ARCO 2025: DIFFERENT VIEWS ON LATIN AMERICA
The Latin American presence at ARCO is consolidating year after year, establishing itself as a primary guiding thread beyond market trends, becoming a significant part of the identity of the Madrid fair. In this sense, the participating galleries in the various programs showcase well-established names as well as younger or more radical bets, shaping an ecosystem in which various productions can be analyzed.
Beyond Perfiles / Latin American Art and Watamisé, the two curated programs this year that focus on Latin America, or at least reference its geography, a walk through ARCO’s aisles gives us an idea of the impact of art from the region on the global market. By examining certain proposals, we have put together a selection of artists whose works provide a general overview of the Latin American art exhibited. Of course, not all significant figures are included, but those who are present offer a glimpse into the diversity that has led to its consolidation.
A striking example is the exhibition of Zé Carlos García (Aracajú, Brazil, 1973) at the Brazilian gallery Portas Vilaseca. While his name is far from unknown at ARCO—where he was awarded years ago—his persistent and significant presence reinforces his commitment to sculptural works that often verge on installation. His pieces consistently seek to materialize transformations and organic changes, prompting a questioning of the environment through the allegories his proposals evoke.
At the junction of the two pavilions, The Goma presents Aimée Zito Lema (Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1982) for the Artist Project program. Raised in Buenos Aires, her work revolves around the concepts of recording and memory, delving into how knowledge is transferred between individuals. The layout of her main installation, surrounded by other pieces, features newspaper front pages from Argentina’s 1985 judicial trials, highlighting themes of absence—marked by clothing as an everyday element—and emphasizing documentation as an inexorable part of Latin American art when addressing political processes.
In a fair increasingly moving away from installation, the Colombian gallery Casas Reigner dares to present a succinct showcase of Luz Lizarazo’s (Bogotá, Colombia, 1966) latest work in an immersive setup. This approach embraces the fragile and intimate universe she constructs, reflected in her meticulous technique and choice of materials, such as lycra stockings and delicate metal bedframes, which underscore the distinct conceptual depth of her artistic practice.
At Patricia Ready, Chilean artist Amalia Valdés (Santiago, Chile, 1982) exhibits her signature ceramic and sculptural practices, creating totems that radiate color and geometry within a highly personal context. Meanwhile, Alicia Paz (Mexico City, Mexico, 1967), featured at the French gallery Bendana | Pinel, draws from the environments she has inhabited to craft a tribute to women and the significance of decorative arts. Her evocative paintings employ gold leaf as a celebratory element and tilework as an unchanging reference to place. Nearby, the tapestry works of the Chiachio & Giannone collective incorporate contemporary iconographic motifs, reinforcing the growing prominence of textile art.
It is worth pausing to examine the newcomers at this year’s fair. Organic materials take center stage in the textile work of Maya Pita-Romero (Madrid, Spain, 1999), who presents large fabrics infused with scents for a sensory connection at El Chico. The Colombian gallery Espacio Continuo delivers a dual artistic promise that becomes reality. Juliana Góngora Rojas (Bogotá, Colombia, 1988) integrates organic materials into her installations, fostering a spiritual connection with the indigenous communities she collaborates with—her work embodies both gratitude and deep-rootedness. Meanwhile, Linda Pungutá (Bogotá, Colombia, 1989) focuses on the urban landscape, highlighting processes of reuse over accumulation and emphasizing sustainability, despite the harsh materials that construct her proposals.
At El Apartamento, amidst established references in Cuban art, Ariamna Contino (Havana, Cuba, 1984) captivates visitors with the precision of her paper-based work. Her pieces showcase both the methodology and results of scientific studies she engages with, offering meticulous technique and striking visual outcomes. This is especially evident in her collaboration with Alex Hernández-Dueñas (Havana, Cuba, 1984), where cartography is transformed into abstract aesthetics and geometries.
The London-based Waddington Custot highlights the woodwork of renowned artist Pablo García Reinoso (Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1955) while also providing a platform for emerging Bolivian artist Kenia Almaraz Murillo (Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, 1994). Murillo’s work explores the connection to her homeland through both textile and construction materials commonly found in daily life, creating pieces that link with tradition.
Leda Catunda (São Paulo, Brazil, 1961) continues her explorations with soft materials, this time using striking inflatable plastic, exhibited at the Brazilian gallery Fortes D'Aloia & Gabriel alongside her Xadrez Oval. Meanwhile, Sofía Salazar (Quito, Ecuador, 1999) is a promising bet by the German gallery Chertlüdde. Her reinterpretations of fundamental elements from her experiences and surroundings manifest through banana plant skeletons or warped beams, emphasizing the importance of the imperceptible yet essential.
The recovery of intangible heritage is central to the work of the Colombian collective Mapa Teatro at Rolf, where they translate the oral traditions of Amazonian communities into pictorial representations. Their process sheds light on the rapidly increasing visibility of Amazonian arts within the contemporary art scene—perhaps too accelerated for its own good.
This overview reflects the growing recognition of Latin American proposals in all their richness and complexity. It also confirms the strong presence of established figures such as Teresa Margolles, Vik Muniz, Dagoberto Rodríguez, Liliana Porter, and Cruz-Díez—regulars at the fair—whose works populate the booths of galleries from around the world, occupying a significant portion of the exhibited pieces and, undoubtedly, many of the acquisitions made in this edition.
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THE LATIN AMERICAN GAZE IN ARCO’S “PROFILES” PROGRAM
The organization has entrusted Mexican curator José Esparza Chong Cuy with the development of Perfiles | Arte latinoamericano, a curated journey that highlights, through ten selected figures, the diversity of visual approaches. As the curator himself states, it offers "a broad panorama of how to identify as artists and build community, proposing new ways of making, thinking, and living together."
MARIA WILLS AND DENILSON BANIWA ON AMAZOFUTURISM
Maria Wills (Bogota, Colombia 1979) and Denilson Baniwa (Barcelos, Brazil, 1984) are the responsible for Wametisé: ideas for an amazofuturism, one of the special programs curated for ARCO 2025 and that navigates the Amazon and its growing impact on contemporary art. This proposal proposes a scenario of representation and dialogue through a selection of galleries and guest artists who will raise, through their works and their realities, the different conceptions of the Amazonian world and the possibilities of a collective future.
THE CENTRAL AMERICAN ART INSTITUTE (ICAC) OF THE REINA SOFIA MUSEUM IS BORN
Madrid's Reina Sofia Museum, in collaboration with the Reina Sofia Museum Foundation, reinforces its growing involvement and strategy for the dissemination and study of Latin American contemporary art with the creation of the Cáder Institute of Central American Art (ICAC), dedicated to the research and dissemination of Central American art.
LEYVA NOVO: DUST IT IS AND TO DUST IT WILL TURN
Intricate between action and register, El Apartamento hosts Algo deja quien se va, the first solo exhibition in Spain by Reynier Leyva Novo (Havana, Cuba, 1983). Starting from the political concept of historical memory and linking it to the issues of power and colonialism, the artist unfolds in two well-differentiated series his proposal to approach these lines, and extends his networks to the impact (or influence) they have on the institutional and cultural fabric.
THE REINA SOFÍA ACQUIRES WORKS BY MINUJÍN, LIZARAZO AND ECHEVERRI AT ARCO FOR ITS COLLECTION
The Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía has announced the acquisitions made during the ARCO fair, through which both the institution and the Ministry of Culture expand the museum’s collections. Among the artists whose work is now part of the Madrid-based institution are Argentine artist Marta Minujín and Colombian artists Juan Pablo Echeverri and Luz Lizarazo—three figures with different career trajectories who bring a distinct Latin American perspective to a list of acquisitions largely focused on Spanish artists.
THE UNIVERSES OF THE LATIN AMERICAN GALLERIES IN ARCO
With strong gallery participation, ARCO is an interesting point to measure how the proposals reach the visitor and the collector. The choices based on aesthetic or commercial criteria create synergies that shape a fluid and sometimes circumstantial representation of each catalog. From Arte al Día, we delve into ten of those catalogs, expanded to variegated universes, monographs and dialogues that show a sample of the approach of Latin American galleries in their presence at the Madrid fair.
