The LA Times explains how an American city filled the place normally held by the culture of a country at ARCO in Madrid:
“Los Angeles is holding a spot that has been previously reserved for entire nations this year because it’s a very complete contemporary art hub,” said “Panorama” co-curator Christopher Miles. “It has everything covered: the creation, distribution and critical discussion of art. And people here are very eager to see what Los Angeles has to offer.” Organizers say the fair’s massing of L.A. art constitutes the largest and most comprehensive collection ever to be shown outside Southern California. […]
“We tried to provide a broad sampling of art practices from Los Angeles — across different disciplines, genres, different media and also different generations,” said Miles, who with independent curator Kris Kuramitsu chose the galleries and many of the artists included in the exhibition. “But we had no agenda. We were not trying to define the city by a particular look or school, genre or ideology. Because that has been a major problem with how L.A. art has been historicized or presented in the past — a tendency to reduce L.A. to a scene.” […]
“The world is very aware of L.A. artists. They’re the greatest asset this city has in terms of the visual arts,” Grimes said. “But I don’t think the galleries are as well known. For us to have such a large concentration of galleries [at ARCOmadrid], it augments the breadth of knowledge about what’s going on here. People who wouldn’t necessarily have come to Los Angeles have the opportunity to go to Madrid and take the pulse of L.A. without making the trip.”
LA Is On Display at the Big European Art Fair ARCOmadrid (Los Angeles Times)
