Paraíso Arrives: London Gets Its First Fair Devoted to Latin American Art

Every October, Frieze Week pulls a constellation of smaller fairs into orbit around Regent’s Park. Most are familiar by now: 1:54 at Somerset House for contemporary African art, Minor Attractions in Fitzrovia, PAD in Berkeley Square. This year there is a newcomer worth marking in the diary. Paraíso, a fair dedicated entirely to Latin American art, opens its first edition at Ambika P3 in Marylebone from 15 to 18 October, a short walk from the Frieze tents.

With 22 galleries and projects, it is modest by fair standards, which is exactly its appeal for anyone who prefers looking to being jostled.

A fair with a focus

Paraíso describes itself as a meeting point between generations. Rather than limiting itself to work made in the last five years, it puts contemporary practice alongside Modern and Postmodern figures, so that a young painter from Lima might hang within sight of an artist who was active in the 1970s. Each edition will also spotlight a single country, and the first is Mexico.

The gallery list leans towards the independent and the emerging. From Mexico City come Acapulco 62, Alvarez Chida and Salón Silicon; from Santiago, Aninat Art Projects; from Lima, Vespertzu and La Rebelde. There are galleries from Buenos Aires, Medellín and Santa Cruz too, and a London contingent that includes Cecilia Brunson Projects, the Bermondsey gallery that has spent more than a decade championing Latin American artists in this city, and Belmacz.

Alongside the booths, the fair has invited a handful of artists to show independently, outside the usual gallery structure. Débora Delmar, Alessandra Risi, Emilia González, Sofía Clausse and Malu Laet are among them. The curator Juan Canela has assembled a programme of contemporary video art from Central America, drawing on projects from Panama, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Costa Rica, a region that rarely features in London’s commercial calendar at all. There is a publishing section too, organised with Calaca Press, bringing together small presses including the UK’s own Ají Press, Colombia’s Felina Press, Mexico’s diSONARE and Chile’s Não Desanime!.

A Mexican thread with a Devon connection

The historical heart of the Mexico focus is a presentation of previously unseen works by Felipe Ehrenberg (1943–2017) and two video works by Pola Weiss (1947–1990).

Ehrenberg has a surprising British back story. In the early 1970s he lived in England, and with Martha Hellion and others he ran the Beau Geste Press from a farmhouse in Devon, a tiny, scrappy operation that printed artists’ books and mail art for an international network of experimental artists. It is an episode that makes British art history look less parochial than the textbooks suggest.

Weiss, meanwhile, is often described as Mexico’s first video artist. Working at a time when video equipment was expensive and the medium barely recognised, she made intimate, playful pieces that fused dance, the body and the camera. Seeing her work in a fair setting, rather than a museum survey, is an unusual opportunity.

Why this matters beyond the booth

Latin American art is hardly absent from London. Tate has collected seriously in the field for years, and the city’s larger galleries regularly show major names from Brazil, Argentina and Mexico. But the commercial picture has tended to be top-heavy: a few blue-chip artists visible at Frieze, with the emerging scenes of Lima, Medellín or Guatemala City largely invisible unless you happened to travel there.

A dedicated fair changes the economics for smaller galleries. Shipping work across the Atlantic and paying for a Frieze stand is beyond the means of many young spaces. A tighter, more affordable platform, timed to catch the international collectors already in town, gives them a realistic route to British and European audiences. For the London galleries taking part, it is a chance to show that their programmes are part of a wider conversation rather than a niche interest.

The satellite fairs that thrive tend to have a clear identity; 1:54 proved a regionally focused fair could become a fixture rather than a sideshow.

Making the most of a visit

Ambika P3 is itself worth the trip: a vast former engineering hall beneath the University of Westminster on Marylebone Road, all concrete and industrial height, which suits video and installation particularly well. The fair opens to invited guests on Thursday 15 October, then to the public from Friday 16 to Saturday 17 October, 11am to 7pm, and Sunday 18 October, 11am to 6pm.

If you are new to collecting, a first-edition fair can be a good place to start. Galleries tend to bring work at accessible prices, dealers have more time to talk than they do at the major fairs, and you are seeing artists before London has made up its mind about them. Ask about editions and works on paper, take a look at the publishing tables, and give the video programme the time it deserves. Half the pleasure of a fair like this is discovering a name you will be glad to have heard early.

Whether Paraíso becomes a permanent fixture of Frieze Week will depend on sales, visitor numbers and the stamina of its organisers. But on paper it fills a real gap, and it brings a part of the art world that London too often sees only through a narrow window into full view.