The international photography event

“Project incubator”: the keys to Pinta BAphoto, a fair that managed to reinvent itself
The international event dedicated to photography promoted by Diego Costa Peuser, which celebrated its twentieth anniversary, closes today an edition praised for its great renovation
As soon as it opened its doors, today at 2 pm in La Rural, the scene of the last few days was repeated: people did not stop arriving at the twentieth edition of Pinta BAphoto, the most important photography fair in Latin America, which attracted more than 14,000 people. How to sustain a cultural project for two decades, in a country like Argentina? Reinventing oneself every year seems to be one of the keys.
The Departamento 112 gallery, which is participating in the fair for the first time, covered its stand inspired by the agroindustry with silo bags

The latter was included among the new proposals of the Next/Out of Focus section, dedicated to emerging projects, which doubled its stands to reach another ten. This time, the galleries Grasa –which sold a dozen works–, Esaa, Primor, Luogo, Departamento 112 and the Tucuman-based Consultorio, which received a grant from the In Situ award and from Pinta BAphoto, also joined the exhibition.

Fernando Allen also came from Asunción to represent Confines del Paraguay, the space he has just opened to house the collection he shares with Fredi Casco. He brought some pieces that are not for sale and photographs based on the concept of “swindling or deception.” They are scenes from rituals of ethnic groups from the Gran Chaco, in which they dress up to represent their gods or deceased members of the community. Among other pieces, a carving of San La Muerte made from human bone by Aquiles Copini was sold there, which according to Allen provided “context” to the photographic proposal.
Another original space was the one promoted by Vivian Galban, who invited students from her studio to participate. In the exhibition entitled Nothing is so explicit, the photographer put together groups with works by several of them, which seem to be by the same author and which can be bought together or separately. “It is not a gallery, it is a project incubator that is sponsored by companies,” she clarified. “It is a new model.”
The same could be said of Pinta BAphoto, always open to change. This year it also convened for the first time the San Martín Theater Photo Gallery, founded by Sara Facio, which is about to turn four decades old. “The fair had a higher level than other years,” its director, Claudio Larrea, told LA NACION. “I really liked the diversity of the treatment of the image, of the supports and the search that there was among various photographer artists. So for me it was a wonderful baptism.”
Gabriel Cott, head of the gallery that bears his name, also referred to this variety. He praised the management of Diego Costa Peuser, global director of Pinta: “I feel that it has settled down, it has allowed other languages that dialogue with the photo, and I think that makes it even more contemporary. So I think it was a very solid edition. Diego put together a good team, and it shows. He added curators, new sections. He put one on each side, which balanced the fair. There were many collecting programs, many guests. I saw a lot of evolution.”
Among the positive evaluations were those of two gallery owners with the longest careers in Argentina: Orly Benzacar and Marina Pellegrini. While the first highlighted “the number of people, the interest of the public and the result,” the co-director of Vasari also valued “the talks, good books for sale and the visibility of the work of Jaime Bolotinsky,” protagonist of the tribute section curated by Francisco Medail. Gastón Deleau, who participated in the organization of the fair in its beginnings and is now the artistic director of Arte x Arte, expressed the same opinion: “The fair is growing year after year in a very organic way and at a steady pace,” he said. “It is a fundamental contribution to consolidate photography as a collectible art.”
While Costa Peuser celebrated “the forum was always full, the homage to three very important cultural figures [Luz Castillo, Aldo Sessa and Pedro Roth] and good sales,” the general curator of Pinta, Irene Gelfman, highlighted that this result was a consequence of “constantly reinventing ourselves, maintaining certain strategies and the place that artists and undisputed references of photography have, but at the same time making them coexist with new proposals and views on the medium and the photographic support.”
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