This year Art Madrid wants to highlight the work involved in designing and installation the booths. Thus, the effort and dedication by the gallerists and artists participating in this edition will be recognized with two special awards for two of the best booths granted by the organizers of the fair.

Samuel Salcedo

Peace 1/2/3 (cada pieza), 2018

Resina de epoxy

70 x 60cm

Many visitors would be surprised to know the great work hiding in "the booth installation", work prior to the celebration of the fair that also requires updating in the event of purchases of the artworks that form it. While it is true that it is an ephemeral work, since it only lasts the days of the fair, it is also true that the exhibition design determines the way in which we perceive the pieces. In addition, and with the exception of stands dedicated to the One Project program, designed for each artist having his space, the works of different artists coexist in the General Program booths, between three to twelve creators. Creating dialogues between these works, composing the spaces in a harmonious or pleasant way, getting the best lighting, arranging the pieces in such a way that the audience can circulate without involving any danger to the booth... Many details that define the style of the gallery and condition the way in which the public approaches the expository proposals.

Gorka García

Art 58, 2018

Mixed technique

200 x 200cm

Jordi Alcaraz

Untitled, 2018

Mixed media

80 x 100cm

Leticia Felgueroso

Gran Vía edificio Rolex amarillo, 2018

Photography

108 x 130cm

This year, some of the displays especially stand out. These are 3 Punts Galeria, which presents works by Alejandro Monge, Gerard Mas, Kiko Miyares, Samuel Salcedo, Silvio Alino, Nick Veasey, Ramon Surinyac and Okuda San Miguel; the Gallery BAT Alberto Cornejo, with pieces by Gustavo Díaz Sosa, José Ramón Lozano, Lantomo, Mária Švarbová, Carlos Albert, Leticia Felgueroso, Marta Sánchez Luengo, Rafael Amorós, Fernando Palacios, Carlos Iglesias Faura and Rubén Martín de Lucas, Guest Artist of this edition. Equally, we also can outline the display of the gallery directed by Aurora Vigil-Escalera, which offers in its booth a selection of works by Juan Genovés, Herminio, Pablo Armesto, Gorka García, Ismael Lagares, Rafael Macarrón, David Rodríguez Caballero, Santiago Picatoste and Marcela Lobo. Also, the Miquel Alzueta booth (Barcelona) stands out and in their space you can find works by the artists Jordi Alcaraz, Edgar Plans, Maria Yellletisch, Hugo Alonso, Andrea Torres and Lídia Masllorens.

Javier Victorero

En el jardín VI, 2018

Acrylic on canvas

310 x 294cm

Outstanding booths are also those of MH Art Gallery, with works by Joo Eun Bae, Monica Dixon, Estefanía Urrutia and Thilleli Rahmoun; those of the Cornión Gallery, which presents works by Miguel Calano, Javier Victorero and Amancio; as well as the Luisa Pita gallery new selection with the works by María Ortega Estepa, Maríajosé Gallardo y Darío Basso.

Likewise, the space designed by the Zielinsky gallery is one of the most interesting, and in its booth you can see the work by the artists Joaquín Lalanne, Yamadú Canosa, Eduardo Marco, Pachi Santiago, Daniel Orson Ybarra and Juan Fielitz; the booth of the Bea Villamarín gallery, with works by the artists Mònica Subidé, Carlos Tárdez, Patricia Escutia, Candela Muniozguren and Alejandro Quincoces; or that of Víctor Lope arte Contemporáneo, a booth in which spectators will be able to see the pieces by Kepa Garraza, Jacinto Moros, Patrik Grijalvo and Dirk Salz. This gallery has also been responsible for the design of one of the spaces of the One Project program, where it represents the artist Alejandra Atarés. Within this program, the booth designed by RV Cultura e Arte and the artist Manuela Eichner is worth mentioning, as well as that of the About Art Gallery and Nuria Mora or the Contour Art Gallerybooth with Rūta Vadlugaitė.

Guim Tió Zarraluki

Capvespre, 2017

Oil on linen

65 x 81cm

Ernesto Rancaño

Aire, 2018

Printed photography and charcoal on canvas, LED light

114 x 114cm

As for the foreign exhibitors, the Yiri Arts proposals stand out, a Taiwanese gallery that exhibits works by Chen Yun, Guim Tió, Lai Wei-Yu and Mònica Subidé; as well as that of his neighbour at the Galería de Cristal, Collage Habana, gallery which presents a selection of Cuban creators: Andy Llanes Bultó, Daniel R. Collazo, Ernesto Rancaño and Roldán Lauzán Eiras. Other outstanding installations of foreign galleries are those of the North American Lola & the Unicorn, with pieces by Fernando Daza, Bosco Sodi, Isabelita Valdecasas, Juan Genovés and Miguel Vallinas; or the Portuguese Paulo Nunes-Arte Contemporânea, where the works by Ana Pais Oliveira, Manuel Patinha, Mário Macilau and Rui Dias Monteiro are exhibited. In addition, those visitors really interested in buying a piece, have the possibility to discover those works that gallerists also keep in their small and ephemeral warehouses. Also, the organisation highlighted the Robert Drees visual proposal (Hannover), composed by Pepa Salas, Markus Fräger, Michael Laube, Sun Rae Kim and Jürgen Jansen's works.

Patrik Grijalvo

Veles et Vents (Serie Gravitación Visual), 2018

Photograph on Hahnemühle paper

150 x 150cm

Patricia Escutia

Page 51-52, 2018

Wire on canvas

81 x 124cm

This year, the Art Madrid organization awards two special prizes to the two best booths. In addition to this recognition, the prizes consist of a special communication and promotion campaign within the Art Madrid Market, an online sales space where curated virtual exhibitions will be held. Art Madrid has decided to reward the booths of the galleries Víctor Lope Arte Contemporáneo and Bea Villamarín galleries.

Víctor Lope is a Catalan gallery founded in 2009 and located in the centre of Barcelona. From the beginning, it has opted to launch and consolidate the careers of emerging and mid-career artists who have a unique vision of contemporary art. Another feature that defines this gallery is its international character, and in this sense, they make a great effort to consolidate their artists in the European and international art market. In Art Madrid features a thoughtful selection of the wood sculptures of Jacinto Moros, the photomontages by Patrik Grijalvo, the mysterious resin pieces by Dirk Salz and a large drawing by Kepa Garraza, "a Louis XIV" portrait with which the artist appropriates the vision codes of power to launch critical and ironic messages.

Candela Muniozguren

Acid Bang 08, 2018

Lacquered steel

48 x 17cm

Jacinto Moros

FMK100, 2017

Maple wood and formica

132 x 70cm

For its part, the Bea Villamarín Gallery is located in Gijón, one of the Spanish cities with the greatest creative tradition, as well as gallery and collect tradition. This gallery stands out for its involvement in the promotion and promotion of young artists, both national and international. Specialized in advising corporate collectors, the gallery directed by Beatriz Villamarín and Daniel García presents in Art Madrid an interesting dialogue between the abstract writings of Patricia Escutia, the geometric and colorful sculptures by Candela Muniozguren and the much more realistic ones by Carlos Tárdez, together with the paintings of Mònica Subidé and Alejandro Quincoces, natural scenes in the case of the first and urban in the case of the second.

If you want to see these and the rest of the artistic proposals of the more than 40 participating galleries, you can still visit the fair today from 11 a.m. to 9 a.m. in the stunning Crystal Gallery of the Palacio de Cibeles. Today, we celebrate the last day of Art Madrid'19!

The practice of the collective DIMASLA (Diana + Álvaro) is situated at a fertile intersection between contemporary art, ecological thinking, and a philosophy of experience that shifts the emphasis from production to attention. Faced with the visual and material acceleration of the present, their work does not propose a head-on opposition, but rather a sensitive reconciliation with time, understood as lived duration rather than as a measure. The work thus emerges as an exercise in slowing down, a pedagogy of perception where contemplating and listening become modes of knowledge.

In the work of DIMASLA (Diana + Álvaro), the territory does not function as a framework but rather as an agent. The landscape actively participates in the process, establishing a dialogical relationship reminiscent of certain eco-critical currents, in which subjectivity is decentralized and recognized as part of a broader framework. This openness implies an ethic of exposure, which is defined as the act of exposing oneself to the climate, the elements, and the unpredictable, and this means accepting vulnerability as an epistemological condition.

The materials—fabrics, pigments, and footprints—serve as surfaces for temporary inscriptions and memories, bearing the marks of time. The initial planning is conceived as an open hypothesis, allowing chance and error to act as productive forces. In this way, the artistic practice of DIMASLA (Diana + Álvaro) articulates a poetics of care and being-with, where creating is, above all, a profound way of feeling and understanding nature.

In a historical moment marked by speed and the overproduction of images, your work seems to champion slowness and listening as forms of resistance. Could it be said that your practice proposes a way of relearning time through aesthetic experience?

Diana: Yes, but more than resistance or vindication, I would speak of reconciliation—of love. It may appear slow, but it is deliberation; it is reflection. Filling time with contemplation or listening is a way of feeling. Aesthetic experience leads us along a path of reflection on what lies outside us and what lies within.

The territory does not appear in your work as a backdrop or a setting, but as an interlocutor. How do you negotiate that conversation between the artist’s will and the voice of the place, when the landscape itself participates in the creative process?

Álvaro: For us, the landscape is like a life partner or a close friend, and naturally this intimate relationship extends into our practice. We go to visit it, to be with it, to co-create together. We engage in a dialogue that goes beyond aesthetics—conversations filled with action, contemplation, understanding, and respect.

Ultimately, in a way, the landscape expresses itself through the material. We respect all the questions it poses, while at the same time valuing what unsettles us, what shapes us, and what stimulates us within this relationship.

The Conquest of the Rabbits I & II. 2021. Process.

In your approach, one senses an ethic of exposure: exposing oneself to the environment, to the weather, to others, to the unpredictable. To what extent is this vulnerability also a form of knowledge?

Diana: For us, this vulnerability teaches us a great deal—above all, humility. When we are out there and feel the cold, the rain, or the sun, we become aware of how small and insignificant we are in comparison to the grandeur and power of nature.

So yes, we understand vulnerability as a profound source of knowledge—one that helps us, among many other things, to let go of our ego and to understand that we are only a small part of a far more complex web.

Sometimes mountains cry too. 2021. Limestone rockfall, sun, rain, wind, pine resin on acrylic on natural cotton canvas, exposed on a blanket of esparto grass and limestone for two months.. 195 cm x 130 cm x 3 cm.

Your works often emerge from prolonged processes of exposure to the environment. Could it be said that the material—the fabrics, the pigments, the traces of the environment—acts as a memory that time writes on you as much as you write on it?

Álvaro: This is a topic for a long conversation, sitting on a rock—it would be very stimulating. But if experiences shape people’s inner lives and define who we are in the present moment, then I would say yes, especially in that sense.

Leaving our comfort zone has led us to learn from the perseverance of plants and the geological calm of mountains. Through this process, we have reconciled ourselves with time, with the environment, with nature, with ourselves, and even with our own practice. Just as fabrics hold the memory of a place, we have relearned how to pay attention and how to understand. Ultimately, it is a way of deepening our capacity to feel.

The fox and his tricks. 2022. Detail.

To what extent do you plan your work, and how much space do you leave for the unexpected—or even for mistakes?

Diana: Our planning is limited to an initial hypothesis. We choose the materials, colours, places, and sometimes even the specific location, but we leave as much room as possible for the unexpected to occur. In the end, that is what it is really about: allowing nature to speak and life to unfold. For us, both the unexpected and mistakes are part of the world’s complexity, and within that complexity we find a form of natural beauty.