The Pinta Buenos Aires Photo Fair opens even more to the market

The fair Paint Buenos Aires Photo It opened its doors yesterday in Pavilion 8 of La Rural and closes them on Sunday. In this edition it turns 20 and it is noted that it has earned the sympathy of artists and gallery owners. It not only conquered an audience that enjoys this discipline, but also a place in the market. To the same extent that knowledge about photography increases, the interest of buyers increases.

In this sense, it is necessary to highlight the intense dissemination work undertaken by the galleries and, above all, the fair itself, chaired since its foundation by Diego Costa Peuser. 20 years ago, Sara Facio He said that in Argentina no one sold a photo; Today, the basic principles to get started in this market are already commonplace. On the other hand, the possibility of abbreviating or multiplying the number of copies and making a series cheaper plays in favor of gallery owners in lean times. Thus, as quickly as a sigh, five copies of the nude with slippers were sold yesterday. Belén Romero Gunseta very current quote from the famous “Venus of the mirror” of Diego Velazquez.

More than ever at this fair, different procedures and supports are added to the stylistic diversity, such as the old photographs involved Marcos Lopez. With the humor that characterizes him, Lopez He plants a chainsaw in the hands of a girl in a white communion dress. Next to her, on the typical photo of a bride with her headdress and tulle, he paints the ocelot that the protagonist takes for a walk. Then, you can see rarities, such as embroidered photographs of Maria Bayú replicating the veins of plants. Nature is a leitmotif that is reiterated. Like the landscapes enlarged until the designs of the images represented become almost abstract, a quality that several photographers tend to accentuate by blurring the contours of things. The most notable version is the scene of a couple in front of the sea in Yuyo Gardiola talented Rosario native who puts photography in competition with metaphysical painting.

However, the photographer who provokes the most comments is Santiago Carrerawith his “Square meter of sky”. The photographs taken of a cloudless sky show two colors that merge, are completely abstract and measure one meter by one meter. As a counterpart to that celestial world and with a gigantic format, is the earthly installation by Cecilia Lenardón, with its unfolded and wrinkled images, similar in size to those of street posters.

The most sophisticated work may be the series of photograms of Julio Grinblatt, “Looking at Morandi”a painter from the beginning of the 20th century, valued for the perfection and humility of his still lifes. The procedure of Grinblatt It is consistent with that of the painter, he elaborates his images by arranging the place occupied by the glasses and bottles in Morandi’s silent paintings.

The quality of the fair has always been excellent, but this year it is very special. Argentina has a formidable heritage. During the Second World War, glorious avant-garde photographers arrived from Europe, such as Grete Stern, Horacio Coppola, Annemarie Heinrich and many others. Among them the Egyptian Sameer Makarius. Your son, Karim Makariusgallerist and artist, presents a portrait of Ernesto Sabato taken by Stern and a series of Susana Thenondancer’s partner Iris Scaccheri who he portrayed. The black and white and gelatin silver prints are a gem.

Every fair has a tribute and the person responsible for the excellence of BAPhoto for years, the curator and artist Francisco Medailintroduces Jaime Bolotinskya Russian photographer who emigrated to Argentina, where he developed his production, in the first half of the 20th century.

The novelty of this edition is the new curator, Irene Gelfmanin order to put into practice the “confluence” concept, an axis that allows bringing together historical projects that are already integrated into the fair with the new programs. RADAR debuted at the fair, a platform aimed at making visible a generation of national and middle-aged artists, led by the curator Sebastian Vidal Mackinson. As a demonstration of the prevailing harmony, gallery owners share their stands, a system that is reiterated in other spaces of the fair. Right there there is a wonderful altarpiece of Rosana Schoijettalong with its landscapes.

The NEXT space | Fuera de Foco turns 10 years old and is occupied by young and emerging artists. Although he is no longer so young, the Tucumán Sandro Pereira He brought the portraits he made between 2003 and 2005, during the Kuitca Scholarship at the UBA.

With their usual disproportionate and incomprehensible dimensions, fairs generally offer an overload of stimuli that does not favor the aesthetic experience. Rather it tends to anesthetize the perception of visitors. And precisely, the human scale of Buenos Aires Photo, another of its successes, allows you to stop with pleasure and without urgency in front of the works, observe them, think about them and enjoy them, in addition to establishing dialogue with the authors.