After some editions hit by the covid crisis and the outbreak of the war in Ukraine -which fatally coincided last year with the opening day of the fair-, everything suggests that the new call for Arco will be the return to The normality. And, since it is celebrated in the middle of the Picasso Year, it is also easy to imagine that the people of Malaga will not want to miss the party. Even if it's body present. His funeral chapel will be installed in the ADN gallery in Barcelona, it is entitled Picasso died here and bears the signature of Eugenio Merino (Madrid, 1975), who has recreated the figure of the recumbent painter in a hyperrealistic key and shrouded in a striped shirt, white pants and dark shoes, so that whoever wishes can contemplate the recumbent body of the genius... And take the mandatory selfie.
With just a few hours to go until the Madrid contemporary art fair, which celebrates its forty-second edition from February 22 to 26 at Ifema, begins, the deceased Picasso de Merino is taking center stage on the networks. It is not a newly created piece, but the fair has an always surprising multiplier effect. Eugenio Merino, one of the artists who has caused the most talk in past editions of Arco thanks to sculptures such as Always Franco, in which he put the dictator in a refrigerator decorated with the Coca-Cola design, a zombie Fidel Castro or the ninot of almost four meters in height of King Felipe VI, the latter devised together with Santiago Sierra, created Picasso died here in 2017 for the headquarters of the Alliance Française in Malaga.
"Here rests our beloved PABLO PICASSO. 1881-1973. We miss you," reads the headstone. According to Merino, it is a critical reflection on the process of touristification of Malaga and how the figure of Picasso is being exploited for commercial purposes. Death as a souvenir, so that visitors can be photographed with her, like the visitors who attended the Paris morgue at the end of the 19th century.
For the rest, this Arc, which has brought together a total of 211 galleries, of which 66% are international (140) and of which 21% are from Latin America, will set its sights on the Mediterranean with a special section, A round sea, which will feature a selection of works by 19 artists curated by the Greek Marina Fokidis.
The fair will have the presence of some 400 already confirmed collectors, a Ukrainian gallery (Voloshyn Gallery) and an endless number of parallel proposals such as ArtsLibris, a fair specialized in artist publications and photobooks, or the Art Situacions III exhibition, dedicated to emerging art. , which puts the work of five Spanish artists (Elena Aitzkoa, Nora Aurrekoetxea, Lucía Bayón, Aleix Plademunt and Pablo Capitán del Río) and five French artists (Salomé Chatriot, Marie-Luce Nadal, Benoît Piéron, Elsa Brès and Yoan Sori) in dialogue. . The selection has been carried out by María de Corral, Lorena M. de Corral, Chus Martínez and Vicent Todolí.
