ARCOMadrid 2017

The 36th edition of ARCO Madrid Contemporary Art Fair is seeing a rise in photography as an art medium and an increased interest in nature as a subject. Many photographs at ARCO feature calm settings that awaken an extraordinary sense of awe and peace.

Outstanding photographic work on nature at ARCO Madrid 2017 include a 15-minute time lapse of a sea view (above) by Gianfranco Foschino; Pierre Gonnord's and Axel Hütte's shots of Spain's northern forests; Richard Long's documentation of his days-long journeys through nature; and Regina José Galindo's images of her performance at the Botanical Garden in Palermo, a powerful interaction of body, soul and nature - see below.

Pierre Gonnord, Urbasa I 2/5, Series:Indarra, photography | Galería Juana de Aizpuru, Madrid

Dierk Maass, Illumination (2016), LED lightbox | Galerie Anita Beckers, Frankfurt

Richard Long, Footpath waterline - A thirteen day walk in the Sierra Tarahumara, Mexico (1987) | Lisson Gallery London

Axel Hütte, Irati (2014) | Galería Helga de Alvear, Madrid

Jessica Rankin, Could I just have the Sober Hand (2016), detail | Galerie Carlier Gebauer, Berlin

Regina José Galindo, Raices (2016) | Prometeo Gallery, Milan

The project Petrified by Carlos Motta brings together beautiful landscape photographs of the US South West and archive images of local historical episodes. "The allure and beauty with which the landscape is represented prevent from seeing the atrocities that took place within it", says the artist who seeks to highlight how regimes of representation (landscape photography, historical painting and portraiture) have served as accomplices to processes of historical erasure.

Carlos Motta, Petrified (2016) | Galeria Filomena Soares, Lisbon

Adam Jeppesen, BO-Uyuni (2015) | Gallery Taik Persons, Berlin

Ahmet Ögüt, Pleasure Places of All Kinds, Yichang (2015) | Kow Galerie, Berlin

There is also socially engaged photography at this ARCO edition brought by Richard Mosse (see 2015, '14 and '13 posts). Mosse's interest to chart human displacement caused by war, persecution, climate change and poverty brings him to document in Heat Maps refugee camps with an "extreme telephoto military-grade camera that can detect thermal radiation, including body heat, at great distance." The camera, primarily designed for surveillance in warfare, is used for capturing the intimate details of the camps that Mosse then blends into a densely detailed panoramic image similar to a Hieronymus Bosch's paintings. The artist's new work meditates on the struggle of millions of refugees and migrants.

Moria in Snow (2016) by Richard Mosse | Galería Leyendecker, Santa Cruz de Tenerife

Guest country is Argentina who brings 12 galleries, 23 artists and an institutional stand at the Argentina Plataforma/ARCO, curated by Inés Katzenstein and supported by the Argentine Ministry of Culture and Buenos Aires' Contemporary Art Fair, arteBA. Artists include Tomás Sarceno, Mariela Scafati, Sol Pipkin and Juán Tessi (see below).