Letter from Mallorca

Magaluf is a new artist-run project space located in a former retail unit in a rundown shopping mall, named after the notorious Mallorcan holiday destination. While this might not be an uncommon setting for a DIY gallery in any metropolitan city, the broader locale of an excessively rowdy holiday resort might sound like an unlikely place to set up an artist-run project space, and that's because it is. As its founder, Mallorcan native Mario Suardiaz, tells me when I ask him about the local contemporary art scene: 'You're looking at it!' Aside from his space, art in Mallorca is decidely institutional. It is hosted by large museums such as Es Baluard Museum and CCA Andtratx, and a handful of blue-chip galleries mainly in the capital, Palma, which, according to the Mallorcan tourist board, has recently been cited by Sotheby's as 'becoming one of the most important centres of art in Europe'. However, while Mallorca may not have an underground art milieu (in a familiar story, Suardiaz was living abroad but returned home because of the pandemic), it has been possible for him to found the gallery in part due to dynamics of socioeconomic decay and creeping gentrification that are so often fruitful for DIY culture.