Basque art shines once again at ARCO Madrid

ARCO, Madrid’s International Contemporary Art Fair opens its doors today in its 43rd edition, and Basque art will once again be represented by several artists at the event. This year, 205 galleries (73 national and 135 international) from 36 countries will take part until Sunday, March 10th in this important gathering for gallerists, collectors, artists and curators. Irene Larraza, Director of the Etxepare Basque Institute, and Imanol Otaegi, Director of Culture of the Etxepare Basque Institute, attended the opening of the annual event and visited some of the Basque art on display.

The General Programme will include a Basque art gallery from Bilbao, Carreras Múgica, a longstanding regular at the event.

Among the Basque artists at ARCO are Sahatsa Jauregi (ATM Galeria), June Crespo (Carreras Múgica, Ehrhardt Flórez and P420) Itziar Okariz (Pérez de Albéniz), Ixone Sabada (ATM Galería), Kepa Garraza (Galería Alvaro Alcazar), Jorge Oteiza (Marc Domènech de Barcelona), Ángel Bados (Carreras Múgica) Elena Aitzkoa (Rosa Santos), Manu Muniategiandikoetxea (Espacio Mínimo) Gala Knorr (T20), Itziar Barrio (Àngels Barcelona), Esther Ferrer (Àngels Barcelona) and Nora Aurrekoetxea (Galería Juan Silió).

ArtsLibris, the section dedicated to art books, maintains its commitment to fostering collecting by serving as a leading space for artist publications, self-publishing, photobooks and current thinking. This year the publishing houses Consonni and Belleza Infinita, both from Bilbao, will be taking part in the event.

In addition to the ARCO programme, Basque art is also on display at other museums and exhibition centres in Madrid. Work by Ibon Aranberri can be seen at Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía until 11 March,  and an exhibition by Irati Iñoriza, Generación 2024, has recently opened at La Casa Encendida.

This year’s ARCO includes a topic called ‘The shore, the tide, the current, and oceanic Caribbean, aimed at researching galleries and artists associated with the Caribbean. The first few days of the fair will be dedicated to the professional public. Starting Friday 8 March, ARCO will open its doors to the general public. The fair underscores gender parity among this year´s participating artists, with 43% of them being women.