For four days every September, Bogotá’s art world moves into Ágora Bogotá, where collectors, curators, gallerists, artists, designers, students and the city’s cultural crowd converge for ARTBO, the capital’s annual international art fair.
And then there is the opening night.
The inauguration of ARTBO has become something of a ritual on Bogotá’s cultural calendar, when a particularly concentrated collection of artists, collectors, gallery owners, cultural grandees, celebrities, socialites and the city’s have-to-be-seen crowd descends on Ágora. It is one of those Bogotá evenings when being seen looking at art can sometimes seem almost as important as the art itself.
For the art aficionados, however, the fair is serious business. And for four days ARTBO becomes a meeting point for the people who make, exhibit, collect, discuss and sell contemporary art across Colombia and Latin America.
The 22nd edition of ARTBO Feria Internacional de Arte will take place from September 24 to 27, bringing together 50 galleries from 20 cities, 228 artists, more than 30 institutions and more than 40 publishers across five floors of the convention centre.
Now one of the established dates on Bogotá’s cultural calendar, ARTBO is as much about the business of art as it is about looking at art. Works are exhibited and sold, emerging artists seek visibility, established galleries court collectors, and institutions use the fair as a meeting point for conversations about the direction of contemporary art in Colombia and Latin America.
This year’s fair has expanded from 44 galleries in 2025, with greater representation from South and Central America, including galleries from Venezuela, Ecuador, Panama and Guatemala.
“ARTBO is much more than a fair: it is a meeting place that connects Bogotá with Colombia, Latin America and the world through art,” said Ovidio Claros, president of the Bogotá Chamber of Commerce (CCB), which organises the event. He said the fair demonstrates Bogotá’s capacity to attract talent, creativity, investment and knowledge while strengthening the circulation of Latin American art.
Contemporary art will dominate the fair, accounting for around 80 percent of the offering, with painting sharing the floor with photography, video, installation, performance, printmaking, drawing, ceramics, sculpture and multimedia. Of the participating artists, 65 percent are Colombian and 35 percent international.
Bogotá’s international art fair returns for its 22nd edition with 50 galleries, 228 artists and seven sections at Ágora Bogotá — while a new AI-powered platform aims to bring more visitors into the world of collecting.
ARTBO 2026 is divided into seven sections, giving the fair a broader remit than its commercial galleries alone.
Galerías, occupying the fourth and fifth floors of Ágora, is the principal commercial section, with 50 galleries from 12 countries presenting their artists and works.
Instituciones, on the second floor, brings together museums, foundations, magazines and other cultural projects, alongside launches and publications.
On the third floor, Encuentro Editorial, curated by Relámpago, focuses on publishers, distributors and specialist bookstores working with art and visual culture.
Conversaciones, curated by Benedicta Badía, provides a forum for critical discussion and debate around contemporary art.
Trayectoria, an ARTBO–Bauer collaboration, turns the spotlight this year on Colombian artist Fanny Sanín, with José Roca as curator and the support of Galería Alonso Garcés.
Artecámara, a collaboration between ARTBO and Whitman, continues its focus on emerging artists without commercial representation. The section is curated this year by Melissa Aguilar.
And Ruta Diseño extends ARTBO beyond Ágora for the first time, taking activities into Bogotá’s La Macarena neighbourhood and connecting the fair with another of the capital’s creative circuits.
ARTBO Conecta
The most conspicuous innovation of the 2026 edition is ARTBO Conecta, an artificial-intelligence-powered tool designed to make the process of finding and buying art less intimidating.
The platform matches a visitor’s preferences, budget and expectations with works available from participating galleries, helping guide visitors through the fair and identify artists and works that might correspond to their interests.
For ARTBO, the technology is intended in part to address one of the perennial challenges of an international art fair: making the market accessible to people who may be interested in buying art but do not necessarily know where to begin.
“We want visitors to ARTBO not only to discover new proposals and artists, but also to find tools that help them take the step towards collecting,” said Jaime Martínez, director of ARTBO. “With ARTBO Conecta, we are especially accompanying those who are beginning this journey.”
The initiative comes as ARTBO continues to position itself not simply as a marketplace but as a broader cultural event — one where buying, collecting, publishing, exhibiting and discussing art overlap.
The programme will also include guided tours, activities for children and families and a publishing programme involving more than 40 editorial projects. Two anniversaries will receive particular attention: the 50th anniversaries of ArtNexus and Taller Arte Dos Gráfico, both of which have played significant roles in the development of art and graphic culture in the region.
For Bogotá, ARTBO has become an annual ritual as recognisable as the city’s other major cultural gatherings. There is the art, naturally, and then there is everything that gathers around it: the collectors inspecting the latest acquisitions, the gallerists making their pitches, the emerging artists hoping to be noticed, the aficionados comparing notes and the familiar faces who seem to appear at every opening in town.
Missing the ARTBO inauguration is, in certain Bogotá circles, almost an act of cultural absenteeism.
But beneath the social theatre is a serious art market and an increasingly international platform for Colombian and Latin American artists. For four days, ARTBO offers the city a concentrated view of what is being made, exhibited, discussed and collected across the region — and, for those who simply come to look, a pretty good excuse to spend an afternoon wandering around Bogotá’s contemporary art world.
ARTBO 2026 runs from September 24–27 at Ágora Bogotá, Calle 24 #38-47. Opening hours are noon–8 p.m. from Thursday to Saturday and noon–6 p.m. on Sunday. General admission is COP25,000. Entry is free for students, minors, people over 60, people with disabilities
