The best national and international art arrives in Marbella

The best national and international art arrives in Marbella

The 4th edition of Art Marbella begins this weekend with the presence of a large number of international galleries.

The fine art photographer Jesús Chacón raises this question in his work ‘INSTANTES/ INVISIBLES’ which will be on display at the Art Marbella 2018 contemporary art fair next week.

Marbella isn’t just beach, tourism and glamour. The city is hosting its renowned international contemporary art fair for the fourth summer in a row. The 4th edition of Art Marbella takes place at the Palacio de Ferias y Congresos in Marbella from July 20-25 with 41 galleries, 5 special projects and an acquisition prize. The fair is focussed on contemporary art and brings together the works of renowned and highly sought-after names, along with current and emerging artists. In addition to Spanish galleries, this year Portugal, Uruguay, Sweden, the United States, Austria, Argentina, Mexico, China, Canada, Slovakia and Switzerland are all represented.

“Marbella needs art and culture. These types of projects help our city to grow in a different way, one that hasn’t found its footing yet, although it’s not because of a lack of great artists. For this reason, I feel that any initiative that supports culture and art is positive, especially here in Marbella as we have certain shortcomings in these areas. Any initiative of this kind in our city has my support and respect, especially in the world of art. The fact that there’s a fair on your doorstep with some of the best galleries from around the world, even if it’s just for a few days, means you get the chance to meet and share ideas with other artists from around the globe. It’s a unique opportunity to see what’s happening and be able to relate to the art world at an international level. For those of us who are lucky enough to be based here, we have to make the most of it, Art Marbella is an opportunity to open your mind, connect with interesting people from the art world, visit it, see what’s happening in other countries and soak up the energy,” said Chacón, the fine art photographer who is presenting his latest project INSTANTES/INVISIBLES at the es Arte Gallery.

In the artist’s latest work, Chacón forces us to examine what’s left of a passer-by if we remove the context surrounding them, naked of context, he shows us a series of images of citizens without a city from his position as a distant observer. And from that starting point he explains to us in a very peculiar way what we are really like when nobody sees us: characters from an everyday world but when devoid of props, reflect the reality of frozen solitude.

Chacón tells of how “INSTANTES/INVISIBLES was not something I had truly thought of as a project or had envisioned with a before and after. This is a new project with images that really just surfaced.” He said “I just went out on the street one day in search of a new project and started to take shots as a photo-journalist would: couples in the street, elderly people, etc. but I always tried to play with the surroundings, a very photo-press format that in the end, at least for me, didn’t seem to fall into place. I liked the photos but felt there was something missing and didn’t awaken any interest, so I sat down at a high terrace where the sun was very strong, very white, and from above I began to watch people passing by and then grabbed my camera and started taking photos, and that’s when my thoughts began to flourish and I got into their world and visualised them one by one and imagined what was behind each of them without really looking for something interesting. Every one of them was immersed in their own world, and it caught my eye how they interacted with each other. In most cases they didn’t even notice who was around them, people were staring at their mobiles completely engrossed in what was happening on the screen without appreciating what was going on around them. I was struck by not only the technology but also how we cross paths and don’t interact with each other, how we live in complete isolation although we’re surrounded by people, all of us immersed in our own world, our movie, our history and alien to the present moment and the people who crossed our path”.

This idea was the origin of this symbolic photo shoot type project where almost 90% of the images are real photos of people crossing paths with others. However, there are other photos in the series where the artist plays with time and reality, these people haven’t crossed paths, nor have they glanced at one another even for a second. But, as the artist was photographing the same place, what he did was take the two photos and put them together to show how that intersection of looks could have worked.

In this year’s edition of Art Marbella, the City Council will award an acquisition prize of 5000 euros for the first time in the history of the fair, where the winning work will be included in the Museum of Spanish Contemporary Engravings collection. The fair will also be complemented by the current exhibition programme in Marbella, with one of the highlights being a retrospective of the work from Jaume Plensa (Barcelona, 1955), which is curated by Chema de Francisco at the Museum of Spanish Contemporary Engravings.