Art Madrid'26 – Donostiartean, new Contemporary Art Fair at the Kursaal in San Sebastián

A new art fair in San Sebastián comes with two clear objectives: to boost the national and international contemporary art and establish itself as a model of fair benchmark. The first edition of San Sebastian Artean take place from 7 to 11 August in the representative of the Kursaal Congress Palace, architectural work of Rafael Moneo. 

 

The DonostiArtean organizing team is led by Scarpellini family, Marta and Ignacio, directors of Gaudi Madrid Gallery. They point out that the fair has been created under four pillars: rigor, professionalism, quality and closeness, and to be established as a fresh, dynamic and high-quality fair. To reinforce this idea, it has an Advisory Committee consisting of professionals in the cultural and artistic world: Iñigo Arístegui (designer and sculptor), Cristina Beloqui (Director of Art and Heritage Kutxa Fundazioa), Javier Diaz Guardiola (Cultural Journalist ABC) Juan Martinez Barefoot (gallery), Aitor Mendizabal (sculptor) and Ane Rodríguez (Cultural Director Tabakalera). 

 
The fair has two distinct sections: one for art galleries and one for artist books. Thirty-four exhibitors make up the program of art galleries, two of which are foreigners; Deux Gallery (South Korea) and Leizorovici Galerie (Paris). Seven basque galleries participate in the fair: Adn Project, Argucho Iruretagoyena, Arkupe, Arteztu, Gure Gazteluak Cultural Association, Conde Rodezno, The Study and Ispilu Art. Eight galleries travels from Madrid to San Sebastian: Eka Art Gallery, Lorenart, Montsequi, Draft Inn, Quorum, Ruizanglada, Arrow and Gaudí. Catalonia also have a presence at the show with six galleries from Barcelona: Crisolart, Conde Rodezno, Limited Editions Gallery, Legaxart, Espai Lluis Ribas and Sky Art Gallery. Other regions will also be represented: Javier Román (Málaga), Lorenzo Colomo (Valladolid ) 6 and C6 Cervantes Gallery (Oviedo), Pillars (Cuenca), Rodrigo Juarranz (Aranda del Duero), Fortuarte.es (Cuenca), Valentin Kovatchev (Málaga), Van Dyck (Gijón), Spiral (Cantabria), Marmurán (Alcázar de San Juan, Ciudad Real). 
 
In the Artist Books section there will be seven exhibitors: Books Bosch (Madrid) Art Baubles (Mérida), Fotolito Books (Madrid), Red Fox Books (Barcelona), Liya Huang (Madrid), Point Paper (Murcia) and terraz (Madrid). 
 

The performer Abel Azcona will perform in the opening ceremony of DonostiArtean with the show "Reminiscence, The art of memory", in which Abel proposes a performance based on their life experiences, given that arises, with the words of the artist "from memory and exploration of their own and the others ghosts". To receive the public, the sculptor Iñigo Aristegui has placed a large format work at the entrance of the complex, and the dancer and choreographer Mikel Aristegui will be starring in a show of contemporary dance around this. In addition, the actor and filmmaker Jordi Molla is the guest artist of the first edition of DonostiArtean. To complement the exhibition, visitors can enjoy Bideak (Roads), an exhibition at the Kursaal Kutxa comprising 130 works by Eduardo Chillida. 

DonostiArtean it bets for the reinforce of contemporary art and the revitalization of the Spanish and foreign art market. Some of the exhibitors interviewed by the organizers have the belief that will be very positive to promote new values between artists, a meeting place for professionals, and why not, a space to encourage new collectors. 
 
San Sebastian is filled with art and culture for five days with a fresh and dynamic event, in which you can enjoy various artistic actions that will not leave you indifferent.

 

Daniel Barrio. Guest artist of the third edition of OPEN BOOTH. Courtesy of the artist.


DESPIECE. PROTOCOLO DE MUTACIÓN


As part of the Art Madrid’26 Parallel Program, we present the third edition of Open Booth, a space conceived as a platform for artistic creation and contemporary experimentation. The initiative focuses on artists who do not yet have representation within the gallery circuit, offering a high-visibility professional context in which new voices can develop their practice, explore forms of engagement with audiences, and consolidate their presence within the current art scene. On this occasion, the project features artist Daniel Barrio (Cuba, 1988), who presents the site-specific work Despiece. Protocolo de mutación.

Daniel Barrio’s practice focuses on painting as a space for experimentation, from which he explores the commodification of social life and the tyranny of media approval. He works with images drawn from the press and other media, intervening in them pictorially to disrupt their original meaning. Through this process, the artist opens up new readings and questions how meaning is produced, approaching painting as a space of realization, therapy, and catharsis.

Despiece. Protocolo de mutación is built from urban remnants, industrial materials, and fragments of history, inviting us to reflect on which memories we inherit, which we consume, and which ones we are capable of creating. Floors, walls, and volumes come together to form a landscape under tension, where the sacred coexists with the everyday, and where cracks matter more than perfection.

The constant evolution of art calls for ongoing exchange between artists, institutions, and audiences. In its 21st edition, Art Madrid reaffirms its commitment to acting as a catalyst for this dialogue, expanding the traditional boundaries of the art fair context and opening up new possibilities of visibility for emerging practices.



Despiece. Protocolo de mutación emerges from a critical and affective impulse to dismantle, examine, and reassemble what shapes us culturally and personally. The work is conceived as an inseparable whole: an inner landscape that operates as a device of suspicion, where floors, walls, and volumes configure an ecosystem of remnants. It proposes a reading of history not as a linear continuity, but as a system of forces in permanent friction, articulating space as an altered archive—a surface that presents itself as definitive while remaining in constant transformation.



The work takes shape as a landscape constructed from urban waste, where floors, walls, and objects form a unified body made of lime mortar, PVC from theatrical signage, industrial foam, and offering wax. At the core of the project is an L-shaped structure measuring 5 × 3 meters, which reinterprets the fresco technique on reclaimed industrial supports. The mortar is applied wet over continuous working days, without a pursuit of perfection, allowing the material to reveal its own character. Orbiting this structure are architectural fragments: foam blocks that simulate concrete, a 3D-printed and distorted Belvedere torso, and a wax sculptural element embedded with sandpaper used by anonymous workers and artists, preserving the labor of those other bodies.

A white wax sculptural element functions within the installation as a point of sensory concentration that challenges the gaze. Inside it converge the accumulated faith of offering candles and the industrial residues of the studio, recalling that purity and devotion coexist with the materiality of everyday life. The viewer’s experience thus moves beyond the visual: bending down, smelling, and approaching its vulnerability transforms perception into an intimate, embodied act. Embedded within its density are sanding blocks used by artists, artisans, and laborers, recovered from other contexts, where the sandpaper operates as a trace of the effort of other bodies, following a protocol of registration with no autobiographical intent.

Despiece. Protocolo de mutación addresses us directly, asking: which memory do we value—the one we consume, or the one we construct with rigor? The audience leaves behind a purely contemplative position to become part of the system, as the effort of moving matter, documentary rigor, and immersive materiality form a body of resistance against a mediated reality. The project thus takes shape as an inner landscape, where floor, surface, and volume articulate an anatomy of residues. Adulteration operates as an analytical methodology applied to the layers of urban reality, intervening in history through theatrical and street advertising, architectural remnants, and administrative protocols, proposing that art can restore the capacity to build one’s own memory, even if inevitably fragmented.



ABOUT THE ARTIST

DANIEL BARRIO (1988, Cuba)

Daniel Barrio (Cienfuegos, Cuba, 1988) is a visual artist whose practice articulates space through painting, understanding the environment as an altered archive open to critical intervention. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts of Cienfuegos (2004–2008), specializing in painting, and later at the Madrid Film School (ECAM, 2012–2015), where he studied Art Direction. His methodology integrates visual thinking with scenographic narrative.

His trajectory includes solo exhibitions such as La levedad en lo cotidiano (Galería María Porto, Madrid, 2023), Interiores ajenos (PlusArtis, Madrid, 2022), and Tribud (Navel Art, Madrid, 2019), as well as significant group exhibitions including Space is the Landscape (Estudio Show, Madrid, 2024), Winterlinch (Espacio Valverde Gallery, Madrid, 2024), Hiberia (Galería María Porto, Lisbon, 2023), and the traveling exhibition of the La Rioja Young Art Exhibition (2022).

A member of the Resiliencia Collective, his work does not pursue the production of objects but rather the articulation of pictorial devices that generate protocols of resistance against the flow of disposable images. In a context saturated with immediate data, his practice produces traces and archives what must endure, questioning not the meaning of the work itself but the memory the viewer constructs through interaction—thus reclaiming sovereignty over the gaze and inhabiting ruins as a method for understanding the present.