U+MAG

Brazil has been waking up. Would it be the result of an economical miracle? Or is it the old world countries which have simply nowhere else to grow?“

In every crisis, there are always people making money and willing to spend it”, said Carmen Melian, the Latin America director of auction house Sotheby’s. “I also believe the great shock has passed. Some people are starting to buy again and the cycle (of buying arts) has begun anew”. Sotheby’s said the art market has been growing in Brazil. Since our currency is weaker than the American dollar, art here is less expensive than overseas.

The SP-Arte, managed by the siblings Fernanda e Luis Feitosa, helps impulse the international top 10, with the best curators, the best collectors, the best gallery owners and the most relevant personalities of the world of arts. From the very popular to the very sophisticated, the fair offers a little bit of everything. Even some smaller galleries, such as my very small Mezanino, have the opportunity to show off their artists.

We from Mezanino managed to approach great collectors, not to mention the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo which has bought, for two years in a row, works from artist Ulysses Bôscolo and from the young photographer Léo Sombra. But those are details.

In São Paulo, the biggest and most chaotic city in Brazil, it seems to me a new gallery is opening every other day… We are eagerly expecting our customers to keep their loyalty… But those are, also, details. In the international art market, made of power players, some Brazilian artists have gained relevance. We must applaud those who, in spite of all difficulties, have never given up their own universes and kept on going. We must applaud the Instituto Inhotim, in Minas Gerais, which hosts a magnificent inventory of artworks and has helped mark our land in the route of the great international must-visit museums. We must applaud Escola São Paulo, where several different courses are offered to a new audience which is interested in learning. Not to mention all the artists and individual initiatives that have shaped thought and, in a way or another, purchases.

So why don’t we take a look at our power players?

• Cildo Meireles_ sculpture In-Mensa, from 1982, at Sotheby’s: US$ 518,000.00
• Sergio Camargo_ sculpture from 1965, at Sotheby’s: US$ 842,500.00
• Adriana Varejão_ Parede com Incisões à La Fontana II, at Christie’s: US$ 1,7 million
• Beatriz Milhazes_ O Moderno de 2002, at Phillips de Pury & Company: US$ 1,1 million
• Beatriz Milhazes_ O Mágico, at Sotheby’s: US$ 1 million;
• Lygia Clark (1920 -1988)_ at Art Basel, in Swiss: 1.8 million euros

*Renato de Cara is a Brazilian artist and photographer. He is also the founder and owner of Galeria Mezanino, in São Paulo, one of the most relevant and avant garde galleries known to exist here

Cildo Meireles, Inmensa