Ever since its formation 21 years ago, the arteBA Foundation has been organizing what has become the region’s most important contemporary art fair promoting Argentine and Latin American art, with the goal of positioning that art in the world market.

The drawing power of arteBA, as attested to in recent years by record attendances of over 120,000 visitors in its five-day span, has made it clear that the fair, always held in the City of Buenos Aires, has become an essential date on the cultural calendar.

Each year curators, collectors, professionals in various cultural fields, and visitors from all over the world come to take in the fair and also enjoy one of South America’s most exciting cosmopolitan cities. Buenos Aires presents them with the architectural beauty of its sumptuous past, a vibrant night-life, and a vast range of cultural offerings.

The fair has been singularly successful in both giving broader visibility to well-established artists and serving as a launching point to legitimize emerging artists. On each new occasion it provides fresh examples of the potential of both the local and regional market, and proves that institutional acquisitions remain the kick-off for sales that dynamize that market. And by extension, other discerning eyes are paying ever greater attention to Latin American art, and there is a noticeably steady growth in the number of collectors eager to discover interesting works.

arteBA was conceived as a fair for art galleries, but it’s not a static product. Each new year of the fair adds new projects that boost the creative energy of the participating galleries. The auditorium program, the prizes, the area for emerging spaces, and the various activities of the corporate sponsors that have joined us, seek to break up the strict grid of the stands, turning the fair into something more festive –a true cultural fiesta.