ARCOmadrid is going to great lengths its guests: art-interested visitors can expect 158 galleries from 30 countries. Plus another 58 galleries in curated shows such as Opening – Young European Galleries or Focus the Netherlands. For the latter, individual gallery and parallel museum exhibitions will focus attention on art in the Netherlands, this year`s special guest at ARCOmadrid. The Solo Projects
underscore Madrid`s traditionally close links with the Latin American art scene. A new feature in 2012 is the initiative called featured artist, which will introduce one artist per stand in greater detail. Also new are the Solo Objects, presentations of large sculptures interspersed between the pavilions.
Furthermore, for the tenth time, the fair is extending an invitation to the Forum of Experts, for museum directors and exhibition curators; this year, the hosts include, among others, Marc-Olivier Wahler, Director of the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, Hans Ulrich Obrist of the Serpentine Gallery in London and Bartomeu Marí, Director of the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Barcelona (MACBA). Mattos Araujo, Director of the Pinacoteca in Sao Paulo, will organise meetings between European and Latin American museum people. The new programme entitled After Arco, with music, film shows and parties, indicates that Madrid will also be creative in the evening after the fair.
The contemporary Latin American artists were selected by a team of six curators, including the Mexican Patrick Charpenel, head of the important Jumex Collection in Mexico City and advisor on Latin American art to the Centre Pompidou. In the Lisbon gallery Graca Brandao the viewer can take a closer look at the concrete to neo-concrete work of Brazilian artist Lygia Pape, who should be mentioned in the same breath as Helio Oiticica and Lygia Clark.
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