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 work of Carmen Baena (Benalúa de Guadix, Granada, 1967) is structured as a poetic investigation into the memory of territory and its material translation into forms, textures, and gestures. Her practice stems from a life experience deeply connected to a specific landscape in southern Spain, understood not only as a geographical space but also as an affective and symbolic sedimentation. In this sense, her pieces can be approached from a perspective centered on direct experience: the landscape not as representation, but as a lived trace that emerges through doing.

Baena activates unique dialogue between historically hierarchical materials. Marble, associated with permanence and monumental tradition, coexists with embroidery, a technique linked to domestic knowledge passed down through generations, historically relegated but here reactivated as a fully-fledged artistic language. This coexistence is not presented as confrontation, but as a field of resonances where the solid and the fragile, the enduring and the tactile, interpenetrate. From a perspective attentive to connections, embodied experience, and knowledge constructed from everyday life, thread becomes a tool for sensitive knowledge.

Color, particularly in her textile works, functions as vibrational energy rather than a purely formal attribute. In contrast to the chromatic restraint of marble, embroidery introduces an open temporality in which intuitive gestures and accidents acquire structural value. Thus, the process becomes a space for listening, where the unexpected does not interrupt the work but rather constitutes it. In Carmen Baena’s practice, creating means allowing the territory—both external and internal—to continue transforming itself.

The Garden Blooms X. 2025. Acrylic and embroidery thread on canvas. 50 x 70 cm.

Your works evoke landscapes, reliefs, and topographies. How does the relationship between physical territory and symbolic or emotional territory articulate itself in your practice?

The physical territory where I was born and spent my early childhood has shaped all my work. I was born in a cave in the Guadix region (Granada), home to the largest complex of troglodyte dwellings in Europe.

The landscape there is full of contrasts: alongside the greens of the vega—fruit trees and poplars—you find the reddish ochres of the eroded hills. And facing the white of Sierra Nevada, the white of snow that still lingers in spring, there are also the greens of the wheat fields and cereal plains. Thanks to erosion and the geological layers that have been exposed over time, the area contains a series of strata that preserve extremely important continental geological records.

For this reason, the area has been designated a UNESCO Global Geopark. I spent a happy, very simple childhood in this environment—living closely connected to nature—and that is the territory that surfaces throughout the symbolism of my work.

Circular Horizons XIV. 2023. Acrylic and embroidery thread on canvas. 72 x 72 cm.

You learned embroidery in a family context, and you draw on the landscapes of your childhood. When did you realise that your immediate world—people, gestures, everyday landscapes—was no longer just a memory, but an active driving force in the construction of your artistic language?

I realised that the universe of my childhood was an active driving force in the construction of my artistic language thanks to a friend, after she visited my cave-house. Through her perspective, she made me aware of what I had been doing intuitively up until that point. This happened more than twenty years ago, and since then—even though I’m aware of it—I continue working.

I like working intuitively, and most of the time I only discover what the landscape has been afterwards. What stays with me is the sensation that inspired the piece once I have finished it.

Sea Breeze III. 2025. Acrylic and embroidery thread on canvas. 60 x 80 cm.

Marble carries historical and symbolic weight linked to monumentality, while embroidery is often associated with traditions that have been overlooked or confined to the domestic sphere. How do you negotiate this clash of cultural status in your work?

For years, marble was the material I was most interested in, and the one I used for most of my sculptural work. It wasn’t until 2007–2008 that I felt the need to incorporate embroidery—a technique I had learned as a teenager.

I began experimenting on paper, using stitching to draw landscapes and trees directly connected to the sculptures I was making at the time, and also working on small scraps of different kinds of paper. I explored the technical and visual possibilities of thread, creating small works in which colour, texture, and the thread’s vibration became the protagonists.

Later, I moved on to larger formats on canvas, where I also incorporated acrylic. These two seemingly contradictory practices—marble and embroidery—have coexisted in my studio and my work without any difficulty. Today, embroidery has completely displaced marble.

Between Heaven and Earth III. 2020. Marble and wood. 25 x 14 x 14 cm.

In your marble pieces, white and gold create an almost meditative atmosphere; in contrast, embroidery and acrylic burst into colour, activating gesture and vibration. Is this a conscious choice, or do the materials reveal their own possible colour to you?

With marble, the choice of white and gold is a conscious decision: I want to convey the spiritual atmosphere of the landscape, and the relationship between human beings and nature. By contrast, the explosion of colour in the thread emerged gradually and more intuitively, and only later did I begin to understand and use the possibilities of this material in a more conscious way.

Whisper Between the Lines XIII. 2023. Acrylic and embroidery thread on canvas. 40 x 60 cm.

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

When it comes to making my work, I don’t like to plan too much. With embroidered pieces, I do tests on small scraps of paper—trying out colour and the stitch I’m going to use—and with that I try to visualise the final result in my mind. This way of working leaves plenty of space for things to happen while I work. It allows me to discover, learn, and make use of the unexpected.

For example, in some pieces, while embroidering, tangles can occur because the thread tension isn’t right or the thread is too loose. At first, those tangles might seem like they could ruin the piece, but when I see them, I realise they’re visually very interesting. So later I have consciously reproduced that effect in other works.