Here comes the next fair by SP–Arte

SP–Foto has grown. In 2022, the traditional August fair widens its reach with many artistic languages in addition to the important presence of photography. The new fair, SP–Arte Rotas Brasileiras, happens on 24–28 August, at ARCA, an industrial shed where SP–Arte 2021 has occurred located at Vila Leopoldina, in the city of São Paulo.

Focusing on selected projects, whether solos or collective exhibitions, the fair seeks to strengthen bonds between agents of the country’s five regions, valuing the photographic and artistic production of the whole national territory. According to Fernanda Feitosa, SP–Arte’s director, “there’s a high-quality production that emanates from Amazonia, the Jequitinhonha valley, capitals and countryside in different regions that we don’t always have access to. Rotas Brasileiras is an invitation to this immersion.”

Around 70 galleries from north to south of the country and invited projects are part of the fair, connecting different points of view of Brazil. In this edition, exhibitors from different states will be present that are interested in talking about the diverse artistic practices, undoing frontiers between the erudite and the popular, the center and the periphery, commercial and institutional and bring the worldview of many Brazils.

Invited projects from outside of the São Paulo–Rio axis present their own exhibitions, such as Arte Pará (Pará), one of the oldest visual arts events in Brazil, that celebrates its 40 years and is curated by Paulo Herkenhoff (Cachoeiro de Itapemirim, 1949) and Laura Rago (São Paulo, 1984); Uma Concertação pela Amazônia (Amazonas), a network of people, institutions and companies connected to search for solutions to the conservation and sustainable development of the territory that showcases photography of the region by artists; Zumví (Bahia), a photography archive by black people from Bahia exhibited with HOA Galeria (São Paulo); Instituto Mario Cravo Neto (Bahia), created in 2016 to promote knowledge and comprehension over the artist’s legacy, including the variety of techniques, medias and subjects that Cravo Neto has explored during his life; PREAMAR (Maranhão), project that seeks to foster the visual arts production from Maranhão from a net-like articulation; Novos para Nós (São Paulo), that maps popular art from Brazil and presents a selection of works from artists of the Jequitinhonha valley (Minas Gerais); Fundação Pierre Verger (Bahia), created in 1988 in Salvador aiming to preserve and promote the work of its founder and establishing and maintaining cultural, human and scientific interchange between Brazil and Africa, and, specially, between Bahia and the Benin gulf; Prêmio Museu É Mundo, notice that seeks to map, foment and diffuse artistic actions that enable cultural and social development in different regions of the country; and Wesley Duke Lee Art Institute (SP), an institute created in 2015 that takes shape of a museum-house, reproducing the artist’s studio, besides gathering and preserving a rich collection of documents and personal objects.

Important Brazilian galleries that traditionally are part of the fair will also be on this edition, such as Almeida & Dale, C. Galeria, Central, Choque Cultural, DAN Galeria, Galeria Marília Razuk, Galleria Continua, Gomide&Co, HOA, Luisa Strina, Millan, Nara Roesler, Paulo Kuczynski, Sé, Vermelho, VERVE and Zipper. Apart from them, Galatea, the new gallery from partners Antonia Bergamin, Conrado Mesquita and Tomás Toledo, marks its debut at the fair. Part of the exhibitors come from other states such as Marco Zero (Pernambuco), Paulo Darzé (Bahia), Karandash (Alagoas), Karla Osório (Brasília), Rodrigo Ratton, Belizário and AM Galeria (Minas Gerais), Zielinsky (Rio Grande do Sul and Spain) and Zilda Fraletti (Paraná).