MADRID.- Within the framework of Semana Naranja, or Orange Week, organised by the Embassy of the Netherlands, at IED Madrid IFEMA presented the participation of the Netherlands as its Special Guest at the 31st ARCOmadrid, International Contemporary Art Fair, to be held from 15th to 19th February 2012 at Feria de Madrid.

At the presentation, Luis Eduardo Cortés, Executive President of IFEMA, accompanied by Peter van Wulfften Palthe, Ambassador of the Netherlands in Spain; Fermín Lucas, General Director of IFEMA; and Carlos Urroz, Director of ARCOmadrid, underscored the country’s outstanding infrastructure in the arts, its dynamism and creative diversity, as well as the active collaboration of the Mondriaan Foundation and the Embassy of the Netherlands , as core factors in its choice of special guest, together with the goal of consolidating and attracting new Dutch galleries to the art fair.

With this programme, including the presence of galleries at the fair as well as various exhibitions in Madrid and participation in the Experts Forum, ARCOmadrid_2012 will give art world professionals visiting the fair a better insight into the art market in the Netherlands, one of the main centres in Europe for the happening art of today, and will provide an overview of the most important aspects of collecting, curators and critics in the Netherlands.

The programme, this year adding some new features, will, on one hand, feature a selection of 12 Dutch galleries which, similarly to the recent edition, will be seamlessly integrated into the fair’s General Programme to better facilitate exchange and contacts between art professionals at the fair. The selection of galleries has been commissioned to Xander Karskens, current head of the collection and curator of the contemporary art programme at De Hallen Haarlem Museum.

On the other hand, the Mondriaan Foundation will be actively collaborating in the programme with the construction and architectural design of a Dutch Pavilion at the fair to showcase the art scene in the Netherlands , with the organisation of roundtables, screenings, meetings and publications produced by the country’s public contemporary art institutions. A new feature this year is the participation of a Spanish curator, to be chosen shortly, who will work alongside the Foundation in the selection of the various contents of the programme for this space at ARCOmadrid.

Furthermore, with the purpose of promoting greater exchange, one of the core goals of the art fair’s Guest Country programme, the Mondriaan Foundation will invite the directors of the main institutions from Madrid during the month of July, to give them a first-hand insight into what is currently happening artwise in the Netherlands, with its art centres and its artists as the central axis of the country’s creative art scene, with the goal of choosing artists to take part in ARCOmadrid’s fringe programme to be organised in some of Madrid’s main museums and cultural centres.

Quality, ARCOmadrid_2012’s no. 1 priority
Following the highly positive response to the initiatives organised at the fair’s recent edition, such as the greater emphasis on quality of the galleries and the artworks presented, and the engagement with collecting, for its upcoming 2012 edition ARCOmadrid has defined a similar line of action, albeit introducing certain changes in its programme.

In this regard, quality will still be the fair’s number one priority, and to this end, besides evaluating the programmes put forward by applicant galleries with great care, there will also be a number of new features and changes which, at once, respond to recommendations and suggestions from agents taking part at the fair.

One of the measures adopted is the reduction of the minimum stand size to 40 square metres , though introducing the criterion of limiting the number of artists on show in function to the size of the stand. As such, stands measuring from 40 to 49 m2 , can exhibit work by a maximum of 4 artists; stands from 50 to 59 m2 , 5 artists, and stands over 60 m² may exhibit any number of artists. With this decision, the former ARCO 40 programme will disappear as a separate subsection, making way for this new layout.

At the same time, and with a view to differentiating itself from other art fairs, ARCOmadrid_2012 is presenting a new proposal aimed at underscoring one artist per stand. The idea is to provide galleries with an incentive to make a special presentation of one of the artists on its roster, without the need to have a “solo show”. In this regard, ARCOmadrid will then provide special coverage of these artists in its communication campaign, as well as in the fair’s catalogue and in other promotional supports.

With regards the curated programmes, these will continue as usual at the fair with the mission to provide an overview of new proposals from galleries and from artists. In this sense, the OPENING Programme will be repeating the same format as the recent edition, once again focusing on young European galleries which have been open for less that seven years.

Looking at SOLO PROJECTS, once again focused on Latin America, a new feature of the programme for 2012 is to open it up to the participation of galleries wishing to present an interesting project from an artist from Latin America . In this way, the participation will no longer be exclusively by invitation from the curator, and is now open to all interested galleries, with the fair’s committee making the final selection of the most interesting proposals. Once again, this programme will reinforce exchange between Latin America and Europe , with professional meetings between museum directors, critics and curators.

Following this same line, ARCOmadrid’s activities are geared towards fostering the visit of leading collectors and critics to the fair. Both the guest collectors programme and initiatives like First Collectors or invitations to leading art consultants, will be combined with roundtables on collecting, coordinated again by Rosa Martínez, and with the Professional Meetings. These meetings, introduced for the first time in the recent 2011 edition, are instrumental in encouraging an exchange of ideas between active agents in the art world, as well as attracting around one hundred critics and curators whose presence was judged very positively by exhibiting galleries.

In short, ARCOmadrid_2012, with the presence of the Netherlands as the fair’s special guest, will once again turn Madrid into a meeting place for the contemporary art world during the month of February, and will help consolidate the city as one of Europe ’s cultural capitals.