Land in sight! A landscape of found forms is the first sample. It opens on Thursday, February 4 with the Earth element as the protagonist. It is curated by David Barro with six artists (Gabriela Albergaria, Ricardo Calero, Menchu Lamas, Verónica Moar, Inês Teles, and Françoise Vanneraud).
"This is an exhibition that tells us about discoveries based on the work of artists capable of configuring their landscapes from found forms", explains its curator.
Boosting the international presence of Spanish artists and making the latest in Latin American art known in our market was the starting point that brought them together. This is how the gallery was born almost a decade ago. The project brought together two well-known professionals from the national scene. Together, in 2021 they celebrate 50 years of galleries (30 plus 20).
We are used to having centuries-old banks that join their initials to become stronger, also law firms with names that are like a telephone book. The art market, that of galleries, hardly knows mergers. The case of Ponce + Robles is an exception, at least in our environment. Perhaps they were advanced, now that the North American market sees in these alliances the salvation of the galleries to gain muscle in an increasingly global market.
“At the beginning of the past decade, we became aware of the changes that were taking place in the gallery sector. Spanish collectors were no longer limited only to buying the works that were offered to them in the local context but were increasingly present in international markets. So you had to be present in those markets and the way to do it was to be stronger. The one-man gallery system was being replaced by work teams and we thought that, together, we could go further. Time has proved us right.”
Raquel Ponce, co-founder, along with José Robles, of the Madrid gallery Ponce + Robles.
She, Raquel Ponce (Madrid, 1971), had started her career as a gallery owner at a young age. While he was studying Art History, he opened a small exhibition space in 1991. The DNA of art came from his family, the Ponces is one of the great international foundries. In its spaces - first in the Hotel Palace in Madrid, then in the Barrio de Salamanca, and, finally, in the Barrio de las Letras - the great names of the 20th-century sculpture of Spanish art were displayed. We talk about Pablo Serrano, Rafael Canogar, Gerardo Rueda ...
He, José Robles (Madrid, 1963), on the other hand, began to work with emerging artists. With a law degree and a Master's in Business Administration training, he had made a niche for himself in the world of international trade. In 2001, she decided that her passion, art, would be her new profession. An example of his good eye was the signing of artists such as Maíllo or Raúl Díaz Reyes, both with a presence in important collections and with whom they continue to work today.
Madrid - New York passing through Lima
What began as a relationship of friendship between the two, has become one of the most solid gallery projects on the national scene. From the beginning, Ponce + Robles took advantage of its cultural and emotional ties with Latin America. This allowed them to create a portfolio of Spanish and Latin American artists and establish themselves in markets such as Mexico, Peru, or Brazil. Apart from ARCOmadrid, its presence is common at fairs in Lima, Mexico City, or Miami and, soon, in New York. Thus they have achieved great achievements such as the Museo del Barrio, in Manhattan, having proposed them to develop a collaboration with their artist Karina Skvirsky, the Whitney Collection having acquired their work or a young Spanish artist like Maíllo getting a solo exhibition at the ICPNA from Lima and is present in the main collections of the Andean country.
"Before starting our joint project, we analyzed the situation of the art market in Spain and the strategy we wanted to follow," explains José. "We were looking for the strengths that a gallery could have in an environment like Spanish, which had lost a lot of strength and had become‘ peripheral ’ concerning the Anglo-Saxon domain." Raquel adds “we are surrounded by much more powerful contexts (such as the European markets), with an interest and public and private collecting far above our own. Thus we detected a strong point on which we could work: the link with Latin America. In this way, we began to create a portfolio of represented artists –between Spanish and Latin American– and to establish ties with Latin countries but also with Miami, which is, in turn, the bridge between the Hispanic and the Anglo-Saxon.
Currently, almost half of the Ponce + Robles artists come from the American continent. His latest signing is the Madrid-born Ana Esmith, Miss Beige, whose participation will be added to the fairs and events in which the gallery will participate, in parallel to the annual program of the 50 YEARS (30 plus 20) project.
Gallery owner. Risk profession?
“We consider ourselves long-distance runners. We are focused on the objectives to be achieved in the future. Situations that will affect us and that will entail changes are, for example, the incidence of the pandemic in the movements of people in the future, when the fear of traveling will disappear ... As consequence, it will also be necessary to see how the current system of fairs is readjusted –Questioned by its saturation in recent times– and how all this influences the exponential expansion of the macro galleries”, predicts José Robles.
Art galleries have had to adapt throughout history. "And they will have to keep doing it," says Raquel Ponce. “The gallery space has to be something more than a sample book where the new works of the artists are presented. You can already see that at trade shows and, of course, on the Internet. The gallery has to be a meeting point where what is offered are experiences, which is something that cannot be found on the internet. For this reason, we are committed to developing projects rather than an accumulation of individual exhibitions".
It all starts with research. “First we study the artist's work. We have to like and excite ourselves (sometimes it is more a matter of stomach and heart than the head). Then we analyze if this work fits the gallery line and if it complements that of the rest of the artists. But the key question is 'what can we do for this artist and his career, both in sales and in promotion?' ”, they explain from Ponce + Robles.
Digital or face-to-face?
The battlefield of the art world today transcends the space of galleries or fairs and has also moved to the digital world. “The Internet has helped us to spread our work and to be in contact with all the agents in the sector. But for now, technology cannot replace the experience of direct physical contact with artists and works of art. This is where the gallery space continues to be essential. This has led us to go one step further. We decided not to make more exhibition catalogs and started a collection of publications on paper that would leave a trace of the work that was taking place in the gallery. We begin with Sacred Geometry, a compilation of the most recent works by artist Karina Skvirsky. In 2021, coinciding with our 50 YEARS (30 plus 20), we will launch a new volume of the collection”.
2021. Four curators, four exhibitions, four elements
Coinciding with its 50 YEARS (30 plus 20), the Ponce + Robles Gallery is preparing a unique program, which will run throughout the year and will consist of four exhibitions. Each exhibition will revolve around one of the four elements of nature (Earth, Fire, Air, and Water) and each one will be developed by a prominent curator within the Latin American scene Tierra: David Barro (Spain), Fuego: Pily Estrada (Ecuador ), Water: Susanna Temkin (United States) and Air: Tiago de Abreu (Brazil). The four have in common that they are about returning to the origins.
David Barro (Ferrol, Spain, 1974) begins the program with the Earth element as the protagonist. The exhibition Earth in sight! A landscape of found forms tells us about discoveries based on the work of six artists capable of configuring their landscapes based on found forms.
All of them work on the transformation of the natural, restructuring its possibilities. They like to distill nature into the landscape, either by working on the territoriality of the painting or by listening to the materials of that nature and its limits to set their gaze on those forms that appear, be they physical or visual. Gabriela Albergaria, Ricardo Calero, Menchu Lamas, Verónica Moar, Inês Teles, and Françoise Vanneraud are the artists selected by Barro for this first part of the program.
