ARCO (art fair)

ARCO art fair

Arco , is an international art fair in Madrid . Organized by IFEMA , it has been held annually in February since 1982.

history

ARCO was founded as an art fair with the intention of putting together an artistic offer that ranges from the historical avant-garde to the latest emerging art. The first event took place from February 10th to 17th, 1982 and was organized by the gallery owner Juana de Aizpuru. A total of 264 artists from 14 countries, invited by the gallery owner, gathered in Madrid. Juana de Aizpuru directed the art fair for the first four years until the fair became one of the centers of European and Latin American art. It first took place in what was then the IFEMA exhibition center on Paseo de la Castellana .

In view of the growth of the trade fair, ARCO moved to the new IFEMA facilities in the crystal palace of the Casa de Campo in 1984 . With this change, the exhibition area increased from 5,000 to 10,000 meters and made space for a larger number of galleries. 157 galleries came, 100 of them from abroad and 87 from Spain.

For the first time in the history of the fair, it was opened that year by a member of the royal family, Queen Sofia .

In 1992 the art fair moved into the building of the Juan Carlos I Messe Park designed by the architect Sáenz de Oiza . More space (14,273 m²) and a better infrastructure made it possible to invite a total of 195 galleries from 28 countries.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ La feria artística que devolvió a España al panorama internacional. February 8, 2016, accessed August 21, 2019 (Spanish). 
2. ↑ Ingeborg Wiensowski: art fair Arco: The Miracle of Madrid . In: Spiegel Online . February 24, 2015 ( spiegel.de [accessed August 21, 2019]).