Notes related to Arte contemporáneo

Pinta Panamá Art Week makes its debut from May 21 to 25. Over five days, it will offer a public program filled with art activities, inviting attendees to explore a city undergoing a cultural boom. This first edition positions Panama City as a key destination on the international art and culture calendar.

This was my first visit to Lima (and I hope it’s the first of many), and I came to take part in Pinta Lima 2025—an incredibly enriching experience. From the opening to the close, the fair was full of life: buzzing rooms, lively conversations, and unexpected encounters. There was an unmistakable energy in the air, the kind that comes from a city that takes seriously its place on the Latin American contemporary art map.

Bogotá’s art scene was reinvigorated this past weekend with a new edition of ARTBO | Fin de Semana, held from Friday, April 25 to Sunday, April 27. Unlike the main fair taking place in late September, this format invites visitors to explore the city’s key contemporary art circuits, with gallery openings, guided tours, talks, and performances across various cultural venues.

The art fair invites galleries to submit their proposals for its new edition, taking place from December 4 to 7 at The Hangar, Coconut Grove. The application deadline is July 30.

The group show Over Land and Sea, curated by Anna Nowak, tells of the migrant history of humanity, its present and future. In a tension between the tangible and the mythical, the animate and the industrial world, the works on display point to the vulnerability of human beings and, simultaneously, their inherent ability to change and transform.

In its 2025 edition, the Latin American contemporary art fair presents, through RADAR and Video Project, a selection of works that engage with key issues of the present—both within the artistic field and beyond it: from questions surrounding the re-signification of ancestral knowledge to reflections on the idiosyncrasies of human nature.

MAC Lima has inaugurated Contemporáneo 1. Materia :: Alchemy :: Device :: Flow, an exhibition poised to become a landmark for contemporary art in Peru. The show, the first in a series of biennial exhibitions based on the museum's collection, brings together the work of over 100 local contemporary artists.

This Wednesday, painter and artist Luis Felipe Noé, known as "Yuyo," passed away at the age of 87, leaving behind a fundamental legacy in contemporary Argentine art. His work, which encompassed painting, drawing, sculpture, and installations, reflected his ongoing quest to represent the complexity of the modern world.

At the Lima Art Museum – MALI, the exhibition Yerko Zlatar. Ancestral Technology is currently on view. This show invites reflection on the contrast between the deep, harmonious connection that ancient Andean civilizations had with the cosmos and their environment, and the way we now live, governed by a technology driven by consumerism and individualism.

Peruvian contemporary art is experiencing a vibrant moment. Over the past decade, its art ecosystem has begun to consolidate, with a growing local collector base, a more professional gallery scene, and an increasing number of artists gaining international visibility. However, it remains an early stage, with a small and fragile market that requires stronger structures to support its development. Unlike other countries in the region, Peru lacks strong institutional support for contemporary art.

The Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Bolzano-Bozen presented a pioneering exhibition on the relationship between graffiti and contemporary art. Curated by Leonie Radine and Ned Vena, the show will be the first in an Italian museum to explore the history of spray paint in art. 

The CAV La Neomudéjar Museum is in its final days of exhibiting Ecos del Vacío (Echoes of the Void), a project developed by Guatemalan filmmaker and artist Verónica Riedel during her artistic residency at Kárstica Espacio de Creación, in the town of Cañada del Hoyo, Cuenca.

The Cultural Institute of Mexico in Spain hosts the exhibition Estrategias de recuperación (Recovery Strategies), featuring three recent projects by the photographer. Including the series Las flores mueren dos veces (Flowers Die Twice, 2021–2024), Palimpsesto (2024–2025), and Maíz (Corn) (2023–present), the Mexican photographer explores the elements and causes that create distortion and fragmentation in memory.

The exhibition brings together a group of eight artists whose work, though diverse in technique and approach, shares a common concern for social justice and historical memory.

The Casa Nacional del Bicentenario has inaugurated Una Casa. La Casa. Lo doméstico deviene territorios (A House. The House. The Domestic Becomes Territories). This is the first public exhibition of works from the collection of Abel Guaglianone and Joaquín Rodríguez.

Sesc SP announced the fourth edition of Frestas—Triennial of Arts for the third quarter of 2025 at Sesc Sorocaba. This initiative is part of the institution’s extensive cultural agenda in the countryside of São Paulo State, aiming to expand access to cultural assets, strengthen local and regional partnerships, and foster the contemporary art scene in the region.

The renowned artist Moico Yaker returns to the exhibition halls with a solo show after six years to present Conversaciones en el zoológico (Conversations at the Zoo), while Rafael Pascuale explores the relationship between the body and fragility in Espejos de una humanidad perdida (Mirrors of a Lost Humanity).

The concern about how the surrounding affects not only the individual but also artistic production connects with the principle by which Édgar Calel (San Juan Comalapa, Guatemala, 1987) has developed a unique project from scratch at La Oficina gallery. Sueños guardados en granos de maíz brings us to a specific moment of materialization, but it expands toward all the vertices with which the artist works, delving above all into the importance of ancestry, identity, and the spirituality that is related to space.

La nevera en la sala (The Fridge in the Living Room) is the arrangement through which Leandro Erlich (Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1973) reinterprets his vision of perception through architecture and everyday life at Prats Nogueras Blanchard. A recurring theme in this Argentine artist’s work, the pieces exhibited at the gallery’s Madrid headquarters do not belong to a new production but rather mark the first public presentation of a series of works that engage with realism and illusion, complemented by their location and functionality within the space.

The Museo La Neomudéjar presents No hay más ciego que el que no quiere ver (No one is more blind than the one who refuses to see), a solo exhibition by Marisa Caichiolo (Santa Fe, Argentina, 1974). In this project, the artist explores and materializes pain and absence, primarily through embroidery. Drawing from her personal experiences, Caichiolo constructs narratives of resistance and instrumental memory to confront traumatic episodes—many of them rooted in forced disappearances.

Mexico has emerged as a significant contemporary art hub on the international stage. Since the inception of Zona Maco, Mexico City has become a key destination for cultural pilgrims, marking the start of the global art fair calendar.

The Museum of Modern Art of Bogota (MAMBO) presents its first exhibition cycle of 2025 with Colombian artist Julieth Morales, Chilean artist Seba Calfuqueo, and Brazilian artist UÝRA. They address, from different perspectives, the relationship between identity, territory and memory, proposing new forms of resistance.

ARCOmadrid 2025 comes to an end with almost as many answers as questions. On the one hand, the concept of the fair—its commercial dimension—is now firmly established, marking a shift from the situation of a few years ago, when ARCO’s role as a meeting point for the general public seemed essential. This does not mean that attracting an audience with access to contemporary art is no longer part of its strategy, but rather that the fair now operates with a dual focus on two clearly defined lines of work: what and how. This shift consolidates the growing emphasis on collectors and institutions.

The Latin American presence at ARCO is consolidating year after year, establishing itself as a primary guiding thread beyond market trends, becoming a significant part of the identity of the Madrid fair. In this sense, the participating galleries in the various programs showcase well-established names as well as younger or more radical bets, shaping an ecosystem in which various productions can be analyzed.

The Argentine artist has introduced the Julio Le Parc Virtual Labyrinthus Museum, an enveloping digital space that invites the public to explore more than 500 works, including previously unseen pieces created especially for this platform.

Maria Wills (Bogota, Colombia 1979) and Denilson Baniwa (Barcelos, Brazil, 1984) are the responsible for Wametisé: ideas for an amazofuturism, one of the special programs curated for ARCO 2025 and that navigates the Amazon and its growing impact on contemporary art. This proposal proposes a scenario of representation and dialogue through a selection of galleries and guest artists who will raise, through their works and their realities, the different conceptions of the Amazonian world and the possibilities of a collective future.

The Institute of Contemporary Art Miami (ICA Miami) presents a retrospective of textile artist Olga de Amaral (Bogotá, 1932), a pioneer in material exploration and the expansion of textile art. The exhibition, in collaboration with the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain in Paris, will be open from May 1 to October 12, showcasing over 50 works spanning six decades of her career, including pieces never before exhibited outside Colombia.

Madrid's Reina Sofia Museum, in collaboration with the Reina Sofia Museum Foundation, reinforces its growing involvement and strategy for the dissemination and study of Latin American contemporary art with the creation of the Cáder Institute of Central American Art (ICAC), dedicated to the research and dissemination of Central American art.

With an innovative perspective and a personal scenic language, KAY presents a play that reveals how the myths of the Amazon have been distorted to conceal the violence lurking over the women and girls of the region. The performance will serve as the closing event of the tenth edition of the prestigious theater and dance festival Temporada Alta, organized by the Alianza Francesa de Lima.

Marres, House for Contemporary Culture, will present on March 15 the exhibition Vultures & Fireflies by Alejandro Galván; this is a painted chronicle of Mexico from the perspective of one of the largest working-class suburbs.