Occupying the newly redesigned Feria de Madrid convention pavilion this week is Madrid’s annual International Contemporary Arts Fair, ARCO08. Expansions to this year’s program include all new allotments for performance art, media art, and works completed in the past three years. ARCO08 marks the ascent of Spain as an emerging artistic and culture center (akin to London and Paris). However, the belle of the ball this year is special guest country Brazil. From February 13th to the 18th, thirty two galleries comprise the collection of Brazil’s most prominent up and coming artists, immersing the once old world empire with new flavor.
Vik Muniz (Photographer), Eduardo Kac (Electronic Artist), Rosângela Rennó and Leonora de Barros (Video Artist) are amongst the artists chosen by curators, Moacir dos Anjos (Director of Aloisio Magalhaes Modern Art Museum) and Paulo Sérgio Duarte, to represent a new global discourse on Brazilian art. Anjos and Duarte hope that Brazil’s presence in ARCO08 will redefine the narrow international view of Brazilian culture and art.
According to Anjos, Brazilian artist are highly influenced by “ambiguity in belonging.” Instead of clinging to a national identity, the artists of yesteryear were more likely to identify with artists unified by mutual influences rather than mutual lineage. The dichotomy resulting from the cultural consistencies present in Brazilian art and the outside influences drawn upon by past artist comprises the foundation for Brazil’s contemporary art scene.
“Through the use of memories, materials and procedures firmly rooted in their real or imagined experience of a place of presumed origin – though rarely availing themselves of direct iconographic citations – visual artists from Brazil have been bestowing new meaning on ancient ways of living and of making and inscribed them in a sphere where they were previously rejected or relegated to a subordinate status.”
The exhibit will be complimented by film presentations and concerts set to take place in local institutions during the week that ARCO08 is running.
The convention opens to the public on February 15th.
ARCO08
Feria de Madrid
Apdo. de Correos 67.067
28042 Madrid
February 13th-18th
(+34) 91 722 30 00
General Information: www.ifema.es