The International Contemporary Art Fair ARCOmadrid, which takes place from 15 to 19 February, will be a meeting point for professionals of the contemporary art sector from all over the world.

Talks, panels, discussions, presentations and analysis on art and collecting
@ ARCOmadrid 2012
15–19 February

www.arco.ifema.es

The International Contemporary Art Fair ARCOmadrid, which takes place from 15 to 19 February, will be a meeting point for professionals of the contemporary art sector from all over the world. Talks and discussions for reflecting on art and collecting will bring together gallerists, art dealers, collectors, curators and experts, who will find at the Fair a place to meet and exchange ideas.

The parallel programme at ARCOmadrid 2012 will include two spaces for debating the current state of creation and the art market. The first one is the 10th Experts Forum, a meeting point for the international artist community at the Fair, which includes a Forum on Collecting and an Open Forum. The other one is the Professional Meetings, where curators will meet museum representatives and other art professionals. Issues they will be dealing with include foundations and sponsorship, private and corporate collecting and artistic production.

The Forum on Collecting will have several approaches. Round tables on private collecting will be coordinated by Rosa Martínez and Peter Doroshenko with the presence of prominent international collectors like Mera and Don Rubell, the Argentinians Juan and Patricia Vergez and the Mexican Eugenio López, founder of the Jumex Collection. Also taking part in the roundtables will be leading European collectors such as Joop van Caldenborgh from the Netherlands, Belgian Mark Vanmoerkerke, the Germans Axel and Barbara Haubrok, the Spanish collector Pilar Citoler and the Dutch collector Han Nefkens, now settled in Barcelona, and founder of the H+F collection and the ArtAids benefit project.

Three case studies about collecting will take place at ARCOmadrid 2012: the role of Art Advisors in collecting nowadays; the purchasing groups in Belgium, and the analysis of corporate collections in a panel organized by IACCCA (International Association of Corporate Collections of Contemporary Art) and VBCN (Netherlands Association of Corporate Art Collections).

The Professional Meetings will bring together the most relevant agents invited by Marc-Olivier Wahler, Director of the Palais de Tokyo; Bartomeu Marí, Director of the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Barcelona (MACBA); Inti Guerrero, artistic director of TEOR/éTica, Costa Rica; James Lingwood, Co-director of Artangel; Lynne Cooke, Deputy Director and Chief Curator at the Museo Reina Sofía and RMS La Asociación, together with Tania Pardo, freelance curator. It is a unique platform, which will analyse and discuss the production, creation, appreciation and presentation of the artwork. This initiative, introduced for the first time last year at ARCOmadrid, is a platform for curators and professionals to meet privately and exchange ideas. Several collaborations and conversations were initiated last year and we hope new links will be created after next edition's meetings.

A new feature of these meetings will be the I Meeting of European and Latin American Museums, led by Agustín Pérez-Rubio, director of the MUSAC, in Léon and Marcelo Mattos Araujo, executive director of the Pinacoteca de São Paulo with the participation of: Florencia Battiti, Curator at Malba - Costantini Foundation, Buenos Aires; Andrea Bellini, director of Museo d'Arte Contemporanea Castello di Rivoli, Torino; Manuel Borja-Villel, director of Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; Chris Dercon, director of Tate Modern, London; Cecilia Fajardo-Hill, chief Curator at MOLAA, Long Beach; João Fernandes, director of Museu Serralves, Porto; Hans-Michael Herzog, director and curator of Daros Latinamerica Collection, Zurich; Ana Piedad Jaramillo, executive director of Antioquia Museum, Medellín; Natalia Majluf, director of MALI Art Museum, Lima; Ann-Sofi Noring, co-director of Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Luiz Camillo Osorio, curator at Museu de Arte Moderno, Rio de Janeiro; Graciela de la Torre, visual arts director at UNAM, Mexico D.F.; Rafael Emilio Yunén, director, of Centro León, Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic.

Within the context of FOCUS THE NETHERLANDS, Barcelona-based curatorial office Latitudes (Max Andrews & Mariana Cánepa Luna) will convene "The Dutch Assembly" by invitation of the Mondriaan Fund and the Embassy of The Netherlands in Madrid. Taking place within a specially-commissioned structure designed by Jasper Niens and Thijs Ewalts, the programme of "The Dutch Assembly" comprises over thirty talks and performances involving institutions and organizations from The Netherlands.

Groups like IACCCA (International Association of Corporate Collections of Contemporary Art), IKT (International Association of Curators or Contemporary Art) or groups of patrons of museums will have meetings Madrid as their meeting point coinciding with ARCOmadrid.

For art professionals wishing to visit ARCOmadrid, Professional Registration is now open on the Fair website (www.arco.ifema.es) where they can request accreditation. More than 500 professionals had already registered through this system.

The days for professional visits will be Wednesday 15 and Thursday 16, from 12 to 9 pm. This year for the first time, a special opening for professionals will be on Saturday from 11 to 12.