MADRID, SPAIN.-The third edition of Art Madrid will have the presence of 80 galleries, 59 from Spain and 21 from abroad, and will be held from February 12 -17, 2008, at the Pabellón de Cristal in Madrid´s Casa de Campo. The fair will have the presence of 6 Latin American galleries. Four other galleries from New York, Canada and Miami, will feature the work of Latin American artists.

Woks by Mapplethorpe, Warhol, Tàpies, Barceló, Plensa, Miró, Palazuelo, Carmen Calvo, Schommer, Julian Opie, Chirino or Mel Ramos, among others, will be available.

Arte y Asociados, the company in charge of the organization of Art Madrid, is also undertaking FIART VALENCIA, the 1st edition of the International Modern and Contemporary Art Fair of Valencia

After the attendance and sales success (23,000 visitors and more than 20 million Euros) in its past edition, Art Madrid 08 jumps forward and expands its space in more than 20% in reference to last year, reaching 4.500 square meters of exhibition space.

Art Madrid 08 will have the presence of 80 galleries, most of them (59) from Spain and 21 from abroad. The international group is composed of 6 South American galleries, 4 from North American, 10 from Europe and 1 from Korea.

The Madrid event consolidates itself as the second contemporary art fair in Spain, both for the exhibition space and for the amount of galleries participating in it.

The eighty galleries will feature works by more than 650 Spanish and international artists, among which are Mapplethorpe, Warhol, Barceló, Plensa, Miró, Palazuelo, Carmen Calvo, Julian Opie, Chirino, Mel Ramos, Alberto Reguera, Pedro Lozano, RGF+DDT, Pep Bofill or Armando Mariño, to name a few.

Representing South America are the Argentinean galleries Ángel Guido Art Project and Arte privado; the Colombian gallery Fernando Pradilla - El Museo; Galiano and Servando from Cuba and Toulouse from Brazil. On their part, the four North American galleries (Beaux Arts and Preciado Fine Art, from Miami; Praxis, from New York and Trazos Gallery, from Canada), will also feature Latin American artists at the fair.

Among the European participants, the presence of five important Portuguese galleries can be highlighted (Antonio Prátes, Art Lounge, Cordeiros, Perve and Sao Mamede), as well as the Germans Levy and Michael Schmalfuss, Lazar Vujic from Slovenia and Lina Davidov from France.

The 59 Spanish galleries participating in this edition come from Madrid (18), Barcelona (16), Valencia (7), Baleares (4), Murcia (2), Girona (2), Alicante (2), Bilbao (1), Córdoba (1), Cuenca (1), Asturias (1), Álava (1), Navarra (1), Ciudad Real (1) and Reus (1).

It is worth to point out the fact that, in the selection committee, the criteria of quality has primed over other parameters, leading to a sustained number of galleries (80), therefore increasing the quality of the selected ones, with the wish to assure the best level of proposals.

On the other hand, 25 galleries are attending the fair for the first time. 14 of the newcomers are from Spain and 11 from abroad. It is worth to mention that 157 galleries have submitted applications to participate in Art Madrid 08.