Art Madrid'25 – `El Paso´ in Madrid and Barcelona: Canogar & Millares

 

 

 

Rafael Canogar exhibition in Madrid and Manolo Millares exhibition in Barcelona

 

 

Rafael Canogar was born in Toledo in 1935 and he approached painting when he was 14, with the support of the master Vázquez Díaz. He travelled to Paris and met the Informalism, a current that he wanted to developed because of the freedom it enabled. Years after, he got close to Luis Feito and Manolo Millares, among others, and set on El Paso group. Canogar pursues the greatest expressiveness with the minimum elements, giving them dynamism and power. Manolo Millares (Gran Canaria, 1926- Madrid, 1972) started to paint through self-study being inspired by surrealism and indigenous cultures from the Island. Later, he began to use burlap surfaces that he cut, broke and drilled. The same as Canogar does, he enhanced the matter as an expressive vehicle, using in his palette brown, black, red and white. 

 

 

Manolo Millares by Juan Dolcet, 1971

 

 

Manel Mayoral Gallery in Barcelona will host until the 25th of July the exhibition ´Millares: building bridges, not walls´, that put on eye on the canarian artist´s artwork and is curated by the theoric Alfonso de la Torre and the art historian Elena Sorokina. It shows MIllares´ most famous pieces, such as `Painting 32´ (1957-58), some of his anthropomorphic `homúnculos´, and two marvellous triptychs, one of them: ´Divertimentos para un políptico (1963)´, that is part of the permanent collection of the Antonio Pérez de Cuenca´s Foundation. It was in 1976 when  the last retrospective from this artist was made. As Alfonso de la Torre says:  “this exhibition presents Millares´obsessions”.

 

 

Rafael Canogar in his studio

 

 

Madrid highlights the figure of Rafael Canogar, an artist from Toledo. CEART (Tomás y Valiente Art Centre) in Fuenlabrada hosts the exhibition `Yesterday, today: Rafael Canogar´, that opens to the public until the 22nd of July. It is a retrospective of 60 paintings that proposes a tour through the artist's passionate life and artwork. This exhibition is organised in sections that comprise from the beginning of El Paso group to his most recent works, big pieces of saturated lights and drawn colours.

 

 

 

Homúnculo. Manolo Millares

 

These exhibitions provide the keys for understanding the avant-garde movement El paso. Luis Feito, Juana Francés, Manuel Rivera, Antonio Suárez, Antonio Saura y Pablo Serrano were some other participants of this collective. Thanks to Millares and Canogar we can experiment an approach to postwar painting in Spain and its revolutionary plastic features.

 

 

 Rafael Canogar. Atrio, óleo sobre lienzo, 2017

 

From July 7 to 9, 2025, the Balsera Palace will host the First Course on Collecting and Contemporary Art, an intensive 15-hour program that will explore the complex and fundamental question of taste in contemporary art. Organized by the Nebrija Institute of Arts and Humanities at Nebrija University and the Avilés City Council, in collaboration with 9915 — Association of Private Collectors of Contemporary Art and the Institute of Contemporary Art, the course offers a unique opportunity for analysis and debate on the dynamics that shape aesthetic and symbolic value in today’s art scene.


First Course on Collecting and Contemporary Art. Avilés, Asturias


The notion of taste, intrinsically tied to aesthetic judgments and power relations, has played a decisive role in the historical prominence of artists and artworks. However, contemporary art—marked by its breaking of conventions, diversity of media and techniques, and critical stance toward traditional canons—raises fundamental questions about the continued relevance of this concept.

This course will explore how the decisions made by key players in the art system—institutions, private collections, galleries, curators, and artists—continually redefine a field of taste shaped by aesthetic, symbolic, cultural, social, and political logics.


"¿But does it exist, and what is the prevailing taste of our time—so seemingly confused, fragmented, indecipherable?" - Omar Calabrese, The Neo-Baroque Era.


The academic program, directed by José Luis Guijarro Alonso, Director of the Master’s in Art Market and Related Business Management at Nebrija University, and Pablo Álvarez de Toledo, Head of the Department of Arts at Nebrija University and the Nebrija Institute of Arts and Humanities, will bring together a distinguished group of national experts—including collectors, critics, curators, gallery owners, and artists—whose contributions will address key issues in shaping aesthetic, symbolic, and market value in today’s art world.


PROGRAM

MONDAY, JULY 7

9:30 AM Registration.

10:00 AM Course Opening Nebrija University Avilés City Council Presented by Rosario López Meras – President of the Association of Contemporary Art Collectors, 9915, and Adrián Piera – President of the ICA, Institute of Contemporary Art.

10:30 AM Course Presentation By José Luis Guijarro Alonso – Art Historian and Anthropologist, Researcher, and Director of the Master’s in Art Market and Related Business Management at Nebrija University.

11:00 AM Coffee Break.

11:30 AM Panel Discussion The Taste of Private Collecting as a Prelude to History. Speakers: Candela Álvarez Soldevilla – Entrepreneur and Collector; Javier Quilis – INELCOM Collection; José Miguel Vegas Valle – Collector. Moderator: Luis Feás – Critic and Curator.

1:00 PM Lunch Break.

3:30 PM Individual Lecture On Good Taste in Contemporary Art. Speaker: Marisol Salanova – Curator and Art Critic, Director of Arteinformado.

4:45 PM Panel Discussion The Influence of Galleries in Shaping Contemporary Taste. Speakers: Elba Benítez – Gallerist; Ricardo Pernas – Gallerist (Arniches 26); Aurora Vigil-Escalera – Gallerist. Moderator: Rafael Martín – Coleccion@casamer.

6:00 PM End of Day.

6:30 PM Activity and Cocktail Visit to the Exhibition Asturian Artists in the Pérez Simón Collection – Avilés.

TUESDAY, JULY 8

10:00 AM Individual Lecture Contemporary (Bad) Taste: Kitsch, Camp, and Tacky. Speaker: Julio Pérez Manzanares – Autonomous University of Madrid.

11:00 AM Coffee Break.

11:30 AM Panel Discussion Institutions and the Formation of Contemporary Taste. Speakers: Virginia López – Artist, Founder of PACA_Proyectos Artísticos Casa Antonino; Julieta de Haro – Artistic Director of CentroCentro; Carlos Urroz – Director of Institutional Relations, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. Moderator: Laura Gutiérrez – Director, School of Art of Oviedo.

1:00 PM Lunch Break.

3:30 PM Panel Discussion Beyond the Eye: The Taste for Ethical, Ecological, Social, or Political Concerns in Contemporary Art. Speakers: Semíramis González – Independent Curator; Eugenio Ampudia – Artist; Claudia Rodríguez-Ponga – Independent Curator. Moderator: Bárbara Mur Borrás – PhD in Fine Arts.

5:00 PM End of Day.

5:30 PM Activity Visit to the Studiolo Exhibition – Candela Álvarez Soldevilla Collection.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 9

9:30 AM Meeting with Asturian Artists Speakers: María Castellanos – Artist; Avelino Sala – Artist; Consuelo Vallina – Artist. Moderator: Pablo Álvarez de Toledo – Nebrija University.

11:00 AM Activity Visit to the Niemeyer Center – Avilés.

Course Closing Ceremony.





This course is designed for art professionals, collectors, researchers, and students seeking an in-depth analysis of the dynamics that shape taste and collecting practices in contemporary art. Adopting a critical and multidisciplinary perspective, it provides a unique opportunity to rigorously examine the aesthetic, symbolic, and structural factors that underpin the legitimization of contemporary art.