{"id":38340,"date":"2025-12-23T00:24:52","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T00:24:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/uruguays-only-art-fair-wagers-that-it-can-create-a-new-regional-market-force\/"},"modified":"2025-12-23T00:24:52","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T00:24:52","slug":"uruguays-only-art-fair-wagers-that-it-can-create-a-new-regional-market-force","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/uruguays-only-art-fair-wagers-that-it-can-create-a-new-regional-market-force\/","title":{"rendered":"Uruguay\u2019s Only Art Fair Wagers That It Can Create a New Regional Market\u00a0Force"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n\t\u201cThere\u2019s a before and after Este Arte,\u201d Uruguay\u2019s first and only art fair, according to its founder, Laura Bardier.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe professionalization of Uruguay\u2019s art market could read as Bardier\u2019s biography\u2014the curator who, through sheer insistence, converted a quixotic dream into a promising market machine\u2014but that would misinterpret the ambition of Este Arte.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe fair has a handful of exhibitors, few of whom are well-known in the United States or Europe, and its setting can\u2019t yet rival its continental peers. Still, the fair has reshaped expectations, positioning a country long defined by the ebb and flow of seasonal capital as a rising stage for international galleries, collectors, and cultural leaders.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tUruguay is a teardrop of land, no larger than England and Wales combined, pressed by the continental powers of Argentina and Brazil. A ribbon of beach towns along its nearly 400-mile\u00a0coastline supplies its persistent clich\u00e9\u2014the Latin American C\u00f4te d\u2019Azur.\u00a0The country boasts some 3.4 million residents, many of whom descend from European \u00e9migr\u00e9s drawn by the country\u2019s lenient banking laws, which have earned Uruguay another moniker: \u201cThe Switzerland of South America.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tMontevideo, the capital, sits at the coastal hinge. Two hours east, Punta del Este offers its vibrational inverse: glass towers, haute cuisine, and nocturnal excess. The metro area of Montevideo accounts for\u00a0nearly half\u00a0the nation\u2019s population. The near-universal urbanization of Uruguay has concentrated audiences and institutions in an easy-to-traverse corridor. Together with its growing GDP, this could offer Este Arte, and Uruguay as a whole, a reliable collector base\u2014if the people can be convinced to spend locally.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tEste Arte\u2019s 12th edition will run from January 4-7, roughly 25 miles east of Punta del Este, at the Vik Pavilion in Jos\u00e9 Ignacio\u2014a fishing village\u2013turned affluent enclave of dunes, pine woods, and boutique villas. For the past three editions of the fair, it has functioned as headquarters to what is effectively a live experiment in market construction. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cNo one thought an art fair in Uruguay was possible when we started,\u201d Bardier said. \u201cMost people I spoke to would say that Uruguay is not Brazil or Argentina\u201d\u2014larger countries with established art markets. The quiet consensus back home was that she was \u201ccrazy\u201d to think she could rally enough galleries to participate, let alone find collectors to follow.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThat skepticism wasn\u2019t totally unwarranted. Only 40 years ago, Uruguay emerged from a civic\u2013military dictatorship that turned cultural life into a fraught battleground between state-imposed censorship and covert creative resistance. Between 1973 and 1985, the state imprisoned a staggering 2 percent of the population, while scores of intellectuals, artists, and civilians fled abroad, representing part of the global collector and curator diaspora Este Arte aims to reconnect. Democracy was consolidated during the 1990s, though the trauma of dictatorship persisted, leaving artistic networks and infrastructure weakened. At the same time, this recovery coincided with an economic and social urbanization push at a scale comparable to the metamorphosis of the Arabian Gulf. In what feels like a blink, shifting fortunes transformed this flat stretch of sand and farmland.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tEste Arte can\u2019t compete with the scale of Frieze or Basel\u2014or even regional peers like S\u00e3o Paulo\u2019s SP\u2013Arte\u2014so it doesn\u2019t try. For its upcoming 12th edition, just 14 galleries will participate, including returnees Galer\u00eda del Paseo (Manantiales), Xippas Galleries (Paris, Geneva, Punta del Este), and Aninat Galer\u00eda (Santiago), as well as newcomers Almeida & Dale (S\u00e3o Paulo), Valerie\u2019s Factory (Buenos Aires), and Galerie Jocelyn Wolff (Paris). In fact, it may be the only fair that has intentionally reduced its exhibitor list since its\u00a0inaugural edition. The works on offer range from about $500 to $400,00, though most cap out around $20,000. For booths showing living artists, 99 percent of the work must be new. This structure gives first-time collectors a way to enter the market. It offers local artists a moment in the spotlight, aiming to feed the broader ecosystem of galleries, institutions, and collectors that supports an independent art infrastructure. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tMore than a decade in, Bardier and her all-women team\u2014another rarity in the fair circuit\u2014have embraced the advantages of Uruguay\u2019s small scale, where most issues can be resolved with one or two phone calls and exhibitors\u2019 planning is unusually hands-on. The fair\u2019s curatorial expectations are notably pluralistic: some years have prioritized solo presentations; others have required that every booth include at least one female artist.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tLaura Bardier and Cecilia Alemani at Este Arte.<\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy Este Arte<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tBardier wants Este Arte to feel like a showroom rather than a \u201csupermarket\u201d of art, with just enough of a classroom woven in. To that end, the fair runs a talks program geared toward a population still acclimating to contemporary art as a part of everyday life. Previous programming has included \u201cEverything You Wanted to Know About Indigenous Art But Were Afraid to Ask,\u201d presented by Candice Hopkins, director of Forge Project (Taghkanic) and moderated by the Uruguayan anthropologist Jos\u00e9 L\u00f3pez Mazz. As the fair has grown\u2014the event drew 2,500 visitors in its first year, compared to more than 5,000 in its last edition, per prior reporting\u2014so has its ability to attract prominent figures in the field, like Hopkins. Prior edition featured talks by curators Cecilia Alemani, Hoor Al Qasimi, Barbara London, and Joanna Warsza, some of whom, in addition to speaking, conducted studio visits with Uruguayan artists.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tSome critics say that global fairs tend to parachute in, arrive with fanfare, spend big on the fairgrounds, and depart just as quickly. This dynamic, they argue, can deliver little lasting benefit to local infrastructures or ecologies. Carbon emissions aside, Este Arte has yielded concrete gains for Uruguay\u2019s art ecosystem. Several Uruguayan galleries that didn\u2019t exist when it began\u2014La Pecera, Black Gallery, and Diana Saravia\u2014now participate in international fairs.<\/p>\n

\n\tGaler\u00eda del Paseo in Manantiales, a veritable stone\u2019s throw from the fair, opened a second space in Lima and exhibits Uruguayan artists in Peru and Peruvian artists in Punta del Este. A new class of authorities at the Ministry of Culture has stepped up efforts in promoting exchanges with the region, too: This fall, Buenos Aires\u2019s MALBA museum showed the work of Uruguayan artist Ulises Beisso, curated by Montevideo\u2019s Mart\u00edn Craciun, the new coordinator of the National Institute of Visual Arts in Uruguay.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat contemporary Uruguayan art is finding a market footing matters especially because, as Bardier pointed out, regional collectors and foreign institutions have historically favored deceased, primarily male artists at auction. One of the most expensive Uruguayan artists at auction is Joaqu\u00edn Torres Garc\u00eda, whose record stands at $3.38 million. Living sculptor Pablo\u00a0Atchugarry\u00a0commanded auction attention as well, with a 2021 Sotheby\u2019s New York sale of approximately $649,000 setting his auction record.\u00a0Meanwhile, Gonzalo Fonseca, the great painter-turned-stone sculptor, was given a retrospective at the Noguchi Museum in New York in 2018, and his legacy is palpable in\u00a0Manantiales.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tUruguay\u2019s cultural landscape has been steadily expanding over the past decade. The arrival of the Museo de Arte Contempor\u00e1neo Atchugarry in 2022 filled a long-missing venue for global contemporary art. Meanwhile, Casa Neptuna\u2019s FAARA residency program, run by Fundaci\u00f3n Ama Amoedo, draws artists and curators from across Latin America and beyond into dialogue with local peers, fostering the cross-pollination that ultimately helps place Uruguayan artists in overseas collections, galleries, and biennials. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt is important to show young artists in Uruguay that you can make a living from art,\u201d Bardier said. \u201cThat you don\u2019t have to go abroad to have a career.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tCollector and patron Ama Amoedo, who built the foundation on three decades of collecting, described Uruguay\u2019s collectors as \u201ca growing network.\u201d Since the pandemic, she said, \u201cthe country is becoming increasingly connected to the Latin American art ecosystem through the visibility of its artists and the dedicated work of institutions, foundations, and galleries that build regional bridges.\u201d Amoedo added that the sort of socially engaged artistic practices standard in Uruguay \u201cexist outside the commercial art market and need support to thrive.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tJames Turrell\u2019s \u2018Ta Khut\u2019 illuminates Posada Ayana in Jos\u00e9 Ignacio.<\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t. (Photo by Santiago MAZZAROVICH \/ AFP)<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tEste Arte wants to create the network defined by Amoedo, in the process, bringing the Uruguayan cultural diaspora home. One sign that Uruguay\u2019s market is stabilizing, and that the country is recovering from the institutional desert deepened by the dictatorship, is that artists and cultural workers are, in fact, returning. Bardier, who also serves as the executive director of the James Howell Foundation in New York, said she founded the fair partly to give herself a purposeful way back to her homeland.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tRenos Xippas came to Uruguay from Greece in 1957, following the Greek Civil War, and fled once more in 1973 at the onset of the dictatorship, only returning after its end in 1985.\u00a0 He now spends most of the year in Uruguay, after once dividing his time more evenly with Paris\u2014a city that, to him, is emblematic of a continental culture dominated by transactional reflexes and steered by a profound misreading of Europe\u2019s global relevance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI have 30 acres of land here: residences for artists, showrooms, restaurants. We even have donkeys, cats, chickens. Can you imagine?\u201d He recalled recently receiving a busload of collectors from Brazil, who were invited to view the ground, dine, and generally get to know his artists and one another. \u201cThis was Paris when I opened my gallery in 1990,\u201d he said, nostalgic for a milieu that, in his view, has since ceded to Instagram browsing and blockbuster fairs. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tHe was careful to frame the moment as encouraging, rather than triumphant. \u201cLet\u2019s not exaggerate: There are not many galleries in Uruguay, though I\u2019m not talking about quality. Let\u2019s say there are 10, five of which are very small but run by very informed people.\u201d The collectors who buy from them, he added, are roughly 50 percent Brazilians, 25\u201350 percent Argentinians, 25 percent Brazilians, and 25 percent from the rest of the world. \u00a0<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tAcuarela de los canteros<\/em> (2025), by the Argentine artist Vicente Grondona. Xippas Galleries will present a solo exhibition of work by Grondona at the 2026 Este Arte titled \u201cAcuarela de los canteros (Watercolor of the Stonemasons)\u201d, and curated by Manuel Neves. <\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy Xippas and the artist’s studio. Photo: Paz Elduayen<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tMarco Maggi\u2014one of Uruguay\u2019s foremost contemporary artists\u2014resettled there after building his career with New York\u2019s Jos\u00e9e Bienvenu Gallery and Nara Roesler in S\u00e3o Paulo. He had his first exhibition in Buenos Aires in 1973, when he was 15. The opening was on the same day as the coup d\u2019\u00e9tat in Uruguay, he told ARTnews<\/em>. He\u2019s spent the last 30 years in New Paltz, New York. His work sits in the collections of MoMA and the Whitney, and he represented Uruguay at the 2015 Venice Biennale. Now, he says, the languid pace and high quality of life back home suit him best.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe, Uruguayans, are discreet and moderate, not prone to fads and enthusiasm,\u201d he said; however, since Este Arte launched, the country\u2019s appetite for contemporary art has \u201cmade important strides in an auspicious direction.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIts commercial impact is difficult for me to quantify, but the persistence of convening international and regional collectors every year is the only way to foster a collecting community in Uruguay,\u201d Maggi said. \u201cThis is what happened in processes I witnessed firsthand, such as ARTBO in Colombia, Zona Maco in Mexico, and Arco in Madrid.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tEste Arte is surely looking ahead: In 2025, the fair introduced the Theodora Award, developed in partnership with the Chilean company Theodora AI, a specialist in bias detection. The prize is billed as the world\u2019s first devoted to the ethical integration of artificial intelligence in the visual arts. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tXippas, for one, recommended that Este Arte evolve accordingly. \u201cThe fair can improve in quantity. The pavilion [in Jos\u00e9 Ignacio] is beautiful. Still, to host more than 20 galleries, it needs a second space, or a bigger one, perhaps for galleries both traditional and avant-garde,\u201d he said, adding that after 11 years, collectors are now comfortable attending. \u201cIt\u2019s no longer: \u2018Who\u2019s there? Who cares?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBut,\u201d he added, \u201cto attract more galleries from Europe and the United States, you have to grow.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThere\u2019s a before and after Este Arte,\u201d Uruguay\u2019s first and only art fair, according to its founder, Laura Bardier.\u00a0 The professionalization of Uruguay\u2019s art market could read as Bardier\u2019s biography\u2014the curator who, through sheer insistence, converted a quixotic dream into a promising market machine\u2014but that would misinterpret the ambition of Este Arte. The fair has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38341,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-art"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-10-25 16:25:05","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}