C108
Review
Madrid:
ARCO
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Alexandros Psychoulis: from Body
milk 2003; courtesy Zina Athanassiadou Art Gallery,
Thessaloniki
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In an increasingly globalised world,
where certain concepts, techniques and poses appear to
be de rigueur for artists working today, it is dangerously
easy for an art fair on the scale of ARCO
to become just a blur. A trip round the more than 275
stands of the galleries, museums, publishers and designer
'chill-outs' which make up ARCO can be an exhausting and
at times less than stimulating experience, not helped
by the infamous dry and dusty grey carpet.
ARCO has changed considerably
since its early years when, propelled by Juana de Aizpuru,
it was established to stimulate dialogue and debate and
more specifically collecting in Spain. It has grown in
scale and ambition, with ever larger and slicker stands,
a broad range of parallel activities such as the 2nd
International Contemporary Art Experts Forum ARCO '04,
The Written Word, Futuribles and Madrid
Abierto, but it is evident that commerce now comes
before dialogue and debate. Far from being a local affair,
at ARCO this year there were only ninety Spanish
galleries, the rest being drawn from as far afield as
Mali, Somalia, Australia and Japan. Many of the larger
American and UK galleries who participate in Art Basel
were missed, but otherwise ARCO happily competes
with fairs such as Art Cologne; with high-profile
international names; Louise Bourgeois, Tony Cragg, Tony
Ousler, Julian Opie, etc., and a series of project rooms
dedicated to younger emerging artists and galleries. This
at times creates a feeling of déjà vu, made more extreme
with certain galleries presenting the same stands as they
had in Art Cologne. However, unlike in Art Cologne,
where sales had been sluggish, in ARCO a plethora
of red dots and comments from gallerists implied that
sales this year were more than buoyant.
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Alexandros Psychoulis: from Body
milk 2003; courtesy Zina Athanassiadou Art Gallery,
Thessaloniki
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A general ignorance of Greek contemporary
art aroused great expectations to see what the curators,
Katerina Gregos (Director, 1998-2002, of Deste Foundation,
Athens) and Sania Papa (Director of the Contemporary Art
Centre, Thessaloniki), would select to represent Greece,
the country invited to ARCO this year. Their selection
focused on fifteen galleries, from Athens and Salonika,
which they felt to be the most actively involved in the
current development of contemporary art in Greece. Yet
there was little evidence of a local syntax, more a conscious
denial of their classical heritage, except perhaps ironically
in Angelous Papadmimitriou's (Nees Morfes Gallery) My
Daphnae 2000-3. Generally the work focused on issues
and topics by now common fodder within the international
scene, with exceptions being the photographic works of
Nikris Navridis (Bernier / Eliades), the Body milk
pieces of Alexandros Psychoulis (Zina Athanassiadou Art
Gallery) and Nikos Charalambidis' Therapeutic architecture
(Nees Morfes Gallery).
The issue of selecting work according
to nationality also arose with the Futuribles a.k.a.
Up & Coming section, with twenty-two curators
selecting work within five categories; The Americas,
Nordic Countries, Fragments of Africa, Complex
Projects II, Crossroads and Asian. A
motley presentation with its ups and downs, but in its
favour, it does bring to ARCO galleries
such as Beijing Arts Project (China and Japan) or Alcuadrado
(Colombia) for whom access otherwise would be prohibitive.
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Alexandros Psychoulis: from Body
milk 2003; courtesy Zina Athanassiadou Art Gallery,
Thessaloniki
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What was clear was that this ARCO
was the year of the digital; from the manipulated
portraits of Michael Najar, to Michael Rees' software
programs, both at Bitforms Gallery, USA, and to popular
acclaim, the 50-cents-a-shot Galería de tiro ('Shooting
gallery') of the collective El Perro, where visitors fired
digital paint splashes at ARCO visitors. Most conspicuously,
however, for the endless happy snapping of the digital
cameras of the more than 200,000 visitors who preferred
to take home their own catalogue of reproductions in the
form of a digital chip; a lighter option than the heavyweight
two-volume, forty-euro official ARCO catalogue.
Jo Milne is a visual artist,
based in Edinburgh and Barcelona.
ARCO 04, Madrid, 12
- 16 February, 2004
