Revelations in the great takeoff of Argentine art

2024 review: sales, awards and revelations in the great takeoff of Argentine art
A year worth sticking on the wall included the acquisition of a work by Mondongo that would be the most expensive in national history, new exhibition spaces, international distinctions and the proliferation of young talents
“There is a lot of interest in Argentine art,” Maribel López Zambrana, director of ARCO, assured LA NACION at the beginning of March. Days later, the kings of Spain confirmed it when they stopped by the stand of the Salta gallery Remota, one of the three from our country awarded at the Madrid fair along with Tomás Saraceno, a Tucuman based in Berlin. “It is a recognition for working with an incredible scene, and doing so in conditions that are sometimes not so easy,” said Alex Alonso, representative of one of the juries, when presenting the award.
Thus began a great year for Argentine art on a global level. Another of the winners at ARCO was Piedras, who months later would also receive a mention at the Remax award for the best stand at the fair at Arteba. One of her artists exhibited at the Centro Costa Salguero was among the revelations of the year: Carrie Bencardino became part of the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in Buenos Aires, surprised with an unmissable solo show that continues until the end of January at the gallery's headquarters in San Telmo, and has just sold two paintings at Art Basel Miami Beach.
As if this were not enough, Piedras has just completed the sale to Harvard Art Museums of three works by Jimena Croceri, to whom she dedicated a single show at Art Basel. Purchases of her Impossible Jewels began minutes after the opening of the fair, which this year faced delays from collectors when defining investments. This was not the case for the Argentines: the Barro gallery sold the Calavera #5 by the Mondongo collective for 470,000 dollars on the first day to Eduardo Costantini, who had acquired the Manifestación by the same group months before, exhibited at Malba. It was an exceptional year for the duo formed by Juliana Laffitte and Manuel Mendanha: among several works sold, the installation Argentina (landscapes) stands out, exhibited until March at Malba Puertos.
It was bought for 1.27 million dollars –probably the highest price paid for an Argentine work of art- by the collector, composer and businessman Andrés Buhar, promoter of Arthaus. On the terrace of this cultural center in downtown Buenos Aires, he also installed his Baptistery of Colors, within the framework of an exhibition dedicated to Mondongo that includes two other of his famous skulls. As if this were not enough, he also bought the diptych The Dream of Reason for an unconfirmed amount.
At Art Basel, Buhar acquired a monumental textile piece exhibited in the Meridians section, hand-embroidered by Chiachio & Giannone, for another six-figure sum in dollars. The Ruth Benzacar gallery also sold four other works by this duo of artists, who are celebrating two decades of joint work with an exhibition at Colección Amalita and a book, and several by Roberto Aizenberg, Carlos Huffmann, Eduardo Basualdo, Liliana Porter and Francisca Rey. And Rolf Art, twice as many audiovisual pieces by Julieta Tarraubella exhibited at its stand.
It was a great year for this last gallery, as it made important institutional acquisitions: La Conquista (1991), a collective work at MoMA; Bocanada by Graciela Sacco at the Pompidou Centre; El cóndor y el águila, by the same artist, at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes; La ausencia by Santiago Porter at the Jewish Museum in New York; part of Dalila Puzzovio's archive at ISLAA (Institute of Latin American Studies) and Verónica Meloni's Drawings of Force at CA2M.
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