Thousands of meters square in ARCOMadrid… 93 thousands of visitors, 1350 artists, 209 galleries from 30 countries. ARCOMadrid opened for the 39th time. General Programme was situated in Feria de Madrid centre. Also there were the other programs, like Arts Librix for the books of artists and Opening for young galleries.
According to the Chinese fairy-tale, the artist must draw one thousand of peacocks to become a real artist. So, looking at thousands of drawn peacocks might bring the understanding of art. ARCOMadrid can teach us the real understanding of contemporary art. It represented contemporary art from 20s of the XX century till nowadays.
By the way, the famous names like Salvador Dali, Marina Abramovich, Eduardo Chilida, Pablo Picasso and others met the visitors on the walls. But not all of their artworks are so well known. So there were a drawing of Picasso, which is not related to cubism, the artwork was drawn in a minimalistic way with the smooth lines. It was interesting to compare it with the lines of Jo Baer’s drawing from the gallery Barbara Thumm. It was created in 80s and it has nervous lines, it seems like the artist wouldn’t like to get in the real contours of the objects, which he used to draw. Seems like the artist couldn’t find the way to express what he wanted to.
Contemporary art is resigning with undescribability of humans. We can talk about only the state, represented in artworks. Impressionism told us about the outside states of humans, objects and nature, but contemporary art talks us about the inside states. We are not interested a day or a night is drawn, we are interested what’s happened to the represented humans and objects.
Contemporary artist wouldn’t like to draw the social masks. The artist prefers to look deeper and deeper and draw the hidden emotional reactions. The art was used to unravel people in all the times. But it is a really complicated tusk for artists to draw the soul, but not only the body. Today everybody can use selfies, so artists might go deeper than a photography. Arnulf Rainer represents not a usual portrait in his artwork from the gallery Nieves Fernandez. It was drawn in 80s. He goes so deep into the human’s soul, that finds a Stix of the Doubt, he finds a border between the faith, the will, the consciousness and the total chaos of emotions. The colors of the artworks are full of drama and harmony.
The girl from the drawing of Nicholas Woods from the Pelaires gallery wouldn’t like to be harmonic. It was drawn in 2019 using watercolor. It seems like the artist wouldn’t like to use the golden ratio. The artwork seems unfinished, but it isn’t. The figure of the girl has no nipples, so if artist decided to focus at the eyes and a face, but not on the body.
The pseudo-treatises – is a large group in contemporary graphics. They are not related to science, but they tries to illustrate the inside states of humans. You can look at the artworks of Jose Antonio Suarez Londono, they were created in 2018-2019 and are in the Kewenig gallery.
What has happened to the abstract art? Is it going to stay unchanged or to slide down from the hill of the artist’s tricks, which were new and fresh only in 70-80s? We can guess it while looking at the artworks of Annegret Soltau, they were created in the end of 70s and now are represented by Anita Beckers gallery. The artworks were made from the real spider’s web!
So, the chaotic abstract art wouldn’t like to be graphics or painting, it is going by it’s own way. But they are still not sculptures. Contemporary art is going to crash the borders between different kinds of art. Nida Sinnokrot from Carlier| Gebauer makes thrill the printed butterfly. She is really interested in the endangered species like Apharitis cilissa. We can see some sand in the artwork of Antoni Tapies, which was created in 2000 year and now is in Lelog gallery. But we see only the rhythmic colors in his artwork, which was created in 1982 and now is represented by Guillermo de Osma Galeria.
ARCOMadrid says that artworks can be created using fragile and untypical materials. The Price Cerveza Alhambra was given for the art from threads. We can see something special in Aurella Munoz, Jose de la Mana, it was full of strange sewed objects, which looked like corsets, dresses or wings.
The sewed and embroidered artworks can be less abstracted. Joana Vasconcelos from Horrach Moya gallery used the threads and ceramics to tell us about the fragileness of nature even if it looks dangerous for people. She represented the snake and an ox, the contemporary sculptures.
ARCOMadrid was full of ceramics, sometimes the artworks seemed like they were made with the child’s hands, the other ones were more complicated. Sometimes we can see the drawings imitating the fabric ones. There were not so many metal artworks, but the metal was in a dialogue with ceramics, plastic, glass and even the camel’s jaw in the artwork of Nida Sinnokrot. There were also the artworks from sand and paper and even papers. We could see the Venus with Strawberries.
ARCOMadrid was much bigger than this article. There were books of art critics, books of art history and the public talks. And the Museum of Queen Sofia also bought the artworks for 200 000 euro. But the story of ARCOMadrid continues.
