ARCOmadrid prepares its new edition with Argentina as a guest country.

Following the birth of ARCOmadrid's 35th anniversary, the International Contemporary Art Fair organized by IFEMA will resume its Guest Country section with the presence in 2017 of one of the most active art markets in Ibero-America, Argentina, which will be a guest of honor. Thus the 36th edition will gather from February 22 to 26, 2017 a selection of galleries by Inés Katzenstein, independent curator and director of the art department of the UTDT, which will bring to Madrid the contemporary production of this important artistic focus. As it is the traditional format, Focus Argentina will cover both the presence of galleries and different exhibitions in Madrid, which under the curator Sonia Becce will extend the Argentine artistic news to different spaces in Spain. In the same way, professionals from the country will participate in the Forum of Experts, which will bring the current Argentine art market, and offer a vision of the most relevant around collecting, curating and criticism in Argentina. The program Focus Argentina Will have the collaboration of the Ministry of Culture of Argentina, the Embassy of Argentina in Spain and arteBA.

After analyzing the different international artistic scenes and the joint study by the Organizing Committee of the Fair and the direction of IFEMA, Focus Argentina will become one of the main programs of the next edition, whose proposal will complete the remaining sections Which conform ARCOmadrid, General Program, Solo Projects and Opening.

The quality of Argentine artists who have been participating in the Fair is one of the reasons that have driven the selection of Argentina as a guest country. From history such as Alberto Greco, an Argentinean conceptualist who spent his last years in Barcelona until his death in 1965, until consecrated in the 80 as Guillermo Kuitca, and other creators who now make their retrospectives as Leandro Erlich and Jorge Macchi or photographer Graciela Sacco, Among other outstanding names, have been represented in ARCOmadrid either by Argentine or Spanish galleries, as well as in this edition that will bring together artists from the new generation of the Argentine artistic panorama. Thus, it will be possible to see the work of Adriana Bustos, one of whose creations was acquired by the ARCO Foundation in 2012, as well as Pablo Acinelli, Diego Bianchi and Osias Yanov, and others recently rediscovered as Luis Pazos or Ana Priest. An interesting proposal that will also serve as an occasion to show work by other already established artists such as Adrián Villar Rojas, Amalia Pica and Pablo Bronstein.

Another axis of the selection of Argentina, has been the support that have maintained the Argentine galleries over the years to ARCOmadrid and its special link with the Fair. From the historical Ruth Benzacar, first member of Latin America in the Organizing Committee of ARCOmadrid and great impetus of the connection Europe-America in the fair, to galleries like Jorge Mara, who have shared their life between Madrid and Buenos Aires.

All this is accompanied by the special presence of Argentine galleries that during the present edition of ARCOmadrid 2016 has had the Fair, thanks to the collaboration of the Fundación Exportar, gathering a total of 9 galleries in its different programs: Barro Arte Contemporáneo; Of Infinite Art; Document Art Gallery; Ignacio Liprandi Contemporary Art; Jorge Mara - La Ruche; Nora Fisch; Rolf Art; Ruth Benzacar Art Gallery and Slyzmud.

On the other hand institutional support has also been a key factor. The contemporary art market in Argentina has been boosted and strengthened by the work carried out over the last 25 years from arteBA, a consolidated fair that has given visibility to galleries and national and international artists and whose complicity is crucial for the organization of Focus Argentina in ARCOmadrid 2017.

In the same way, the institutions dedicated to contemporary art in Argentina are also a focus of attraction towards the artistic scene of the country. To those already consecrated as Malba - Museum of Latin American Art of Buenos Aires -, Mamba - Museum of Modern Art of Buenos Aires -; Proa Foundation; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Rosario -Macro-; Museo Emilio Caraffa, from Cordoba, Museum of Contemporary Art of Salta, are joined by other emerging artists who contribute to the enrichment of their artistic scene.

Some institutions that are directed or participated by curators who in many cases have worked with ARCOmadrid as Sonia Becce; Victoria Noorthorn; The Spanish Agustín Pérez Rubio, artistic director of the Museum of Latin American Art; Andrés Duprat, director of the National Museum of Fine Arts, and Javier Villa, curator of the Museum of Modern Art in Buenos Aires.

It is also a long relationship ARCOmadrid has maintained with the country's collectors, many of them collaborators of the Fair, as in the case of Eduardo Constantini, who last year presented the process of building his collection and his museum MALBA, as well Like Amalia de Fortabat, Juan and Patricia Vergez or Anibal Jozami, participants in previous editions, and Ximena Caminos, who will do so in this edition.