Few organizations do more to boost awareness of photography and video in Europe than PHotoEspaña—the Madrid-based book and magazine publisher and organizer of its namesake festival, which this year took place from June 4 to July 27 in the Spanish capital. Thirty-seven galleries representing 245 artists from 35 countries participated in the 10th edition. Prestigious Madrid-based dealers like La Fábrica, Galería Distrito Cuatro, Galería Juana de Aizpuru and Galería Raquel Ponce all reported double the number of visitors of previous years, along with higher sales.

Efrain Bernal, La Fábrica’s director, says works by major artists, including the Englishmen Richard Billingham and Paul Graham and the Belgrade-born Marina Abramovic, sold for between €15,000 ($22,000) and €50,000 ($74,000). Younger artists, such as the British photographer Idris Khan, whose poetic composites of iconic texts and images have become very popular, fetched between €4,000 ($5,900) and €6,000 ($8,800).

“When I started out,” says Juana de Aizpuru, who opened the first photography gallery in Spain, in 1972, and continues to operate a space on Calle Barquillo, “there were few Spanish collectors. Now they are as competitive as any other nationality. ARCO [Madrid’s annual art fair] has done a tremendous amount to raise awareness of photography here.”

Raquel Ponce and Distrito Cuatro attracted a large number of collectors in their early 30s who paid between €1,000 ($1,500) and €2,000 ($3,000) for pieces by relative unknowns, such as the Korean artist Kyungwoo and Karina Beltran, of Spain. “We offer prices as low as €500 ($700),” says Distrito Cuatro director Isabel Yanguas, “and as high as €400,000 ($590,000), for works by Spaniard Albert Corbí”—one of which is pictured at left. Corbí won the festival’s El Cultural prize this summer for his haunting portraits and cityscapes.

"Photo Specific" originally appeared in the October 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's October 2008 Table of Contents.