Art world report·London
New Latin American Fair Paraíso Debuts in London, Reviving a Mail-Art Show Cancelled a Decade Ago
Paraíso, the first Latin American art fair in London since Pinta ended its London edition in 2015, opened at Ambika P3 during Frieze week with 22 exhibitors — its entrance anchored by a revived decade-delayed exhibition of the late Mexican conceptual artist Felipe Ehrenberg's mail art.
At the entrance of Paraíso, one of the satellite fairs debuting during Frieze week, hangs a show that was meant to happen a decade ago. 'Felipe Ehrenberg: 26 Maculate Letters from Mexico | An Unfinished Conversation' presents previously unseen work by the late Mexican conceptual artist, whose exile in England in the late 1960s and early 1970s turned him into an avid mail artist, besotted with the British postal service. The digitally collaged letters, cards and envelopes were due to form an exhibition in 2016, cancelled when Ehrenberg's health failed; he died in 2017. The show's addressee, researcher Fortunata Calabrò, has now revived it — adding archival material, earlier hand-collaged mail art and a new editioned artist book — under the artist's own maxim that whoever sends a letter is always waiting for an answer.
The revival is a fitting emblem for Paraíso, Spanish for paradise, founded by Javier Calderón, who also runs London's Somers Gallery. It is the first Latin American art fair in the British capital since Pinta ended its London edition in 2015. The inaugural edition gathers 22 exhibitors with a special focus on Mexican art, staged at Ambika P3, a vast subterranean former concrete construction hall on Marylebone Road. Galleries hail from Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Peru and Bolivia, alongside London specialists such as Astéri Contemporary, and Calderón's team leaned on community networks to bring dealers on board — 'very Latino of us', as fair partner and consultant Manuela Rodríguez put it.
Prices are deliberately accessible — some works at the LAACC stand, showing six Latino artists from the Royal College of Art, are priced at just £300, and many pieces across the fair carry four-figure tags — though deeper-pocketed buyers can find a monumental wooden carving by Germán Venegas at Mexico City's Acapulco 62 for £64,000. The Thursday VIP preview drew a mixed but enthusiastic crowd, with galleries reporting offers in the first hour, including visitors from beyond London's Latino scene. The fair runs until Sunday evening, 18 October.
