The first day of Arc The Thaddaeus Ropac International Gallery sold a sculpture of the British artist, Antony Gormley, winner of the Turner Award, for 550,000 pounds (more than 650,000 euros). The third day of the great contemporary art fair in Madrid, which closes its doors on Sunday, the Reina Sofía Museum and the Ministry of Culture announced that they had bought 26 works by 19 artists for almost half a million euros for the Pinacoteca collection.
The comparison can be cheat. Equate to a private collector of which the whereabouts of his fortune is unknown, who has been able to pay in foreign currency (and, almost certainly, invoice in the United Kingdom) with a public institution that, although it has its own law of operation, needs the government to acquire pieces. But it does give an idea of how the art market works that, although it goes through a period of turbulence, according to the latest art Basel report, it is always able to resist economic cycles, even to this marked by two wars and the new Trump administration.
As it happens every year, Arco will close its 44th edition and will only give a figure, that of attendees, this time, they have passed the 95,000 visitors in five days. What will not be known are the official data of the total sales of the more than 200 galleries from more than 30 countries that have participated this year. It is a historical demand (none of those responsible for the appointment has escaped from it) that a part of the art sector makes the fair for the sake of transparency. There seems to be no consensus, according to several sources consulted, between the galleries and the organization to offer this data. It is already a very clear track when in a walk through the IFEMA pavilions (Madrid) the spaces that include the price of works in the posters are counted.
So again what are known are the sales of official agencies, foundations and some galleries such as DNA that end up satisfying the curiosity of those who find in their stand the desired “controversial piece” of each edition. This year it has been the dishwasher in which Eugenio Merino has placed 17 dishes with the faces of the leaders of the world ultra -right. The director the gallery, Miguel Ángel Sánchez, explained that “Editions of the piece were sold Face washing“To some buyers of Belgium and Germany for 25,000 euros that, he said,” have visitable public spaces. ” In addition, it has also placed the assembly Faustby Portuguese artist Fabio Coraco, a pair of dress shoes full of copper coins of 1, 5 and 10 cents to a buyer from Marseille (France), which has acquired them for 4,500 euros.
Another of the works sold by DNA, a photograph of Marina Vargas, is already part of the Reina Sofía collection, which of the 19 artists from whom he has acquired pieces, 14 are women, including Laia Abril, Elena Blasco, Ángela de la Cruz, Victorina Durán, Agnes Essanti Luque and María Luisa Fernández.
The Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (Miteco) has also had the participation of the Ministry of Culture to get seven works by seven artists who will be part of the first edition of the Climate Biennial, worth 188,000 euros.
The ARCO Foundation has expanded the funds from its collection with the acquisition of 10 works with the advice of the director of the CA2M Museum (Museo de Arte Dos de Mayo), Tania Pardo, and the artistic director of Maxxi, Francesco Stocchi. The Community of Madrid has made the pieces Exhausted disbelief y Hermes of the artist Mónica Mays, who will become part of the collection of the region’s museum in Móstoles. The Madrid City Council has acquired two new works of art to incorporate them into the permanent collection of the Municipal Contemporary Art Museum (MAC).
The Junta de Andalucía has bought works by 10 Andalusian artists in eight galleries with an investment of more than 100,000 euros. All will become part of the collection of the Andalusian Center for Contemporary Art, of the Ministry of Culture and Sports of the Junta de Andalucía.
The María Cristina Masaveu Peterson Foundation has bought the work of Miller Lagos, Inés Figaredo, Alicia Vogel, Claire de Santa Coloma, Diana Fonseca, Sheila Hicks, AI Weiwei, Grau Garriga and Teresa Lanceta. The Sorigué Foundation has acquired pieces by artist Pere Llobera, at the Bombon Projects gallery, Fernanda Fragateiro, Tomás Demand, Daniel Steegmann Mangrané, Pipo Hernández Rivero and Christian Lagata. And the María José Jove Foundation Center, Neutral surface, 2023, of Mercedes Pepper, and Primal life #2, 24, of Patricia Dauder.