugo Fontanela, Mr. Brainwash or Manolo Valdés stood out; while in 3 Punts’ booth (Barcelona) the sales of works by Alejandro Monge, Samuel Salcedo, Ramon Surinyac and Okuda San Miguel stood out. Also, national exhibitors such as Aurora Vigil-Escalera (Gijón), Zielinsky (Barcelona), DDR Art Gallery (Madrid), About Art (Lugo) or Alberto Cornejo BAT (Madrid), together with foreign exhibitors such as Paulo Nunes-Arte Contemporânea (Vila Franca de Xira, Portugal), Schmalfuss (Berlin) or Yiri Arts (Taipei, Taiwan), made a positive balance.

Director and gallerist Aurora Vigil-Escalera highlights the sales of the artists Gorka García, Ismael Lagares, Herminio and Pablo Armesto, “although it has been a somewhat slower fair, the final result for your gallery has been positive and the audience has been very interested in the proposals that we have brought to Art Madrid, riskier in this edition. On the other hand, the media promotion of the artists’ works has been very positive”. As Vigil-Escalera the Yiri Arts gallery, directed by Orton Huang, has been participating in Art Madrid for years. The director comments that “our artists are already and much better known by the wider audience; this edition we decided to create a more intense dialogue between the Taiwanese and the Spanish artists, including multiple connections between them: two women [Chen Yun and Mònica Subidé] and two men [Guim Tió and Lai Wei-Yu]”. Also, the gallery director commented that “Guim Tió’s works were the most sold”, as well as expressing that the gallery team were delighted with the new edition of Art Madrid.

David Delgado Ruiz, director of the online gallery DDR Art Gallery, one of the first-time participating galleries within the One Project program, recognizes that, although there are some deals to be completed in the coming days, the balance is good and he noted that the work by Virginia Rivas was very well received: “the reception has been excellent, as much on the part of the specialized critic and the collectors, as on the part of the general public”. Likewise, María Díaz, director of the About Art Gallery that presented the work by Nuria Mora, stands out the value and relevance of One Project: a very interesting program in which you risk but with which you can evolve and grow professionally. The galleries Cornión (Gijón) and Kur Art Gallery (San Sebastián) also were first-time participating galleries in Art Madrid’19. Kur Art Gallery, directed by Juanma Arriaga, featured in its booth a specialized selection in geometric abstraction and exclusively by Basque creators. Precisely, Kur team has highlighted the many congratulations that they received for the display and the proposal they exhibited in Art Madrid. On the other hand, Elsa Fernández, gallerist of Cornión, comments that although “we had not been in fairs for a long time, so we lost some contact with some clients and we are working to resume those relationships, we are happy with our participation. There has been a lot of interest, the artists we presented [Miguel Galano, Javier Victorero and Amancio] liked a lot, and to take a real balance we must bear in mind that there is always a post-show in which you can close what was left in the air”.

Art Madrid, in addition to showing a unique showcase of contemporary creation and promoting the contemporary art collecting, is a space in which artists, gallerists, curators, critics and other cultural agents create new relationships, propose future collaborations or commission upcoming works. And, although the show has concluded, the work of Art Madrid team continues the rest of the year in its digital version, through communication and the online shopping platform Art Madrid Market.