Espacio Enhorabuena

Swab 2023 presented last October, the programme Focus LATAM, curated by Santiago Gasquet, co-director of PIEDRAS (Buenos Aires), a platform for the exchange of management projects dedicated to showing recent productions by Latin American artists. 

The section brought together six spaces from the cities of Lima, Santiago de Chile, Buenos Aires, Salta and Madrid, focusing on the richness of the different ways of carrying out models of representation and promotion of young artists in each context.

PARTICIPATING GALLERIES:

Collectio

Galería Remota

The selected galleries presented the following artists:

Bloc Gallery: Verónica Cerna and Verónica Penagos.
Collectio: Isidora Villarino and José Cori.
Espacio Enhorabuena: Venuca Evanán and Iosu Aramburu.
Galeria Grasa: Antonella Agesta and Amparo Viau
“NOW: Gallery”: Marisol Nj and Ananú Gonzales Posada
Remote gallery: Roxana Ramos and Ivana Salfity

Proposals that testify to the effervescent Latin American art scene.

Galería Grasa

BLOC Art

Swab Radio – Focus LATAM

Tune in to the Focus LATAM by artsuper, who managed Swab Radio, creating a series of thought-focused roundtables and open dialogues, where new perspectives on contemporary art and its challenges emerged.

ROUNDTABLE I : SWAB FOCUS LATAM

We explore the internal evolution of the Latin American contemporary art scene: dominant themes and changes. We analyse its connection to national and European markets, revealing the dynamics that influence its transformation and global interaction.

Participants: José Luis Lorenzo (Private collector from Buenos Aires), Collectio & Santiago Gasquet.

The Video Box program at Swab Barcelona, in collaboration with SafeCreative, presented a compelling exploration of contemporary video art from Southeast Asia under the theme “HOME/LAND: Recent Moving Images from Southeast Asia.” Curated by Alfonse Chiu, the programme delved into the intricate interplay between land, body, and capital, offering snapshots of the region’s evolving relationship with nature, society, and the universe. SafeCreative’s involvement as a collaborator was instrumental in ensuring that the digital content showcased in the exhibition received proper copyright protection and management. This partnership undoubtedly played a vital role in safeguarding the intellectual property of the artists and facilitating the seamless presentation of their works to a global audience, enriching the overall experience for both artists and viewers alike.

The programme  involved the presentation of video artworks by the eight featured artists and their video art installations with an immersive experience for viewers. 

Premiere at Sala Zumzeig: Unveiling ‘HOME/LAND’ with Alfonse Chiu

We’re thrilled to share that Alfonse Chiu, the curator behind Video Box, introduced the captivating program ‘HOME/LAND’ at the esteemed Zumzeig hall, just ahead of the fair’s much-anticipated opening. The event was marked by a mesmerizing projection of four short films, offering a exciting preview into the works of the eight participating artists set to grace Swab. Here’s a sneak peek at the cinematic journey:

• ‘The Story of Ones’ (2011) by Phạm Ngọc Lân, Vietnam (10 minutes).
• ‘Saudade’ (2019) by Russell Morton, Singapore (21 minutes).
• ‘Mouthbreather’ (2023) by Tiyan Baker, a collaborative effort from Australia and Malaysia (13 minutes).
• ‘Terpesona dengan Kegelisahan’ (2022) by Nadiah Bamadhaj, Malaysia (16-minutes).

Following this exclusive screening, a dynamic Q&A session unfolded with the curator Alfonse Chiu, moderated by Álvaro Gurrea, a Catalan director who has created audiovisual projects at Southeast Asia

Roundtable Conversation with Safecreative

Tune in to our latest roundtable conversation dedicated to Video Box thanks to artsuper who managed Swab Radio, a series of though focused round tables. In open dialogues, new perspectives on contemporary art and its challenges emerged, enriching our understanding of a complex and fascinating landscape.

WITH THE SUPPORT

Swab presents the Video Box program 2023. HOME/LAND: RECENT MOVING IMAGES FROM SOUTHEAST ASIA

CURATED BY ALFONSE CHIU

We are pleased to present Video Box, the special non-profit program that gives visibility to video art projects created in territories with a developing cultural fabric, and which in this edition is curated by Taiwanese curator Alfonse Chiu. It is focused on Southeast Asia through of 8 artists who work on the concept of border, creating an artistic dialogue across the limits established by colonialism in these territories. In addition to the fair program, we have arranged a special screening of 4 short films at the Zumzeig cinema with the curator presence. 

HOME/LAND.

Southeast Asia is a recent invention—a name given afar that marks it as a site of extraction, of colonial dreams coming true. The people of Southeast Asia never did see themselves as Southeast Asians until now, when geopolitical boundaries become effective technologies of identification. Before, they were of their own names, own kins, own kingdoms, who leave with the trade winds from the Northeast down to the Southwest, amongst islands and the continent. HOME/LAND presents snapshots of recent moments that see the flow of land and body in Southeast Asia as an extension of capital and as a marker for the changing relationship with nature, society, and the universe that the nations of Southeast Asia have. Drawing a line of sight—and comparison—between migrations, extractions, and the future, this moving image programme reflects on the strange terrains of Southeast Asia and its stranger journey as an unfamiliar homeland. 

VIDEO BOX INSTALLATION:

_{^{Zarina Muhammad + Zachary Chan
Land, Sky and Sea as Palimpsest, 2021}}

VIDEO BOX SCREENINGS – ZUMZEIG

In addition to the video program at the fair, we’re hosting a special viewing session at Zumzeig Cinema. During this session, attendees can watch 4 short films by the artists Russel Morton, Phạm Ngọc Lân, Tiyan Baker y Nadiah Bamadhaj.

Wednesday 4th October, 7pm
Tickets available here

At the end of the screening there will be a Q&A with the curator Alfonse Chiu.

Saudade, 2019
Russell Morton (Singapore)

Saudade is an aural and visual archive narrated entirely in Kristang—a creole language that emerged in 16th century Portuguese colonial Malacca. The film reimagines rituals and choreography characteristic of early Eurasian kampongs in three acts: a song and dance of the Jinkli Nona, a scene between a shrimp fisherman and his wife, and a cross-cultural encounter with the Malay ghost orang minyak. 

The Story of Ones, 2011
Phạm Ngọc Lân (Vietnam)

Utilizing the banality of Vietnamese state radio broadcasts, The Story of Ones gives a face and a sense of place to the unseen and offers a personal counterpoint to the officially sanctioned.

Mouthbreather, 2023
Tiyan Baker (Australia / Malaysia)

In Tiyan Baker’s mouthbreather, we witness the world from behind the artist’s teeth as she walks across her Ancestral lands and mouths, breathes, calls forth and gives form to a buried language. Mouthbreather explores the possibilities of language revival nd how language shapes and changes our relationship to land and ways of knowing the world.

Terpesona dengan Kegelisahan, 2022
Nadiah Bamadhaj (Malaysia)

Social media is a channel for various spectacles that reveal the representation of power through the language of images and videos. Nadiah Bamadhaj created her video after watching a ‘militaristic ritual’ (known as TNI yells) that went viral on social media. For Nadiah, the yells have to do with a nationalistic spirit displayed through a hyper-masculinity that arouses fear.

MEET THE CURATOR: ALFONSE CHIU

We talk to Alfonse Chiu

Alfonse Chiu (Singapore/Taipei) is a writer, artist, and curator working at the intersection of text, space, and the moving image. Their practice investigates imaginaries of capital and ideologies as shaped by media infrastructures and networked economies to contemplate possible futures for bodies, society, and the environment. They are the founder of the Centre for Urban Mythologies (CUM), a critical research and artistic platform exploring the tropes and narratives of the urban condition to propose larger situated critiques of capitalism and Anthropocene positioned from the Global South.

– As a curator, what do you think makes Swab special or different as a fair?

Being a human-scaled art fair that have consistently spotlit emerging and experimental artistic practices for almost two decades, I think what makes Swab special is its accessibility and nimbleness. Navigating the terrains of artistic production and discourse that have shifted dramatically in recent years due to technological and geopolitical reasons, Swab is anchored to both its physical context of Barcelona and its commitment to find connectivity between Spain, the Hispanosphere, and beyond, which makes it a fertile ground to grow new ideas, communities, and ecologies beyond the standard paradigm of the West Europe/North America art fair and biennial circuit. As a curator, this promise of what can come forth is most exciting!

– What artistic or curatorial trends do you think will be established in the coming years?

While I hesitate to predict or forecast, my personal inclination is to hope that in the coming years, following in the spirits of the recently concluded documenta fifteen, the 59th Venice Biennale, and the ongoing 18th Venice Architecture Biennale: The Laboratory of the Future, we will see a greater focus on creative practices from the Global South that are actively and critically reacting to the impacts of the current political and economic regime on local and hyper-local contexts. Through works that re-centre the possibilities of artists, architects, activists, and other practitioners functioning as public intellectuals that can tackle the complexity of late capitalism from within, we may find networks and solidarities for collective solutions to the urgent distributed challenges of living in a time of intensifying violences and volatilities, without losing sight of the care, joy, and love embedded within how we will and shall live together.

From a more material and practical perspective, I imagine that practices and histories of new and expanded media will gain greater institutional footholds as digital ecologies mature and cross-fertilisation occur increasingly between practitioners that work between different scales and environments of technology, politics, and cultures. While some people may consider us in a post-COVID era, the revelation of the global reliance on screen-based media for communication and creation during the worst of the pandemic times have definitely resulted in massive shifts in how we think about, organise, and present certain forms of creative works, and this is something that I think will persist.

– What are you interested in seeing or discovering at the fair in this new edition?

I am most interested in seeing works by emerging practitioners and presentations by emerging galleries and art spaces that excavate under-explored narratives of history and explore the unseen affects and stories hidden within the everyday. I am also curious about artistic ecosystems of production and circulation within different forms of regionality such as Ibero-America and the Mediterranean, and how they can link up with the regions I am more presently active in.

– In which projects or with which artists are you working now? What topics concern you in your research lately?

Right now, I am busy with researching and preparing for my inaugural edition of SeaShorts Film Festival as programme director. A pan-Southeast Asian festival exploring short-form moving image cultures, SeaShorts is slated to take place in Q4 2023 and I am very excited about new possibilities of working from an expanded perspective of what short films can be, and what forms of knowledge- and history-making can emerge from a media archaeological approach to film culture. In addition to this, I am also working on my personal artistic practice, a few curatorial projects slated for the coming year, as well as conducting preliminary research for my forthcoming graduate studies at the Yale School of Architecture.

Within the scope of my my current research, which approaches art, architecture, and cinema from the lens of what I call ‘critical visual culture’, I am interested in investigating how infrastructure, landscape, and capital are interlinked to form a kind of media that propagate and manifest specific political and economic imaginaries within neoliberal ideology. A big part of this research takes place under an umbrella project called THERMOTROPICANA that uses the properties of heat and wetness as a metaphor for capital movement within and without the tropical belt. This is something I have been developing for the past couple of years through the Centre for Urban Mythologies (CUM), an artistic and critical research platform I founded in 2020, which I also aim to expand in activities and collaborators.

– How would you define your curatorial practice?

As an organiser and editor who entered the nebulous world of ‘curatorial practice’ somewhat incidentally, I would say that my approach to exhibition- and programme-making is rooted in a very tentacular and critical way of reflecting on the ways we exist within the systems, networks, and structures that we are in. I was first trained as a film critic before I studied to become an arts manager, and then I worked actively as an academic researcher between architecture and media studies and also as a cultural journalist—I did not follow a linear path and branched out like a slime mold solving a maze, and this somewhat eclectic approach has taught me to think transversally and address blindspots. Instead of approaching artistic fields with formal and genealogical classifications such as dance, painting, and architecture, I revert to a more meta vocabulary—for example, bodies, movements, representations, and spaces—to get at the core of their powers and effects.

Geographically, my work has traditionally been situated between East Asia (Taiwan) where I was born and Southeast Asia (Singapore) where I was raised, and it is this experience of having to negotiate actively between different ideas of Asia within Asia itself that has defined my own sense of political economy and geoculture, and informed my curiosity for all the different Asias that can and will exist—sometimes outside of Asia even.

_{^{Halfhouse, Barcelona}}

^{SOLO by Fundació Vila Casas is a program curated by independent curators Carla Gimeno Jaria and Margot Cuevas, in collaboration with the Vila Casas Foundation. It presents four independent projects from the Catalan territory that generate dialogues around identity with a proposal for an individual exhibition. This program seeks to promote the new curatorship while establishing links between territories of the Mediterranean arc. In this way, Swab reaffirms its roots in the territory and claims its local essence.
For this 2023 edition, SOLO by Fundació Vila Casas invites HalfHouse (Barcelona), F O C (Barcelona), Cultural Rizoma (Celrà) and Espai19 (Barcelona). During the SWAB fair, these four self-managed spaces, which are configured as non-profit projects, present individual exhibition proposals that together generate a portrait of contemporary artistic trends in the local context. Based on different materializations, each project will allow us to glimpse the ways of working and the idiosyncrasies of each space, claiming different ways of doing and working with artistic practice.}

SOLO SPACES

^{Halfhouse, Barcelona}

^{Espai19, Barcelona}

^{Cultural Rizoma, Celrà}

^{F O C, Barcelona}

_{^{Espai19, Barcelona}}

MEET THE CURATOR: CARLA GIMENO 

^{We speak with Carla Gimeno
Carla Gimeno Jaria (Barcelona, ​​1994) is a curator, researcher and cultural manager. Carla Gimeno Jaria (Barcelona, ​​1994) is a curator, researcher and cultural manager.}

^{– As a curator, what do you think makes Swab special or different as a fair?}

^{Swab is a fair that over the years has managed to maintain its essence with an intimate and close format. Despite the international projection of the fair, the program always focuses on a local and emerging perspective, which I consider differentiates it from other fairs. This format allows visitors to observe the proposals of each gallery or space in detail while bringing them closer to the artistic reality of the Catalan territory. And this is a kind and necessary gesture.}

^{– What artistic or curatorial trends do you think will be established in the coming years?}

^{I think we are in a very delicate and unstable moment, but very powerful. Socially, there is an inherent need to rethink how we live and how we relate, with people and with nature. And this, inevitably, is reflected in both artistic and curatorial practices. Personally, I increasingly see projects whose collaborative nature appeals to intersectional discourses. Collaboration, care, inclusivity, or environmental responsibility are processes that, in my opinion, will increasingly be present in artistic and curatorial projects, whatever their format.}

^{– What are you interested in seeing or discovering at the fair in this new edition?}

^{I really want to see the artistic proposals from the galleries in Barcelona. Every year new spaces are added and Swab is an ideal event to have a general image of what is happening in the city at a given time.}

^{– What projects or artists are you working on now? What topics have you been concerned about in your research lately?}

^{I am concerned about the violence that semi-capitalism applies to bodies and how this process has accelerated in recent years with the incorporation of new technologies, as tools for the commodification of emotions and affects. More generally, my research focuses on the search and speculation of forms of resilience in the oppressive structures that shape our imagination and reality.}

^{-How would you define your curatorial practice?}

^{It is difficult to think about my curatorial practice from a specific place, but I suppose I understand it as a sustained process of questioning and research around my concerns that is formalized and enriched by collaboration with artists, curators or friends. For me, collaboration is essential, not only when I work on a specific project with one or more artists, but on a day-to-day basis, because it often gives me different readings and points of view that make me rethink things. I also like to think of curatorial practice as an open and blurred space that is nourished by processes of relationship, encounter and dialogue with the practice of the artists with whom I work and that can generate debates, circumstances and unexpected dislocations.}

---

MEET THE CURATOR: MARGOT CUEVAS

^{We speak with Margot Cuevas
Margot Cuevas Orteu (Barcelona, ​​1995) is an independent curator and directs the exhibition space Raccoon projects.}

^{– As a curator, what do you think makes Swab special or different as a fair?}

^{What makes Swab special or different as a contemporary art fair may vary depending on the edition and artistic trends of the moment, since in each edition you discover new galleries and proposals. I would highlight the focus and marked interest that the fair has in emerging artists and galleries, making them known and offering them a platform for both national and international visibility. I would also highlight artistic diversity, because Swab hosts a wide selection of styles, thus being a diverse and inclusive fair.}

^{– What artistic or curatorial trends do you think will be established in the coming years?}

^{Anticipating future art trends can be challenging, as art is a constantly evolving field and trends can change quickly. However, there are some trends and themes that have clearly been emerging in recent years and will continue to develop. For example, environmental awareness about climate change and sustainability, many artists are exploring themes related to nature, sustainability and the relationship between humans and the environment. Issues such as social justice, gender equality, human rights and other political and social issues are also on the agenda. Many artists are revisiting their history and identity, especially from a postcolonial perspective. This trend could continue to develop as forgotten or marginalized narratives are given voice.
It is important to note that art trends are subjective and can vary by region, art community, and world events. Therefore, it is interesting to follow the work of emerging artists and contemporary art exhibitions to stay up to date with current and future trends.}

^{– What are you interested in seeing or discovering at the fair in this new edition?}

^{Swab always has very interesting curated programs, this year for example I really want to see the Emerging Latam program curated by Santiago Gasquet, which brings the most innovative and young galleries from the Latin American scene. I am also very interested in the Video program curated by Alfonse Chiu, which will feature several works by artists from the Southeast Asian context, a context that I really want to know more about.}

^{– How would you define your curatorial practice or what projects are you working on now?}

^{Right now I’m focused on the project I started a year ago. Raccoon projects is a curatorial exhibition space where I invite artists to learn more about their practice and work together on a process and a body of work that is then presented to the space in an exhibition format, although it is not a final requirement. I am interested in how I can influence the body of work and the artistic practice and how links of continuity can be established in non-gallery formats.}

Focus LATAM, a section curated by Santiago Gasquet, co-director of PIEDRAS (Buenos Aires), is presented as a platform for exchange between management projects that promote recent productions by Latin American artists.

The section brings together six spaces that operate in the cities of Lima, Santiago de Chile, Buenos Aires, Salta and Madrid, and focuses on the richness of the different ways of carrying out models of representation and promotion of young artists in each context.

PARTICIPATING GALLERIES

Bloc Art, Lima

Collectio, Santiago de Chile

Espacio Enhorabuena, Madrid

Galeria Grasa, Buenos Aires

Now Gallery, Lima

Remota Galería, Salta

MEET THE CURATOR: SANTIAGO GASQUET

We talk to Santiago Gasquet
He currently co-directs the PIEDRAS gallery, an independent space for the exhibition, production, research and commercialisation of contemporary art, self-managed by a group of artists in the city of Buenos Aires. He also coordinates the platform PUENTE, which works as a mediation between projects from different latitudes linked to the visual arts, carrying out residencies in different parts of the country and putting artists, curators and cultural managers in dialogue with each other.

Kevin Kavanagh, Dublin

The General Program is the central core of the fair, it includes national and international galleries with a solid track record in the contemporary art circuit. This year, the program will have 39 galleries that will present the most innovative proposals with the latest trends in contemporary art, which in this edition move away from figuration and immerse themselves in abstraction with surrealist lines and poetic and colorful landscapes.

Galerie Fleur & Wouter, Amsterdam 

PARTICIPATING GALLERIES

VANGAR, Valencia

Swab Thinks

Two weeks before the celebration of the fair, and with the aim of actively involving the Barcelona context, the galleries of the Art Barcelona association that will participate in Swab, will be the protagonists of Swab Thinks, a program of talks between gallerists, open to all citizens and curated by Gisela Chillida.

The cycle aims to generate synergies between curators, artists and gallerists through conversations that will be held in the same galleries, with the intention of promoting affinities and relationships with the agents of the local context. The last talk will be held at Santa&Cole, the fair’s new collaborator, which reaffirms Barcelona’s identity through the tradition of local design and architecture.

House of Chappaz, València / Barcelona

(Photo: Ballroom Gallery, Brussels. MYFAF)

The My First Art Fair(MYFAF) program is the section with the youngest proposals of the fair, responding to the firm vocation of being a showcase for new trends and a support for new galleries and emerging spaces. This year the program presents a selection of three galleries with less than two years of experience that have not yet participated in any international fair. Swab offers these spaces their participation free of charge to facilitate the entry of new proposals into the circuit.

The selection for this edition is made up of Ballroom Gallery, Galería Fermay and Julie Caredda, three proposals that stand out for their youth and originality, a mix of local and international talent, and a possible representation of what will be the galleries of the art scene to come. In this way, MYFAF continues to be one of the freshest and most representative bets of the fair and materializes one of the main desires of Swab: to be a gateway to the international circuit for new exhibition projects, yet to be discovered.

Julie Caredda, Paris. MYFAF

MYFAF GALLERIES

Ballroom Gallery, Brussels

Galería Fermay, Palma de Mallorca

Julie Caredda, Paris

Galería Fermay, Palma de Mallorca. MYFAF

Swab Seed is a program that aims to give visibility to independent platforms and self-managed projects by artists or curators that do not fit into a conventional gallery conception. We understand this section as a counterpoint to the traditional gallery format, highlighting the need to create spaces for alternative exhibition management models.

Colette Mariana, Barcelona

Mmundo, New York

Vangar Gallery. General program

Swab Barcelona will bring together 70 galleries from all over the world at the Textile Pavilion from 5 to 8 October

· Swab Barcelona will show the latest trends in contemporary art, which in this edition move away from figuration and dive into abstraction with surrealist strokes and poetic and colorful landscapes.
 
· The International Contemporary Art Fair of Barcelona will have the participation of 70 galleries, 27 national and 43 from 21 countries around the world, and with the participation of more than 200 artists.
 
· As a new feature, the SOLO Show program, curated by young curators Margot Cuevas and Carla Gimeno, and in collaboration with the Fundació Vila Casas, which focuses on the Mediterranean, this year focuses on Catalan talent, highlighting four independent spaces that will present a single show with the most avant-garde trends of the scene. A program that seeks to promote new curatorship and generate dialogues between territories of the Mediterranean arc. Swab thus reaffirms its roots in the territory and claims its local essence.
 
· Video Box, the special non-profit program that gives visibility to video art projects created in territories with a developing cultural scene, and which in this edition is curated by Taiwanese curator Alfonse Chiu, focuses on Southeast Asia through eight artists who work on the concept of frontier, an artistic dialogue across the limits established by colonialism in these territories.
 
· The fair, which acts as a platform for experimentation of emerging artistic proposals, has 7 programs: General Program, dedicated to consolidated galleries; Emerging, galleries with less than five years of experience; Emerging LATAM, the most promising proposals of Latin American contemporary art; Swab Seed, independent spaces and new platforms; SOLO Show by Vila Casas, Catalan interdisciplinary projects, My First Art Fair, young galleries with less than two years and that have not participated in any international fair, and Video Box, dedicated to the latest trends in video art.
 
· Swab 2023 changes its location and in this edition will be held in the Textile Pavilion of Fira de Barcelona, a space of industrial aesthetics of more than 3.000m2, located at Avinguda Rius i Taulet, 10 (see map).
 
· The programming of Swab Thinks, the free cycle of talks between gallerists in Barcelona, the Swab 2023 Awards, the acquisitions program, Swab Kids, the activities for the youngest art lovers, and Swab Radio, with original content generated by the fair’s protagonists: artists, gallerists and curators, will be announced soon.

SISSI CLUB. Emerging program

Swab, the International Contemporary Art Fair of Barcelona, which will hold its 16th edition from October 5 to 8, 2023, announces the galleries that will participate in this new edition.

As a innovation, the fair will change its location. Swab 2023 will premiere its new location at the Textile Pavilion of Fira de Barcelona, located at Avenida Rius i Taulet, 10 (a few meters from the Italian Pavilion, where the fair has been held to date). Located on the site of the former Palace of Textile Art of the 1929 Barcelona Universal Exposition, the pavilion, of industrial aesthetics, has more than 3,000m2 that will occupy the entire fair.

Swab Barcelona, with a rich program that combines established galleries with younger galleries, acts as a platform for experimentation of emerging artistic proposals. The selection committee, the collaborating curators and the fair’s management are committed to the freshest and most current proposals on the national and international scene, thus reflecting the trends of the moment and giving visibility to young and innovative projects. The result is a fair on a human scale that brings together the artists who define the present and the future of the art market.

In this edition, the fair, which showcases the latest trends in contemporary art, puts the spotlight on the city of Barcelona and the Mediterranean, with the aim of projecting local talent to the rest of the world. Just as Modernism gave way to Abstraction, which meant the internationalization of Catalan art, Swab 2023 leaves behind the recurrent figuration to dive into abstract scenarios with surrealist strokes and colorful poetic landscapes.

The Swab 2023 selection committee is made up of curators and artistic directors Omar Lopez-Chahoud, from the Untitled Miami fair, Jérôme Pantalacci, from the French Art-o-Rama fair, Isa Natalia Castilla, from the Material Fair in Mexico City, Domenico de Chirico, independent curator, and collectors José Luis Lorenzo, Marie Elena Angulo, Jesper Stieler and Pedro Jaile.

Kevin Kavanagh. General program

70 galleries in 7 programs

Swab 2023 will feature the participation of 70 contemporary art galleries, 27 national and 43 from 21 countries in Europe, Latin America and Asia. In addition, Swab 2023 will feature the participation of 200 artists.

General Program

The General Program, the central pillar of the fair, includes national and international galleries with a consolidated trajectory in the contemporary art circuit. This year, the program will feature 40 galleries, formed by: Anna Nova Gallery (St. Petersburg), Artnueve (Murcia), ATM Galería (Gijón) + Espacio Valverde (Madrid), Bianca Boeckel (São Paulo), CLUSTER (Rome), Dimensions Variable (Miami), Ángeles Baños Gallery (Badajoz), Fran Reus (Palma de Mallorca), Isabel Hurley Gallery (Malaga), Galerie chantiersBoîteNoire (Montpellier), Galerie Fleur & Wouter (Amsterdam), Galerie Tanint (Beirut), Herrero de Tejada (Madrid), Jorge López Galería (Valencia), Josilda da Conceição (Amsterdam), JPS Gallery (Hong Kong / Tokyo / Paris), Kevin Kavanagh (Dublin), OdA (Buenos Aires), Pabellón 4 (Buenos Aires), Portas Vilaseca (Rio de Janeiro) + Reiners Contemporary (Marbella), Quimera Galería (Buenos Aires), Rafael Pérez Hernando (Madrid), Raffaella De Chirico Art Gallery (Turin / Milan), RoFa Art Gallery (Potomac / Gaithersburg), Secret Project Robot (New York), Set Espai d’Art (Valencia), Shazar Gallery (Naples), Smart Gallery (Buenos Aires), TCHIKEBE (Marseille), and VANGAR (Valencia).

To highlight the Barcelona galleries participating in this program: ADN Galeria, Dilalica, House of Chappaz (also based in Valencia), Pigment Gallery, Victor Lope Arte Contemporáneo, Zielinsky (also based in Porto Alegre). In addition, etHALL, in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat and PALMADOTZE Galeria d’Art, in Santa Margarida i els Monjos (Barcelona). All these galleries are associated with Art Barcelona.

Emerging

The Emerging program, dedicated to galleries with less than five years of experience, will feature Albert Contemporary (Odense), Bold (Prague), DS Galerie (Paris), LUPO (Milan), Mahara+Co (Miami) and SISSI club (Marseille).

Emerging LATAM

The Emerging LATAM program, curated by Argentine curator and gallerist Santiago Gasquet, co-director of PIEDRAS gallery (Buenos Aires), and featuring the most promising emerging galleries and proposals of the Latin American contemporary art scene, will include collectio (Chile), Bloc Art Gallery (Lima), Espacio Enhorabuena (Madrid), Galeria Grasa (Buenos Aires), Now Gallery (San Isidoro, Peru), and Remota Galería (Salta, Argentina).

Swab Seed

The Swab Seed program showcases ten independent spaces run, in some cases, by experimental artists whose proposals are shaking up the contemporary scene. In this edition, Swab Seed will feature Awol (Los Angeles), CU29 (Plovdiv, Bulgaria), Colette Mariana (Barcelona), HARABEL (Tirana), Kunsthalle.Ost (Leipzig), La Raíz (Granada), Lí Gallery (Shanghai), Mmundo (New York), Studio-Beta (Barcelona/Berlin) and Yafteh Gallery (Tehran).

SOLO Show by Vila Casas

The SOLO Show by Vila Casas program, curated by the young independent curators Carla Gimeno and Margot Cuevas in collaboration with the Fundació Vila Casas, exhibits four independent projects from the Catalan territory, through a solo show proposal, a solo exhibition with the most avant-garde trends of the scene. A program that seeks to promote new curatorship and generate dialogues between territories of the Mediterranean arc. Swab thus reaffirms its roots in the territory and claims its local essence.

The program, sponsored by the Fundació Vila Casas, will feature FOC (Barcelona), Cultural Rizoma (Celrà), Half House (Barcelona), and Butxaca Màgica (L’Hospitalet de Llobregat).

My First Art Fair

The My First Art Fair program selects three young contemporary art galleries, under two years old, that have not yet participated in any international fair. In order to help promote new emerging galleries, Swab offers this space free of charge. The program will feature Ballroom Gallery (Brussels), Galeria Fermay (Palma de Mallorca), and Julie Caredda (Paris).

Video Box

The non-profit program Video Box, dedicated to the latest trends in video art and that gives visibility to audiovisual projects created in territories with a developing cultural fabric, puts the spotlight on Southeast Asia. Alfonse Chiu, curator of this edition, has selected eight artists who work on the concept of frontier, an artistic dialogue through the limits established by colonialism in these territories. Under the title Home/Land, Video Box will feature the following artists: Robert Zhao Renhui and Zarina Muhammad, from Singapore; Shireen Seno, from the Philippines; Prapat Jiwarangsan, from Thailand; Tuân Mami and Lêna Bùi, from Vietnam; Lim Sokchanlina, from Cambodia, and Riar Rizaldi, from Indonesia.

CU29. Swab Seed

Special programs: Swab Kids and talks among gallery owners

Swab Thinks

Two weeks before the fair is held, and with the aim of actively involving the Barcelona fabric, the galleries of the Art Barcelona association that will participate in Swab will be the protagonists of Swab Thinks, a program of talks among gallery owners, open to all citizens and curated by curator Gisela Chillida. The cycle aims to generate synergies between curators, artists and gallerists through conversations that will be held in the galleries themselves, with the aim of strengthening affinities and kinships with the agents of the local context. The last talk will be held at Santa&Cole, a new collaborator of the fair, which reaffirms Barcelona’s identity through the tradition of local design and architecture.

Swab Kids

As every year, Swab dedicates a space to the youngest art lovers through Swab Kids, a program that seeks to promote artistic development in children’s education. For this edition, the fair has teamed up with Mister Karton, an eco-design studio from Barcelona focused on cardboard projects, which will seek creativity through sustainability. Mister Karton will offer a space open to all children who want to explore their imagination. The children’s workshops that will be held during Swab 2023 will be announced soon.

We spoke to Jose Luís Lorenzo.

Art collector and member of the Latin American Art Acquisitions Committee of the Tate Modern, London. Lorenzo is also a celebrated architect, owner of the firm Lorenzo y Asociados Arquitectos and president of DINA (Diseñadores Nacionales Asociados).

Which was your favorite moment at Swab 2022?

Unfortunately, due to these recent world circumstances I was unable to travel to the last editions, but I can talk about the last one that I attended in 2019. I would say that the best thing about Swab is its scale and the visits organized for the Collectors Program. Also, I was able to discover new artists unknown for me within the different sections of the fair.

What makes Swab different as a fair?

I think the importance lies in its scale and the way the galleries are selected and organized. I think it is very important to have a sector dedicated to Latin America. It is a way to discover and see galleries in a geographical sector very relevant and close to me. In addition, Swab improves with every edition. 

Where do you think the new trends in emerging art are heading in the coming years?

In the emerging contemporary art scene, many artists are choosing different paths. On the one hand, for example, there are those who choose digital art as a possibility. On the other hand, some remain in craftsmanship creating crosses between craftwork and art, where the boundaries between one and the other are increasingly lost. That creates new scenarios where this division no longer exists, returning to the origins of the Bauhaus where everything has to do with everything. Also there are artists who continue with the classic trend of painting. Therefore, in my opinion, we are in a moment where there is no clear trend, but everyone is looking for their own way.

Which was the last work you added to your collection?

The last one was a work by Carlos Herrera, which I bought at the Ruth Benzacar Gallery at  ArteBA Fair last October, it is a volumetric large format work, which I am very happy with. We already had Carlos’ work in the collection, so it’s also important to continue betting on his career.

We spoke to Marie Elena Angulo.

Art collector, patron of the Contemporary Art Society in London, a founding patron of The Drawing Room and member of the Board of Oolite Arts, one of Miami’s largest visual artist support organizations. Marie Elena is also an attorney at law specializing in financial matters.

What was your favorite moment at Swab 2022?

My favorite moment at Swab was going around the fair with the group of collectors from Miami visiting and seeing their excitement at discovering new galleries and artists.

What did you discover at Swab 2022? 

I discovered the work of Ana Tiscornia at Espacio Mínimo and the beautiful drawings of Taichi Nakamura at Cave-Ayumi Gallery.  I also enjoyed the fair program called Swab on Paper and the diverse group of galleries at that section, some of which I did not know.

What makes Swab different as a fair?

It is a very welcoming environment.  Its size makes it easy to manage; collectors have the time to stop at each gallery and to engage with the work of the artists and the gallerists.  It also has an amazingly broad geographical scope, with galleries from Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, the US and Western and Eastern Europe.

Where do you think the new trends in emerging art are heading in the coming years?

I think there will be a move away from figurative painting, with figures merging more with abstraction. I am also curious about the trend to revisit Surrealism as seen in the last Venice Biennial, and the interest in the spiritual in the arts.  There is also the obvious trend towards digital art and the AR (Augmented Reality).

What was the last work you added to your collection?

The last two works we bought were textile pieces:  one by Lulu Varona, a young Puerto Rican artist currently exhibiting at the “No Existe Un Mundo Post Huracán” show of Puerto Rican artists at the Whitney Museum and the other piece by Regina Jestrow, a New York artist currently based in Miami, whose work explores activism and race in American history. 

We spoke to Pedro Jaile.

An art collector and avid traveler, he is interested in how contemporary art is influenced by different cultures. In his professional career, Pedro is a lawyer specialized in real estate and regulatory matters.

What was your favorite moment at Swab 2022?
I greatly enjoyed the opening and the dinner that followed, it was a wonderful way to start the 4 day event and to have the opportunity to meet other collectors and, get to know each other in depth and forge plans for the following days. This was truly specialand the restaurant was perfect.

What did you discover at Swab 2022? 
New friendships at many levels. Collectors that I have stayed in touch with and have made plans to meet at other fairs. Gallery owners that have invited me to their home and introduced me to their family and meeting wonderful new artists that were unknown to me.

What makes Swab different as a trade show?
The size is clearly an important factor for me. Not too small and not too large.  It is just the right size that allows you to see everything at a leisurely pace, having ample time to converse with gallery owners, artists, and truly enjoy everything while not feeling the anxiety of having to rush or you won’t see it all. I also love that Swab takes the time and effort to integrate Barcelona. The events that you organize, from studio visits, to personal guided visits to foundations or the great dinners foster an environment that allows for deeper and more meaningful connections with other attendees that come from all corners of the planet.


Where do you think the new trends in emerging art are heading in the coming years?
Million dollar question. I think many underrepresented cultures will continue to emerge and become more important players, from racialized people, women or people of discriminated genders, as well as artists from remote parts of the world. 

What was the last work you added to your collection?

A beautiful sculpture by Teresa Solar that I was lucky enough to obtain at Art Basel.