Art Madrid'26 – 3 Punts Galery in Art Madrid15

It is called Thierry Guetta and was born in Paris in 1966 but everyone knows him as Mr. Brainwash, one of the most important artists of contemporary urban art. In 2014 he exhibited for the first time in Spain with the Gallery 3 Punts (Barcelona) and he will be on February at the 10th anniversary edition of the fair Art Madrid.

 

Life is Beautiful. Mr. Brainwash.

3Punts Gallery works for almost 20 years in the promotion of contemporary art in its various forms. Directed by Javier López and Eduard Duran, pays special attention to the work of new artists, no forgetting established career artists. In 2014 he made a great signing, the acclaimed street artist Mr. Brainwash.

 
With his hat and settled behind his camera, the French immigrant Thierry Guetta started collecting images about was what happening on the streets of Los Angeles, more specifically in its walls. They were the 90s of last century and graffiti flooded the cities. Obey, Space Invader and Banksy appeared in the media for their critical messages, its appropriation, its literal invasion of public space ... and, soon after, his arrival to the galleries, museums, and art criticism.

Tomato Spray. Mr. Brainwash.

 

Loving urban art, Guetta joined Shepard Fiery and traveled the world recording their stencils and wall paintings, his works and those of all urban artists who they crossed with... and so met Banksy, an essential influence who encouraged him to take another step, leaving the camera and creating his own signature: Mr. Brainwash was born.
 
With stickers, stencils and modifying and creating serial works already produced by others, Mr. Brainwash employs 25 assistants for help to "customize" great art that he scans, copy and paste with his style created to "wash the brain. He made a mega exhibition in 2008, Life is Beautiful, with a relentless communication strategy: a phrase from his friend Banksy: "Mr. Brainwash is a force of nature, is a phenomenon and I'm not saying in a good way. "
 
Media focused on L.A. and Mr.Brainwash, Madonna entrusts him the cover of his album Celebration in 2009 and in 2010 will end up being the protagonist of the documentary Exit trough the gift shop, made from footage recorded by Guetta and edited by Banksy. The movie got an Oscar nomination.

 

Mona Linesa. Mr. Brainwash.

 

Soon they come multitudinous exhibitions as Icons, Under Construction,... Mr. Brainwash exhibited in New York, Miami, Toronto, at the Olympic Games in London, Cape Town ... His work came to Spain, for the first time in November with 3 Punts Gallery in Barcelona and it also comes to Art Madrid 15 next February. 3Punts proposal brings his most representative works, with their POP stamp, silkscreen on canvas, cardboard and paper, icons of contemporary culture passed through the washing-brain of this graffiti artist.
 

Besides the works of Mr. Brainwash, 3 Punts Gallery brings Blek Le Rat, Efraïm Rodríguez, Gerard Mas, Ramón Surinyac, Samuel Salcedo y Sito Mújica.

 
David. Blek Le Rat.

 


ABIERTO INFINITO. LO QUE EL CUERPO RECUERDA. CICLO DE PERFORMANCE X ART MADRID'26


Art Madrid, committed to creating a discursive platform for artists working within the field of performance and action art, presents Abierto Infinito: lo que el cuerpo recuerda, a proposal inspired by Erving Goffman’s ideas in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (Amorrortu Editores, Buenos Aires, 1997).

The project unfolds within a theoretical framework that directly engages with these premises, conceiving social interaction as a stage of carefully modulated performances designed to influence others’ perceptions. Goffman argues that individuals deploy both verbal and involuntary expressions to guide the interpretation of their behavior, sustaining roles and façades that define the situation for those who observe.

The body — the first territory of all representation — precedes both word and learned gesture. Human experience, conscious and unconscious alike, is inscribed within it. Abierto Infinito: lo que el cuerpo recuerda departs from this premise: representation inhabits existence itself, and life, understood as a succession of representations, transforms the body into a space of constant negotiation over who we are. In this passage, boundaries blur; the individual opens toward the collective, and the ephemeral acquires symbolic dimension. By inhabiting this interstice, performance simultaneously reveals the fragility of identity and the strength that emerges from encounter with others.


PERFORMANCE: OSCURECER UN PAPEL. BY ROCÍO VALDIVIESO

March 5 | 7:00 PM. Galería de Cristal of the Palacio de Cibeles.


Nocturnality. Installation. Rocío Valdivieso..


Oscurecer un papel forms part of a series of actions in which the artist engages in reading through repetition, memorization, and a measured degree of improvisation. Within this framework, a non-linear mode of reading emerges from a written text that is transformed when spoken aloud, assuming a different form in the act of articulation. The texts stem from an ongoing investigation into materiality, space, the relationships between body and matter, writing, the sculptural, and a sustained interest in the exploration of voice and orality.

The material from which Oscurecer un papel is constructed consists of a collection of purchase receipts the artist has been accumulating over time. The printed text they contain, together with the action of bringing them into proximity with a heat source—thereby activating the thermal paper on which they are produced—generates meanings that revolve around the notions of consumption and wear.


Rocío Valdivieso. Latent Aura. Performance documentation.


ABOUT ROCÍO VALDIVIESO

Rocío Valdivieso is an artist, researcher, and cultural manager. She is currently a PhD candidate in Fine Arts at the Complutense University of Madrid. She holds an MA in Research in Artistic Practices from the University of Castilla–La Mancha (UCLM) and a BA in Fine Arts from the National University of Tucumán, Argentina. She was a Fundación Carolina fellow from 2022 to 2023. She currently co-directs Errática. Laboratory of Processes and Critique in Madrid, alongside Romina Casile.

She was part of the PEEPA 2023 Program at the Centro de Residencias Artísticas, Matadero Madrid. She completed the 2021/22 Artists Program at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, Buenos Aires, and in 2020 participated in the Intensive Curatorial Program of Proyecto PAC at Galería Gachi Prieto, Buenos Aires. She received the Visual Arts Promotion Award at the 4th Visual Arts Week of the Ente Cultural de Tucumán. She was awarded an AUGM scholarship for an exchange residency at UNESP, São Paulo, Brazil. She also participated in the International Residency Program La Ira de Dios and in the Acéfala Galería Residency for Argentine artists.