“Slightly shattered shards of substance thrown within the grasp of the current of a river / Ligeramente dañados pedazos de sustancia arrojados a la merced de la corriente de un río”: you read Lawrence Weiner’s writing in English and Spanish splattered across a wall as the flow of humans drags you through the endless booths of the art fair. (Was it Galería Horrach Moya from Palma de Mallorca? The tide moved too quickly to catch it.) You’re not sure if you’re the shards or the art is or you both are, but you know that the river is ARCOmadrid 2019. Spain’s biggest art fair has distinctive qualities. The giant convention center simultaneously hosts an air-conditioning convention, a huge concentration of Latin American galleries, planeloads of VIPs flown in for private conferences, along with a scatter of curated sections trying to find distinctive voices amongst the glut all the other fairs. Frieze LA last week, Armory next. Into the limestone bench of RAPTURE (2017), Jenny Holzer carved “Rapture Screamed Toward the Clouds.” The poetic clarity and political force of Hauser & Wirth’s booth, dedicated to a survey of over 30 years of the artist’s work, set a mood. In MOVE (2015), …

This year’s edition of ARCOmadrid embraced a temporal and conceptual gambit: the Future. It was, however, mostly corralled in the eponymous section at the fair, curated by Chus Martínez, Rosa Lleó, and Elise Lammer and featuring works by artists from 20 international galleries, including Nara Roesler, São Paulo; Union Pacific, London; Crèvecoeur, Paris; and A Gentil Carioca, Rio de Janeiro. The works were all installed in a booth-less platform, which made the viewing experience more akin to a group show than a traditional art fair. The elevated area, designed by architect and Manifesta 12 co-curator Andrés Jaque was carpeted with a bright green fabric—theater stage meets mini-golf course—which flattered the playful solo presentations. Eva Fàbregas’s installation for London’s Tenderpixel was generating plenty of attention on preview day. Featuring drawings, sound pieces, and large-scale inflatable sculptures sprawled on the floor and hanging from poles like giant millipedes, Picture Yourself as a Block of Melting Butter (2017) explored the dissolution of the body-object frontier through the lens of somatic experimentation, ASMR techniques, and the commodification of wellness. Nearby at Berlin’s Chertlüdde, Alvaro Urbano’s sculptures, which borrow architectural elements from Archizoom’s Teatro Impossibile (Impossible Theatre, 1960) stood on the floor awaiting their activation on …

For a fair that has been around for thirty-two years, ARCO has weathered its share of ups and downs. Economic woes are at the root of the uncertain and gloomy mood that has reigned supreme in Spain’s cultural sector of late. Although the selection of galleries and visitors remains steadfastly international, many small businesses—galleries included—have been forced to shut down recently in the wake of the increase in taxes on cultural production in Spain, now at a whopping 21%. This reality haunts the current edition of ARCO. Nevertheless, one can say with relative confidence that considering the professional attendance and international perspective—focusing on the bridge between Europe and Latin America—ARCO has reached an apex. But this year’s real accomplishment is the savvy strategic investment of hosting a huge forum of “professional meetings,” for which almost every director of the most relevant museums and biennials worldwide has descended on Madrid to attend a series of working sessions by invitation only. Of this particularly high-caliber audience, one gallerist raved: “All of them are here. It has been like one continuous studio visit; the audience is better than that of a biennial!” Besides the usual malaise that overcomes one after gaping at a floor …

This year’s edition of ARCOmadrid Art Fair was having none of the doom and gloom that usually accompany the fair. The Spanish art scene has tended to berate its most important and oldest art fair, a feeling which intensified when it was subject to management disagreements and ensuing conflicts with the galleries a couple of years ago. But the new team has honed an edition this year that people felt optimistic about. Whether in the national press or at the parties and events that heralded the fair’s openings, the mood was cautious but bright, even after ten hours of parading on a gray carpet and enduring the neon lights. As I walked into the fair on a cold and sunny Wednesday morning, I was instantly reminded, with a sense of dread, of its colossal size. Inhaling deeply, map in hand, I headed directly to the Opening section on Hall 10, featuring twenty-five young galleries from all over Europe, carefully handpicked by Manuel Segade. The independent curator expressed his interest in showing underrepresented scenes, hence the inclusion of Eastern Europe’s gem Plan B and Ivan Gallery from Bucharest, or the Oslo-based gallery Imo. One pleasant surprise was the discovery of Figge von …