Estampa 2003 Wrapup

Bigger and Getting Better
The 2003 edition of Madrid's Estampa Iinternational Print Fair closed its doors on the last day of November on a note of considerable achievement. With the fair now in its eleventh year, Isabel Pérez Morgade's management team managed to improve it yet again. Is this to say that the organization was perfect? No, but what was evident throughout the week was an openness to dialogue and a determination to improve.

This new working attitude is appreciated by most everyone involved in Estampa, always keeping in mind that, at bottom, theirs is an impossible mission. There is no way anyone can reconcile the conflicting characters of a group of essentially idealistic and anarchistic artists and the gallery people who are there strictly for business reasons. Yes, there are exceptions to this oversimplication.

Different Strokes
for Different Folks
These differences also appear in the varied public which attends the fair, from art students who want to see outrageus minimalist manifestations to the shrewd burghers who come round every year to see how their art portfolios are faring. For the former Estampa offers their "Temptations" section, spaces ceded freely where young artists can do their thing, and for the latter there is no shortage of stands offering work by bankable famous names. One of these galleries is actually named, in a wildly coquettish inspiration, "Art Investments."

The new venue in the Crystal Pavillion, part of the conference facilities at Madrid's Casa de Campo park (Madrid is the European capital with the most parkland.) was an improvement over previous emplacements, more spacious, with more natural light and with an elegant high ceiling which permitted people--and the work--to breathe.

"The 102 stands in Estampa 2003 ranged from artists' collectives through many mid-range galleries with refreshing new work, to big commercial galleries offering work by market-proven name artists."

This year's Estampa was scheduled a couple of weeks later than last year's edition, perhaps to catch the Christmas business, and the weather was a tiny bit unstable, though the sun did come out every day and it never really rained hard. In addition to fine-art prints there were also stands featuring editions of photography and sculpture.

Hope Springs Eternal
From the participants' point of view, the preparation and setup for a big art fair is laden with high hopes and anxiety, though the outcome tends to be like life itself: neither as fabulous as they had hoped, nor as disastrous as they had feared. This, one suspects, is what keeps them coming back with renewed hope year after year.

The 102 stands in Estampa 2003 ranged from artists' collectives through many mid-range galleries with refreshing new work, to big commercial galleries offering work by market-proven name artists. Inevitably the little guys complain that the big-bucks galleries contribute little in terms of creativity, and these reproach the small fry for invitiating the marketplace by selling their work too cheaply. However, it must be admitted that each of these collectives has it's own following.

Then there are the public-sector stands, the government agencies, and the foundations. They have big budgets and put up the most beautiful displays, but with a couple of exceptions the overall effect is drably institutional. One foreign gallery participant expressed it more succinctly: "The official stands are pathetic."

To round out the fair's offering the Estampa people included in the program two full days of lectures, round tables, presentations, etc., many of which were stuffed with relevant content. Artists appreciated the seminars on techniques, imparted by experts.

International Participation
A quarter of the stands this year belonged to galleries from abroad, primarily from France and Argentina (with eight and seven stands, respectively), but also included offerings from Germany, Portugal, Bolivia, Poland, Israel, Italy, Mexico and Puerto Rico. One notes the absence of important countries like the U.S.A. and the U.K., as well as other European countries. Asia was also missing this year. The Estampa management does its best to encourage international participation, but the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq this year and its far-reaching international repercussions complicated their job immensely.

Estampa bills itself as a fair offering "contemporary art within everyone's reach." With prices for prints starting as low as €150/$170--and there was a lot of work to be had for that price. Since Spain as a country has a lively interest in things cultural, especially literature and the visual arts, the art buyers here come from a cross section of society, and the serial arts are much appreciated as a "democratizing" factor.

The Digital Scene
Digital printmaking in Spain is still waiting at the crossroads, while public taste catches up. While the art establishment here--notably Madrid's prestigious Calcografía Nacional and the Fundació Joan i Pilar Miró in Palma de Mallorca--have embraced the new media wholeheartedly, the print galleries and collectors are not yet convinced. Spain is not known for rushing to adopt innovation of any sort and digital art is no exception.

Only a couple of stands hung any digital work, notably World Printmakers / Grabadores Españoles and the Fundació Joan i Pilar Miró. The first one showed top-class work by Martha Jane Bradford (U.S.A.) and Mamta Herland (Norway). Mamta actually cracked the digital market here, selling a couple of prints in her first art-fair outing. Though the big print by Montse Carreño presented on the stand of the Miró Foundation was the art critics' choice for best print of the fair, the three-meter-long floral piece looked pretty insipid to some knowledgeable observers, like a salad with too many ingredients.

Fulfilling Printmaking's Promise
When the first Estampa print fair was mounted back in 1993 in the charming and evocative little Palacio de Velázquez in Madrid's city-center Retiro Park, with was a risky and revolutionary initiative. Fine-art prints were relatively unknown in Spain then and still low among gallery priorities. Largely boycotted by all but the smartest of the city's art galleries, its stands were taken by professional print people: print printmaking workshops, editors and artists' collectives.

Much to everyone's surprise, that first fair was a resounding success and subsequent editions have built on the foundation laid by those pioneer print enthusiasts, both professionals and public. Today, thanks to their efforts, Madrid and the rest of Spain have a heightened awareness and appreciation of the fine-art print.

Is there room for improvement? Yes, there is. The food services are lackluster, expensive and inconveniently placed in the bowels of the building. The fair needs and deserves broader international participation. Media coverage could be improved. Neither of Madrid´s principal newspapers covered Estampa on its opening day this year. But on the whole, most people who were there feel it was a colorful, lively, well-run and profitable fair. And most of us will be back next year.

More 2003 Family Album

One of the spacious "plazas" incorporated into the new design of the Estampa fair.