‘7,291’, the claim of relatives of deaths in residences in Madrid in Pandemia, sneaks into Arco 2025

‘7,291’, the work of the artist Ramón Mateos who refers to Diego Galán’s homonymous documentary and receives the same name as the Platform of Deaths of Deaths in the residences of the Community of Madrid during the Pandemia, is one of the pieces present in Arco 2025.

The installation of chains has arrived in Ifema Madrid-where the fair is celebrated from March 5 to 9– thanks to the Madrid Gallery Freijo with a price of 15,000 euros

Thus, the work-an anonized aluminum curtain in which the number 7,291 has been printed blank-had never been seen before and even the artist has wanted it to be revealed only during the assembly on Tuesday afternoon.

“That number has become an icon of many things: what we want to hide, also an icon of the sadness of what has happened, of deceased people … sometimes it seems a lie that a number tells us so much,” said the director and owner of the gallery, anguish frying in statements to the media, while affirming that the figure directly refers to the homonymous documentary,

Freijo has criticized that Galán’s documentary has not wanted to “exhibit” on Telemadrid and has defended that it is now in Arco. “We present it at the Arc Fair in Madrid when it is in Madrid where there is this kind of censorship, somehow,” he has detailed.

“This girl, Ayuso, is very nice but I do not think he likes art because the political class is not fond of art. The last politician who had an interest in art was Don Manuel Azaña and they have spent 100 years,” he said.

Trump, Abascal, Elon Musk, Meloni, Le Pen, Presentes en La Feria

As said the director of the Fair in an interview with Europa Press, the president of the United States Government, Donald Trump, stars in one of the works, specifically that of Eugenio Merino in DNA Gallery, ‘face washing’.

With a price of 22,000 euros, Merino has also placed 17 dishes with the face of Elon Musk and the faces of the main leaders present at the summit in Madrid of ‘Patriots for Europe’, which had Santiago Abascal as host and presence of Marine Le Pen, Matteo Salvini or Viktor Orbán- in a dishwasher.

Precisely, the gallery manager, Jordi Vernis, has specified that it is a sculpture in which Trump, Bolsonaro, Meloni or Abascal serve as a support for the artist to reflect on how the media and society in general make “quite easy” that “blanquee” the image of the extreme right.

Joan Miró, the most expensive artist in the fair

Some of the most expensive pieces of this edition-in which paint predominates over other formats-reach 1,600,000 euros and are in the Spanish Gallery Leandro Navarro.

Specifically, Navarro has explained to the media that Joan’s oil looked ‘Tete Aut Trois Cheveux Devant La Lune’ is priced at 1,600,000 euros, but closely follows ‘Pipe et packet of Tabac’, by Juan Gris, which is around 1,250,000 euros.

Meanwhile, in the Lelong gallery, it also has one of the highest prices, 1,200,000 euros, with the Miró ‘1953 Gouache’ collage.

Among the works of lower price, for 300 euros, is that of the artist Inma Herrera in the F2 Gallery gallery; For 400 euros, attendees will be able to acquire a series of drawings made of charcoal, cake and ink on paper Katinka Huang; And for 450 euros, a textile piece by Karina Mendrecxky, as Europa Press has been confirmed.

The Helga de Alvear gallery, present but with an uncertain future

The gallery of the emblematic Collector Helga de Alvear is present in which it is the first edition of Arco without her, after her death on February XXX. In fact, Arco opens this Wednesday, March 5 with an applause tribute to De Alvear.

As explained by the director of the gallery, Alberto Gallardo, to Europa Press, his presence this year is rather “tribute” and that is why the eleven works that houses his ‘stand’, are not for sale. In addition, Gallardo has explained to the media that he still does not know “what will happen” in the future with the gallery.

“We bring a selection of pieces acquired by Helga both in Arco and Arcolisboa in the last 15 years. It is a small selection of the hundreds of pieces that were acquired at the fair. Arco was almost their favorite place to buy them and it is a small selection that denotes the taste for Helga’s abstraction, but especially for color,” he added.

Before the fair has opened its doors, both the galleries and some of the artists have been working on Tuesday at the fairgrounds, thus finalizing the last details. However, the rain has caused that in several points of Pavilions 7 and 9 of IFEMA Madrid, leaks have appeared.

In addition, another of the issues of political art that the halls still empty from the enclosure have seen, has been the war in Palestine. In that sense, the artist Tania Blanco has reached the ‘stand’ of the formatocomodo gallery with two portraits of Palestinian women, thus making a double claim.

In the acrylic about ‘Bisan Owda’ fabric, Blanco has portrayed the journalist and film director Bisan Owda, who has documented the situation in her native country through social networks. In addition, in a second portrait that dialogues with this first, ‘Hallamar’, the artist has represented a Palestinian woman dressed in a regional suit.