Look Out for Latin

MIAMI—Last month PINTA, the first art fair in New York devoted to contemporary Latin American art, took the city by storm, and days later impressive totals at Christie’s and Sotheby’s Latin American sales confirmed the arrival of a new hot sector of the market. So it’s no surprise that the buzz about contemporary Latin artists continues at Art Basel, where work from stars such as Jose Bédia [see Studio Inventory: Jose Bedia], Guillermo Kuitca, and Gunter Gerzso is joined by contributions from artists who are well known in their home countries but relatively obscure internationally. Though probably not for long.

For these lesser-known artists, one of the upshots of geographic isolation is insulation from the post-Mod pretensions that suffocate so much contemporary art. Colombia native Miguel Ángel Rojas, whose work is already in the collection of Zurich's Daros Foundation, doesn’t need art to be full of riddles and sarcasm to deal with weighty political and social issues. Alcuadrado of Bogotá devoted its booth to Rojas’s video, photography, and mixed-media pieces, which are priced between $12,000 and $20,000 and are part of the Art Nova section of Art Basel, meaning that they were all produced within the past two years. His eye-catching collage of lacquered coca leaf particles that form the word “Miami” would make a great souvenir, even though his intention was to comment on the drug trade. A series of three desiccated fish skins, gilded and mounted in the style of religious Catholic ornamentation, are a less subtle indictment of his country’s problems.

Speaking of brooding artists, here’s a tip: The Mexican painter Julio Galan, who died last year, has yet to be honored with a postmortem retrospective—but after he is, his prices are bound to shoot up. Galan’s haunting large-format oil paintings occupy a section of the Galeria Ramis Barquet booth, where they are priced around $200,000. Los Complices (1987), the centerpiece of the selection, depicts a stereotypical caballero in an unusual predicament. Though his hands are securely in his pockets, the vases on the table next to him appear to spontaneously break, while his horse, on the side of the table, innocently looks on. In the background of this dreamlike sequence, the artist has inscribed a litany of destructive desires, phrases like “I want to set fire to a museum” and “I want to burn my heart.”

If you’re looking for something a little more cheerful, Mary-Anne Martin of New York offers beautiful glass sculptures by Panamanian artist Isabel De Obaldia. Though she began her career as a painter, about a decade ago De Obaldia started to work in glass, which she sand-casts or kiln-casts into intricately detailed sculptures of human and animal forms. “The works strike you as something that was dug up somewhere,” Martin says. “There is definitely a Pre-Colombian tradition in Panama.” De Obaldia’s work is relatively affordable at between $20,000 and $30,000, so it is no surprise that nearly all of her works bore red dots by mid-afternoon on Art Basel’s second day.

Katherine Jentleson is the editorial assistant at Art+Auction.