Art Review - February Issue - (Page 98)
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PILGRIMAGE MADRID & BARCELONA ut without question, Madrid and Barcelona
rule the roost, even though Spain’s two principal cities couldn’t be
more different. The landlocked Castilian capital fries in summer and
freezes in winter. No wonder then that the Mediterranean port of Barcelona
is proving an equally popular destination for both hen parties and art
junkies, with its benevolent climate, medieval and modernista buildings,
and cosmopolitan outlook. But all isn’t quite what it seems. Property
prices have soared in recent years. Consequently, for young artists and
designers the basic overheads of flat and studio are prohibitive in
relation to wages, and undermine the generally low cost of living in
Spain. Although the number of collectors and galleries has since grown,
Spain’s once small domestic market encouraged the more entrepreneurial
dealers to look abroad, trading on the country’s tourist appeal to bring
the market to them. In the 26 years since ARCO was launched in Madrid, it
has grown from a modest and largely local art fair into a major
international showcase, with more than 200 participating galleries and
countless project spaces. The past decade has seen a proliferation of
fairs and festivals come and go. One that looks like staying the course is
Barcelona’s LOOP, the innovative and highly successful video art fair.
There’s a traditional rivalry between the two cities that reaches beyond
the football terraces. Catalonia isn’t Spain, reads the graffiti, but
Madrid and Barcelona are linked closely enough to function as both
competitors and confederates within a single market, such that artists are
often forced to choose sides when it comes to representation. An analysis
of the galleries shows the two cities to be in a bipolar relationship,
with Madrid mostly covering the blue-chip, conservative end of the market,
while Barcelona plays its ‘East End’, with a greater number of younger
and more experimental galleries. When it comes to museums, Spain has a
passion for architects. Madrid’s Reina Sofía has just been given a
facelift by Jean Nouvel, while Barcelona’s MACBA is a monument to
Richard Meier’s ego. But often the architecture outshines the art, the
postwar decades in Spain having been lean ones for the building of
collections. Furthermore, some key museum appointments are still
political, leading to a climate of professional insecurity. Seemingly in
compensation, museums and art centres often mark out their patch in a
didactic display of territorial identity, with the result that programming
can become dull and predictable. Increasingly the more innovative
initiatives are to be found elsewhere, in the commercial sector, in
independent project spaces or as the result of cooperative actions such as
the series of events by international artists initiated in November by the
Association of Visual Artists of Madrid under the generic title MADRID
PROCESOS. Plaza Cataluña, Barcelona Las Ramblas, Barcelona Anella
Olímpica with Santiago Calatrava’s telecommunications tower, Barcelona
Montjuïc, Barcelona preceding pages: Anella Olímpica, Barcelona Anella
Olímpica, Barcelona ARTREVIEW B p 96-105 Pilgrimage AR Feb07 98 9/1/07
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Art Review - February Issue
Art Review - February Issue
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