ARTISTIC ECLIPSE IN BUENOS AIRES: ARTEBA, Pinta BAphoto and AFFAIR

This year brought changes to the calendar. Pinta BAphoto, the most important photography fair in Latin America, will share the timeline with arteba and AFFAIR. The eclipse in Buenos Aires shows the versatility of Argentine art: all its artists will be on view, from a fair that has worked since 1991 to consolidate an art market with international reach, to a fair specializing in photography, to one that, for the past three years, has been committed to giving visibility to the role of galleries in the access to and circulation of contemporary art.

Buenos Aires writes its artistic narrative through three fairs; here is the timeline, to make sense of the eclipse:

Pinta BAphoto

From October 22 to 25, Pinta BAphoto 2026, an international photography fair, will bring together galleries, artists, curators, collectors, international guests and institutions at Pavilion 8 of La Rural. Held every year in Buenos Aires, the fair offers a journey through different moments, geographies and languages of contemporary Latin American photography, establishing a dialogue between the region's visual tradition and global developments in the medium.

Under the artistic direction and global curatorship of Irene Gelfman, artistic director and global curator of Pinta, the 22nd edition seeks to strengthen the quality of the photographic proposals on view and to continue consolidating the fair as one of the leading regional references for contemporary photography. "The contemporary image is one of the most powerful languages for thinking about our time. This year, the fair seeks to broaden the view of the many forms the contemporary image takes today, revealing its capacity as a living record of past, present and future," she said.

The fair includes the Main Section, curated by Gelfman, which brings together a selection of national and international galleries representing modern and contemporary artists whose practices are shaped by the language of photography. It also features the NEXT section, co-curated by Facundo Belén and Virginia Martín, dedicated to emerging proposals and new ways of approaching contemporary photography. And the RADAR section, curated by Mercedes Claus, is a platform for research and experimentation focused on practices that expand the limits of photography, bringing together projects that engage with other languages and disciplines and make visible the current transformations of the image.

arteba

From Friday, October 30, to Sunday, November 1, arteba 2026 will take place at the Yellow Pavilion of La Rural, with new hours of 2 p.m. to 9 p.m. This edition celebrates 35 years of Fundación arteba, which has worked since 1991 to consolidate an art market with international reach. The contemporary art fair will host 70 galleries exhibiting works by artists from Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Brazil, Peru, the United States, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Puerto Rico and France.

Estudio Torcello is designing the fair's masterplan for the fifth consecutive year, covering 11,000 square meters of the venue in this edition. Architect Horacio Torcello says: "The heart of the plan is a route conceived as a living organism rather than a grid."

The Main Section was selected by an independent committee made up of Nicolás Barraza (director of Mite gallery, Buenos Aires), Juan Eyheremendy (director of Vermelho gallery, São Paulo), Florencia Giordana Braun (director of Rolf Art gallery, Buenos Aires), Florencia Malbrán (independent curator, Buenos Aires) and Lara Marmor (independent curator, Buenos Aires). The curatorial team of the Utopia section included Juan José Cambre (artist, Buenos Aires) and Santiago Villanueva (artist and independent curator, Buenos Aires).

This edition continues with the International Dialogue Zone, a space that brings together participating galleries and a program of talks reflecting on the challenges, tensions and possibilities of Argentine and Latin American contemporary art in the new global context. Participants include Galeria Vermelho (São Paulo), Galerie Jocelyn Wolff (Paris), 3+1 Arte Contemporânea (Lisbon), Embajada (San Juan, Puerto Rico) and Cecilia Brunson Projects (London).

AFFAIR

AFFAIR, a contemporary art fair founded in 2023 by gallerists from Buenos Aires, Córdoba and Rosario, will take place from October 28 to November 1. It grows year after year and is establishing itself as a renewing fair on the contemporary scene, committed to giving visibility to the role of galleries in the access to and circulation of contemporary art. With the aim of expanding the art market, it encourages access for new audiences through programs such as My First AFFAIR, designed for a first acquisition as an initiatory act, and regional exchange through the AFFAIR Residency.