ARCOmadrid Balances Quality Care with Ease

At 45 years old, ARCOmadrid has been active long enough that generational shifts have occurred in both the galleries that bring work to the fair and the collectors who frequent it. Director Maribel López, who has been in this position for 15 years, should know. He himself had been a gallery artist (“I wasn’t a good painter—but I was a passionate painter!”), and his experience shaped his devotion and respect for “the gallery as an institution.” When he joined ARCOmadrid in 2011, the show was facing difficult economic times. “It was difficult to convince the galleries to come to Spain,” he told the Observer. “That has changed a lot over the years.”

In 2015-16 the Spanish economy was better and things started to change. “As always, we have not changed the tone of what is important to us. We have never chased blue-chip galleries… Sometimes they want to come, sometimes they don’t. We don’t chase them because, for me, that changes the ecosystem a lot. ARCO is a fair where people come to discover new artists, to find interesting pieces but not at high prices.”

At its latest edition, held March 4-8 with 211 exhibitors from 30 countries, there were no signs of a midlife crisis. The goal, according to López, is “business sustainability over profit” because ARCOmadrid feeds the Fundación ARCO, which promotes the collection, research of contemporary art and the publication of artistic styles and techniques. Founded in 1987, the foundation’s collection includes pieces by Ryan Gander, Beatriz González, Carlos Motta, Oscar Muñoz, Adam Pendleton, Laure Prouvost and Danh Vo.

ARCOmadrid continues to operate as a Latin American focus in Europe. Participation in this year’s exhibition was 34 percent Spanish and 66 percent international, in addition to 31 percent of international galleries from 11 Latin American countries located in Brazil and Argentina. López noted that Madrid without ARCO is “more alive” not only institutionally but also because galleries from Latin America are opening second locations in the area and Latin American collectors are infusing the scene with new energy.

The Madrid gallery Memoria was appearing in an exhibition of this kind for the first time. “If you’re not at ARCO, you’re not doing anything,” said gallery employee Maria González. He and his colleague Amalia Pascua were both sporting red stickers that read “Cultural VAT now” in Spanish to show their loyalty to the strike that took place during the show. (The Spanish government presented the possibility of VAT reform in 2024 but did not do it. In comparison, France, Germany and Italy have all implemented VAT reforms.) Pascua said it caused “a sense of community within the galleries; we have the same goal, we are fighting for the same strategy.” It’s important to democratize art and “it’s bad for artists and galleries, so we oppose that,” added González.

The stand featured a six-meter-long canvas by Spanish-born Chilean artist Roser Bru—a gallery work with a record high of €45,000—which was imported from Chile and mounted on a wooden structure. “We’ve taken the curation out of this,” Pascua noted. The work refers to Pablo Neruda’s epic poem (“Spain In Our Hearts”) and reused Robert Capa’s image of the fallen soldier. Memoria’s project space was dedicated to Terry Holiday, a trans woman in her 70s (twice the life expectancy of a trans woman in Mexico). The premise of the project is “to honor his life and the struggles he had, but also the way of happiness he brings… he empowers himself and resists all those who can and cannot, and tells the story of his friends… because he has a voice,” Pascua commented.

Although it was a small space, Memoria was not part of the new ARCOmadrid gallery curated by Rafa Barber and Anissa Touati, showing exhibitions that have been running for less than eight years. This section included booths from emerging venues in Athens, Istanbul, Tbilisi, Ljubljana and Cape Town, as well as the exo exo gallery from Paris, which exhibited Ash Love—with a work on view at the Casa de Velázquez, a French institution based in Madrid for almost a century. “In that context, we thought it would be interesting to show their work in view of this residence,” commented the artist Elisa Rigoulet. It was the first time that a French gallery had participated in ARCOmadrid—although it had shown Ash Love at Art Basel Paris in October—and it felt like a successful installation. “Sometimes shows can be slow; this is powerful,” said Rigoulet.

One Ash Love piece—an acrylic box filled with pressed Mylar balloons and party dust, like Arman was a raver—sold on the VIP day for €2500, as did an oil on linen painting by Yann Stéphane Bisso for €3000. Another young gallery, New York’s Gratin led by Madrid-born gallerist Andrea Torriglia, showed the work of 28-year-old self-taught German artist Max Jahn, who paints himself in bronze portraits in a nod to the tradition of the Old Masters. Gratin’s booth, with works ranging from $12,000-$22,000, was sold during a VIP day at institutions and European art collections.

Among the experienced fair participants was Chantal Crousel from Paris. Niklas Svennung, Crousel’s son and gallery director, confirmed that his mother first came to ARCOmadrid in 1980. The gallery participates in nine art exhibitions every year, and Svennung feels that “ARCO has cultivated a great generosity and seems to be a true alternative to the other ways of using art that we think AR is always able to navigate. to be ambitious, but to be very human and friendly at the same time.” He stated the philosophy of the exhibition as “people who like another way, let’s say, the Anglo-Saxon way of doing the art business” and appreciates that “every year, it seems… more healthy, intellectually speaking.”

The gallery put on a group show, with Anri Sala’s work being the most affordable at €25,000 and José María Sicilia the most expensive at €90,000. Sicilia, a gallery he has worked with for more than 40 years, has an exhibition of simple pieces and ornate folding screens at Madrid’s Palacio de Liria, a private neoclassical home and heritage. There was also work in the booth of Wolfgang Tillmans, visiting professor at Beaux-arts de Paris and pieces made in 2025 by Rirkrit Tiravanija, Abraham Cruzvillegas and Gabriel Orozco.

Madrid- and Seville-based Galería Rafael Ortiz, which has participated in the exhibition since 1986, brought silver gelatin prints by Graciela Iturbide (sold on the VIP day), light gouches on Equipo 57 paper, geometric acrylics and textile sculpture by Manuel Barbadillo and Carmen’s lead media sculpt made of wood, iron and steel. Jobs in this booth ranged from €2000-€95,000. There was also a special work dedicated to Curro González because, says gallery artist Rosalía Ortiz, he shows “just two [works] with one artist makes it really difficult for visitors to understand a certain work.” González’s paintings on canvas were so densely lined that they appeared to have been done with a pen, alongside unique polychrome ceramics and ink drawings on paper, serving as a kind of “mini exhibition.”

Nächst St. Stephan from the Vienna booth leans “low and invisible,” notes illustrator Rosemarie Schwarzwälder, another veteran who has been involved since the 1980s and worked on ARCOmadrid’s selection committee for seven years. He said “this art exhibition is always a platform [through which] people come together. Either you meet artists or you meet collectors or you meet friends like this, and you get to know another culture.” He was showing Katharina Grosse, with whom he has worked for more than 25 years, a painting valued at 265,000 euros, and a small textile work by Sheila Hicks for 48,000 euros. There were also pieces by Czechoslovak-born Luisa Kasalicky—“a great talent in her own special language”—and Jongsuk Yoon—“a budding…

Finally, the vibe this past weekend at the IFEMA conference center was positive. As Chantal Crousel’s Svennung put it: “it’s a complicated time, but ARCO and an art exhibition like this one are able to give a sense of community and high thinking and exchange and tolerance that is important to have at any price today.”

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