The first private art initiative outside of Buenos Aires

"Capital Feria," the first private art initiative outside of Buenos Aires, kicks off in Córdoba
The event runs until Sunday, April 6, in the central Capitalinas District of the Mediterranean city, featuring 24 galleries and art projects from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico.
A new art fair is on the horizon. In Córdoba, the Capital Feria de Arte Latinoamericano (Capital Feria of Latin American Art) will debut this Thursday, April 3, through Sunday, April 6, in the Capitalinas District complex, bringing together 24 galleries and art projects from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico.
This will be the second fair in the province, where the Córdoba Art Market (MAC) has been held for over a decade. However, unlike the latter, which is funded by the state, Capital Feria is organized by the private sector, a novelty on the national art scene outside of Buenos Aires.

“The idea for the fair actually came from a private production company called Wayout, in conjunction with Distrito Capitalinas. They were interested in organizing a private art gallery fair and invited us to begin working on the project,” Luz Novillo Corvalán, co-director of the event with Mercedes López Moreyra, explained to Infobae Cultura.
In this sense, Capital Fair joins a growing ecosystem of fairs in the provinces, most of which are organized by the state, while others, a few, have mixed public-private financing, as is the case with Salta's FAS, from which the Capital Fair takes its concept of being held in a venue related to a real estate development.

“It's driven by the private sector, and in some ways, what we began to analyze a little was this great proliferation of fairs in different provinces of Argentina, but we began to detect that there was somehow no regional presence. That's why the idea of building this dialogue with Latin America seemed like it could be very powerful and, at the same time, establish a dialogue with all national productions, which would also have a federal character. So that seemed to us like an element that would differentiate it,” added Novillo Corvalán.
Regarding national participation, the fair is built on the presence of 19 spaces belonging to the most developed gallery trio in the country (CABA, Rosario, and the host province, of course), many of which tend to participate in the MAC for geo-economic reasons, so it is effectively in the foreign stake where the degree of separation lies. “The selection of galleries is partly a response to having a diversity of offerings, a snapshot of the different productions in different regions, different countries, and different journeys between emerging and more established galleries,” he said.

In that sense, the event will have a boutique format, which “although there is a constraint on the space where it will be held,” Novillo Corvalán explained, was also “interested in the scale”: “We thought it would be different if it were a more curated, somewhat more personalized experience.”

He added: “The boutique aspect also reflects the need for each stand to have a nicely developed space so the public could enjoy it in some way and be able to talk with the different gallery owners. In that sense, the boutique is, in some way, part of the Fair's identity.”
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