Las Ferias de Arte en New York, The Armory Show, scope art, volta show. Rafael Barrios

Georgina Chumaceiro and Elizabeth Hazim Art Nouveau Gallery Directors, proudly announce that their artist Rafael Barrios has been selected to install ten large scale sculptures in Park Avenue New York.

Also taking notice of Latin American art’s rising popularly is The Armory Show and its Focus program that provides an annual platform for one of the world’s thriving arts communities. After featuring Berlin in 2010, the show's second edition of Armory Focus has turned its attention to Latin America. An invitation-only component of the fair, it features a selection of galleries from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela. “New York City has long been a center of Latin American art,” says Katelijne De Backer, Armory Show executive director. “Armory Focus: Latin America will highlight this vital force in the city’s.

MutualArt spoke with several leading gallery directors in Mexico, Marcio Botner of in Brazil, Ignacio Liprandi  in Argentina and Isabel Aninat in Chile - all of which are first-timers at The Armory Show.

All agree that Latin American art has evolved into a global market hot spot. “The world is looking to Latin America as a new place for investment and a cultural spot as never before because of its fresh and different worldview. For Latin America, art fairs like Armory are important because they allow us to show our art forms in a more globalized world,” says Aninat Utera.

Rafael Barrios Sculpture on Park Avenue New York

 “There is a growing vibrancy and energy and new enthusiasm in Latin American art, but also a growing awareness of the history and the cross-references between Latin American art and European art,” said Linda Blumberg, the executive director of the Art Dealers Association of America.

Several institutions have led the way, Ms. Leval said, like the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston under Peter C. Marzio, who died last year; the Bronx Museum of the Arts under Holly Block; and the New Museum under Marcia Tucker, who died in 2006. El Museo del Barrio, which recently reopened after an extensive renovation, has become perhaps New York’s leading Latino cultural institution. In June, the museum plans to explore the visual arts and aesthetic development across the Caribbean in collaboration with the Queens Museum of Art and the Studio Museum in Harlem.

The Modern has a long track record with Latin American Art; its holdings include the sculptor Gego, the painter Jesús Rafael Soto and the painter and sculptor Joaquín Torres-García. Most recently, the museum has established a special fund for Latin American and Caribbean acquisitions, with Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, a longtime champion of Latin American art at the museum, as its chairwoman. 

SCOPE Art Show,  PINTA NY ART FAIR