From Salta to the world

From Salta to the world: the coveted ancestral art that museums and collectors are looking for
Paintings, ceramics and textiles achieved good sales over the weekend at the first FAS fair, which focused on a trend that is evident abroad: seeking representatives of indigenous communities in Latin America

At the Salta Art Fair, there was a high demand for Wichi ceramic pieces such as these from the Tewok Cultural Center, made by five female artists from the Mendoza family, which were exhibited at the BAC gallery; Next to it, works by the artist Mariano Cornejo

SALTA.- While artists with indigenous roots are in the news around the world, such as Chola Poblete (best seller at Art BAssel and winner of an award at the Venice Biennale) and Claudia Alarcón (a Wichi artist who, after her time in Venice, is represented by a London gallery), the first Art Fair of Salta, FAS, was held over the weekend in the province of Salta, which showed that in Argentina there is much more of what the global system now demands: creations from the interior, with an ancestral and profoundly Latin American identity. It is the turn of indigenous art, from more relegated communities, which until now did not have its page in the history of art, other than as inspiration or representation. Never in the first person, as Andrea Giunta points out in her new book Diversity and Latin American Art.

It is the first time that a commercial meeting brings together galleries from the NOA, generally newly born and debuting at an art fair. The artists are not artists, they have strong careers and works, and the result is that in three days 295 works were sold. 7,620 people passed through the Punto Corp building in San Lorenzo Chico to see the proposals of 258 artists from 34 galleries, mostly from Salta, Tucumán and Jujuy.

The Remota gallery, run by Guido Yannitto and Gonzalo Elías for two years, is the same one that presented Alarcón's work for the first time at arteba and now took the artist Roxana Ramos to Arco Madrid, where she was greeted by the King and Queen of Spain. “There are great artists in Salta. It has a very strong tradition, but the gallery's intention was to go deeper into marketing and internationalize it. Sometimes, from Salta it becomes a bit difficult,” says Yannitto, who is also a textile artist. At Arco they received the award for the best presentation. Queen Leticia was interested in the work of Ramos, who lives in Cafayate, in the Calchaquí Valleys, and makes weavings in simbol, a typical fiber from the banks of the Calchaquí River, which he makes from the family trade, the first bakers in the valley at the beginning of the 20th century, still in use today. With the shovels of his ovens and flour he performed a performance at the top of Cerro San Bernardo, which he climbed up by cable car. Things that only happen at a fair in Salta, the same as the hot wind from the zonda that blew the first few days and the obligatory, juicy empanadas.

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