10 años de ELSI DEL RIO Arte Contemporáneo

Jose Luis ANZIZAR en ELSI DEL RIO

JOSÉ LUIS ANZIZAR presenta Urban birdwatching
en ELSI DEL RIO arte contemporáneo
Mixed media sobre papel
del 14 de Julio al 3 de Septiembre
Opening: 14 de Julio de 19:00 a 22:00

ELSI DEL RIO en arteBA 2010

Low turnout, high praise, mid-priced sales at Pinta

Quality—if not quantity—of visitors pleased at Latin American fair’s first edition in London
By Melanie Gerlis Web only
Published online 28 Jun 10 (market)
The art newspaper London












LONDON. The signs were, literally, not great. On arrival at Earl’s Court, the west of London venue that Pinta had chosen for its first edition in the city (3-6 June), prominent signage advertised the forthcoming rival fair, Pulse (6-8 June). Meanwhile makeshift boards eventually reassured visitors that the modern and contemporary Latin American fair, whose previous three editions have been in New York, was indeed also taking place in the UK.

Once inside, however, the mood was upbeat (“like a fiesta,” said Riflemaker’s Virginia Damtsa), boosted by a lively mariachi band. Sharing space with regional galleries from cities including Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires and Bogota were international stalwarts such as Sprüth Magers, White Cube and Haunch of Venison, plus dealers from Europe and the US, who had all dug out their Latin American wares in the hope of capitalising on a new breed of well-connected, well-heeled and locally loyal collectors. And with booths costing around £5,000 at a smallish fair (around 60 galleries), Pinta was a much cheaper and more efficient way to access this network than most art fairs.

However, dealers were sceptical of Pinta’s announcement that 4,000 people visited the fair over the three days following its opening night (this was later specified as a “rounding up” from around 3,650). “General visitor numbers were pretty dire,” said Adrian Sutton, a sales director at Haunch of Venison, manfully holding the fort just days after the gallery’s founders—Harry Blain and Graham Southern—announced they were leaving. “But the few people who came were people you recognised,” he added, with praise for the fair’s organisers and the quality of much of the art on display. His gallery swiftly sold Jorge Pardo’s Untitled, 2004, to a private European collector for $25,000.

Visitors to the opening night included Swiss collector Maja Hoffman, Latin American art collector Catherine Petitgas (who is a vice chairman of Pinta); the curator for the Cisneros collection, as well as London stalwarts Alison Myners, outgoing chair of the Contemporary Art Society and David Barrie, previous head of The Art Fund, now believed to be advising some private clients. Tate director Nicholas Serota also visited the fair at the weekend.

“Mauro [Herlitzka, Pinta’s institutional director, who sits on the Tate’s Latin American acquisitions committee] is the most important cultural operator in Latin America. He has a way of making things happen,” said Henrique Faria of the eponymous gallery in New York. He had good reason for his praise: the gallery quickly sold Colchoncito, 1963, a mixed-media work (meaning “small mattress”) by Argentina’s Marta Minujin to the Pompidou, one of the six museums that Pinta had encouraged to buy through a privately-financed matching funds scheme, for around €60,000 (see below for other museum purchases).

Much of the (albeit limited) buying was in the low- to mid-range and by private collectors, many—like the artists—originally from Latin America but now citizens of the world. Sprüth Magers sold a David Lamelas film with 8 stills, To pour milk into a glass, 1967, for €45,000 to an Argentine private collector; Galeria Cayón from Madrid sold works by the octogenarian Venezuelan Carlos Cruz-Diez whose Transerhomie mécanique A, 1965-2009, sold to a private Europe-based collector for €55,000; and at the lower end, artist José Luis Anzizar at the fair with Buenos Aires gallery Elsi del Rio, sold five pieces of his Urban Birdwatching series, 2009, to a French collector for around £3,000 (total).