Bogotá’s Artbo fair remains boutique and local—is that enough? – The Art Newspaper

Amid a crowded month on the worldwide art-fair circuit, the twenty second version of Artbo (till 27 September) has opened in Colombia’s sprawling capital within the Andes with a continued sturdy concentrate on Latin American galleries and artists.

This yr’s version of the Bogotá honest options 50 galleries, a rise from simply 33 three years in the past and barely up from 46 in 2025, although significantly down on pre-pandemic figures, which hovered round 70 exhibitors. Though round two-thirds are Colombian, roughly a dozen nations are represented, and each gallery has ties to the area.

“I don’t plan for us to be this type of worldwide [fair] that we’ve got many galleries from all of the continents”, says Artbo director Jaime A. Martínez, who took the reins in 2025 from María Paz Gaviria, who led it for over a decade. “For me what’s necessary is that Artbo is a good the place you come to see Latin American artwork, and particularly South American and Central American”. He has made some extent of together with galleries from neighbouring nations similar to Venezuela, Panama and Ecuador.

Wednesday’s preview (23 September) had a vigorous vibe and turnout of three,500, with Thursday being slower-paced. Though it attracts guests from around the globe, Martínez notes that the honest, organised by the Bogotá Chamber of Commerce, is a mainstay in Colombia’s artwork scene. “Artbo was at all times the place to see artwork; there are people who they don’t go to museums yearly, however they arrive to Artbo.”

Artbo is “crucial for town”, concurs Beatríz López, creative director and co-founder of the New York- and Bogotá-based Instituto de Visión, a longtime participant. “The honest has been very profitable bringing in folks, bringing consideration, bringing in vitality”.

López views Artbo as a possibility to platform Colombian artists particularly: “It’s crucial for me once I take part on this honest that the chance and the area is given to native artists”. Her stand is displaying geometric work created with mambé (an unrefined coca-leaf powder) by Aimema Úai, a Huitoto Indigenous artist, together with oil work and patchwork quilts by Gloria Sebastián Fierro, with costs starting from $5,000 to $50,000. A few of Fierro’s textile items offered for as much as $20,000 on the preview day.

The last decade-old however just lately renamed Fernández Mosseri gallery (previously Galería [SN]) can be highlighting Colombian and Colombia-linked artists. Co-owner Ana Mosseri says her gallery’s longtime concentrate on portray is seeing renewed curiosity. “In Colombia, folks stopped portray for a few years. It’s simply coming again”, she says. “However the older generations by no means stopped portray. In our gallery the older artists are references for the youthful artists”.

On the preview day, Miami collector Jorge M. Pérez’s Associated Group acquired a show of 12 small summary geometric work by Gustavo Niño from the gallery for $20,000, whereas Bogotá’s non-public Gun Membership, which has a noteworthy artwork assortment, acquired a figurative portray by Juan Carlos Delgado. Fernández Mosseri can be showcasing Miguel Böhmer’s Sea Sense collection of kaleidoscopic lenticular prints of shells—about 10 of which have offered, for $2,000 apiece—alongside together with his giant bronze shell sculpture, listed for $60,000.

For the second time, Artbo features a part known as Galerías Doce, a slate of rising galleries with simply 12 sq. meters of exhibition area every. Amongst them, Mexico Metropolis’s Banda Municipal is highlighting glass works by Ana Sofía Esteva priced at about $2,000 to $3,000, whereas Panama Metropolis-based Arteconsult carries biographical staged photographs by Rachelle Mozman.

As in earlier iterations, Artbo has a curated part known as Artecámera, that includes about 20 Colombian artists below age 40 who lack gallery illustration; the 2026 present is heavy on supplies and expertise, with a number of artists addressing ecological themes. In a sign of Artbo’s Latin American emphasis, wall texts in Artecámera and different particular curated sections—together with a solo presentation honouring 88-year-old geometric abstractionist Fanny Sanín—are solely in Spanish.

Political reverberations

Artbo’s 2026 version takes place simply forward of the ten-year anniversary of Colombia’s landmark peace accord with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) insurgent group after 5 a long time of armed battle, but the vast majority of the paintings this yr doesn’t come throughout as overtly political.

Buenos Aires-based Rolf Artwork is one of some galleries displaying extra politically oriented work. Founder Florencia Giordana Braun, who has exhibited at Artbo for about 15 years, observes that Colombian artists have been readier than many elsewhere within the area to grapple with their nation’s troubled historical past. “It’s a society that has been by way of so many political and army processes”, she says. “I discovered artists, collectors, establishments, they’ve a protracted custom of trying to … communicate aloud by way of artwork concerning the conflicts that they’ve been struggling”.

Her stand, which additionally spotlights technology-based artwork, is presenting Clemencia Echeverri’s Versión Libre video set up incorporating testimonies of former combatants; totally different configurations have offered for $10,000 to $40,000. Works in fellow Colombian José Alejandro Restrepo’s reinterpretation of his 1996 collection Musa Paradisíaca (Paradisiac Muse), exploring themes of gender and colonial conquest, went for as much as $15,000.

Mor Charpentier’s show displays a extra political bent as nicely, similar to a charcoal on linen by Nohemí Pérez that responds to destruction of the Amazon. “We work with artists with a sure social, political engagement, people who find themselves linked with the current but in addition the previous”, says Colombian-born Alex Mor, co-founder of the Paris- and Bogotá-based gallery.

It has additionally introduced a wider choice of artists to the honest, reflecting its extra worldwide roster—one thing that Mor sees as a bonus in an in any other case regionally targeted occasion. “We convey new artists that by no means have been showcased right here. Persons are curious they usually belief us, and we’re capable of place in good collections”, he says.

With costs starting from $8,000 and $60,000 at Artbo, Mor Charpentier has offered work by Colombians Pérez and Daniel Correa Mejía, together with French artist Sylvie Selig. Different artists on view embody Cuban-born Carlos Garaicoa, Syrian Anas Albraehe and Argentine Liliana Porter.

Some gallerists expressed optimism that the brand new right-wing authorities of President Abelardo de la Espriella, who took workplace final month, will appeal to extra enterprise, thus boosting the nation’s artwork scene. But earlier this week, artists and others protested exterior the Ministry of Tradition in response to a proposed 30% discount of Colombia’s 2027 cultural price range, together with the latest suspension of nationwide arts awards.

Regardless of the political winds, nevertheless, it appears Artbo’s identification as a hub for the area’s artwork is unambiguous. As Martínez says, “This needs to be the honest that you just go to find what Latin America has to supply”.

Artbo, till 27 September, Agora Bogotá Conference Heart, Bogotá