102 Exhibitors, New Venue
ESTAMPA, Madrid's International Salon of Contemporary Prints and Art Editions (Salón Internacional de Grabado y Ediciones de Arte Contemporáneo), opens its doors on the 26th of this month of November for their annuay four-day print fest. With 102 exhibitors from Spain and abroad, as well as a rich representation of cultural institutions, this is Europe's largest print fair. They try to offer something for everyone, from the latest tendencies to contemporary "old masters" like Barceló. The common thread, according to the organizers, is affordable contemporary art for everybody's pocketbook.

This XIth edición of the ESTAMPA fair will be held in a new venue: the Crystal Pavillion (Pabellón de Cristal), a striking building on the grounds of the Casa de Campo, and incidentally, the place where ARCO, Madrid's other big annual art fair is tradionally held. ESTAMPA will occupy 9,000 square meters of floor space and organizers are expecting a 10% increase in public over last year, some 80,000 people.

International Representation
ESTAMPA 2003 will see a goodly numberr of first-time exhibitors this year, many of them from abroad. Foreign galleries represent about a quarter of the total, with representatives from: Germany, Argentina, Bolivia, France, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Portugal. Among them, France, with eight galleries and Argentina, with seven, are the best represented countries in the fair.

There are Spanish galleries and workshops from practically al of the country's autonomous regions. Madrid takes the cake with 39 galleries, followed by Catalunya and Andalusia, with eight galleries each; the Basque Coutry with six and Valencia with four.

New Tendencies, Old Glories
The ESTAMPA organizers put a lot of emphasis on the commercial nature of the fair -- they're here to sell art! The work sold ranges from the latest forms of digital graphic work by both Spanish and international artists back to what they call the "great masters of the historic vanguard of the XXth century," artists like Miró, Dalí, Picasso or Braque, among others. These "masters" include, of course, the Spanish representatives of the second half of the XXth century: Saura, Tápies, Canogar, Feito, Manolo Valdés, Chillida, Gordillo, Úrculo, Lucio Muñoz or Miquel Barceló.

All the graphic media are available at ESTAMPA: etchings, screen prints, woodcuts and engravings, linocuts, lithography, aquatints and digital prints. The fair also features other forms of serial art such as sculpture multiples and photography.

Print Specialist Art Suppliers, Too
Printmakers from all over the world look forward to ESTAMPA each year as an opportunity to see what the art supply firms have to offer in etching presses, papers, inks and other tools and supplies.

The ESTAMPA fair, with 10 editions under its belt, has consolidated itself as the international reference in the field of fine-art editions. Prices of the work exhibited there range from about €150 to €50,000, a wide enough price range to cover the needs of most collectors. Last year about €3.5 million worth of art was sold at ESTAMPA.

Featured Artist, Fair Logo
In keeping with ESTAMPA practice for the past four years, the fair management has commissioned the event's official image or logo to an artist, in this case prize-winning Spanish printmaker, Blanca Muñoz. Muñoz follows in the footsteps of the artists selected to create the logo for previous editions: Feito, Canogar and José Luis Alexanco. In addition to creating the image of this year's fair, Muñoz will show a retrospective selection of her work over the past decade.

Institutional Presence
ESTAMPA always offers a variety of stands with insituttional offerings. This year they include the Municipal Contemporary Art Museum of Madrid, the Madrid Autonomous Community, the General Directory for Women, the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports, the National Museum of Roman Art of Mérida, the CIEC Foundation, the Casa de Velázquez and the Rodríguez-Acosta Foundation. In addition, the Polish Embassy in Madrid has been invited to present a selection of contemporary Polish graphic work.

The Spanish artist, José Luis Pajares, will mount an installation sponsored by the Junta of Castilla León, in one of the lounge areas of the fair. Entitled "LUNAs", it is a multidisciplinary creation with elements of stainless steel, fiberglass and video projections.

The Temptations
For the fifth year running ESTAMPA offers visitors their "Temptations" section, an initiative designed to promote experimentation in the universe of serial art, in line with "innovative character of the Salon."

Of some 100 projects presented in this edition, a selection has been made of the most interesting for their installation in this edition of Estampa, where they will offer their own particular visions of the world through the use of video, sculpture, fabrics, structures of iron and glass, and even rice paper.

These original and committed works address the current world situation and represent the state of the art in 21st century human sentiment and experience.

The Biosca-Estampa Prize
Also new is this year's recuperation of the Biosca Prize, which rewards the life's work of an artist or institution in the diffusion of contemporary art. The prize carrys the name of Aurelio Biosca, who dedicated his life to the promotion of contemporary art from the gallery which he founded in Madrid in the 1940's.

The Biosca-ESTAMPA Prize has only been awarded one time previously, in 1996, to the French National Library for its support of Spanish artists.

The jury is made up of leading personalities from the art world, and must award the prize to a single institution or person, whether alive or dead.

The presentation of the prize will take place at a special ceremony during the XIth Edición de ESTAMPA, in the Conference Room of the Crystal Pavillion in Madrid's Casa de Campo park.

ESTAMPA
Salón Internacional del Grabado y Ediciones de Arte Contemporáneo
26/30 November, 2003
Recinto Ferial de la Casa del Campo
Pabellón de Cristal
Avda. de Portugal, s/n
Madrid