Art Madrid'26 – Frieze London 13th edition

 

 

 

It is the largest and most spectacular art fair in Britain and this year offers real bargains, works by emerging artists from 1,000 pounds, a novelty at the fair which usual prices are not less than 20,000 pounds.

 

"Unrivaled in quality, variety and depth," as they say in their press presentation, Frieze shows its strength and expertise in contemporary art with the work of a team led by some of the most important curators on the international scene: Nicola Lees (Commissioner of the 31th Biennial of Graphic Arts, Ljubljana), Clare Lilley (Director of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park Programme) and Gregor Muir (Executive Director of ICA, London) who run the various programs and sections of the fair.

 

 

 

 


In this thirteenth edition FRIEZE it has 164 galleries from 27 countries that present the work of some of the most important contemporary artists of today. The mythical giant tent in Regent's Park hopes to give art and emotions to 60,000 visitors, collectors, critics, curators and art lovers that usually comes to this event. The pressure for curators and galleries is great, to stand out in Frieze is an arduous task.

 

 

 

 

Therefore there are bright proposals as the booth that reproduces the environment of a psychiatric hospital inspired in Jean Dubuffet ... or definitive sculptures as Ai Weiwei's "Iron Root" of the Lisson Gallery with secret price.

 

 

"There is much noise around Frieze so the curators try to do something that excites us and excites the artist hoping that it can attract to the audience," says the head of the gallery Hauser & Wirth. "It's not only to bring works or to work with a young fashion artist. You have to be smart and do a good job on your booth, knowing you have little ability to attract attention for the amount on offer there. We try to make a difference, raise the bar a little, "he adds.

 

 

Obra de Ignasi Aballí para Elba Benítez en FRIEZE LONDON 2015.

 

Participant galleries:


303 Gallery, New York
Galería Juana de Aizpuru, Madrid
The Approach, London
Laura Bartlett Gallery, London
Galería Elba Benítez, Madrid
Blum & Poe, Los Angeles
Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York
The Box, Los Angeles
The Breeder, Athens
Gavin Brown’s enterprise, New York
Buchholz, Berlin
Cabinet, London
Campoli Presti, London
Canada, New York
Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne
Casas Riegner, Bogotá
Cheim & Read, New York
Sadie Coles HQ, London
Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin
Pilar Corrias Gallery, London
Corvi-Mora, London
Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris
Thomas Dane Gallery, London
Massimo De Carlo, Milan
dépendance, Brussels
Galerie Eigen + Art, Berlin
Foksal Gallery Foundation, Warsaw
Galeria Fortes Vilaça, São Paulo
Marc Foxx Gallery, Los Angeles
Carl Freedman Gallery, London
Stephen Friedman Gallery, London
Frith Street Gallery, London
Gagosian Gallery, London
Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam
A Gentil Carioca, Rio de Janeiro
Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg
Marian Goodman Gallery, London
Greene Naftali, New York
greengrassi, London
Galerie Karin Guenther, Hamburg
Bruce Haines, Mayfair, London
Hauser & Wirth, London
Herald St, London
Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin
Hollybush Gardens, London
Gallery Hyundai, Seoul
Ibid., London
Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo
Alison Jacques Gallery, London
Galerie Martin Janda, Vienna
Johnen Galerie, Berlin
Casey Kaplan, New York
Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Vienna
Anton Kern Gallery, New York
Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zurich
Tina Kim Gallery, New York
König Gallery, Berlin
David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles
Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York
Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna
Kukje Gallery, Seoul
kurimanzutto, Mexico City
Simon Lee Gallery, London
Lehmann Maupin, New York
Galleria Lia Rumma, Milan
Lisson Gallery, London
Kate MacGarry, London
Mai 36 Galerie/Victor Gisler, Zurich
Maisterravalbuena, Madrid
Mary Mary, Glasgow
Galerie Greta Meert, Brussels
Mendes Wood DM, São Paulo
Galerie Kamel Mennour, Paris
Galerie Meyer Kainer, Vienna
Victoria Miro, London
Stuart Shave/Modern Art, London
The Modern Institute, Glasgow
MOT International, London
mother’s tankstation, Dublin
Taro Nasu, Tokyo
Galerie Nordenhake, Berlin
Galleria Lorcan O’Neill, Rome
Office Baroque, Brussels
P.P.O.W, New York
Pace, London
Maureen Paley, London
Peres Projects, Berlin
Galerie Perrotin, Paris
Galeria Plan B, Berlin
Galerija Gregor Podnar, Berlin
Project 88, Mumbai
Rampa, Istanbul
Galleria Raucci/Santamaria, Naples
Almine Rech Gallery, London
Anthony Reynolds Gallery, London
Rodeo, London
Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris
Salon 94, New York
Esther Schipper, Berlin
Galerie Rüdiger Schöttle, Munich
Sfeir-Semler, Beirut
Shanghart Gallery, Shanghai
Sommer Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv
Sprüth Magers, Berlin
Standard (Oslo), Oslo
Stevenson, Cape Town
Galeria Luisa Strina, São Paulo
Supportico Lopez, Berlin
T293, Rome
Take Ninagawa, Tokyo
Timothy Taylor, London
The Third Line, Dubai
Vermelho, São Paulo
Vilma Gold, London
Vitamin Creative Space, Guangzhou
Michael Werner, New York
White Cube, London
Wien Lukatsch, Berlin
Wilkinson, London
Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp
David Zwirner, London
Focus Program
47 Canal, New York
Antenna Space, Shanghai
Bureau, New York
Callicoon Fine Arts, New York
Carlos/Ishikawa, London
Clearing, New York
Croy Nielsen, Berlin
Experimenter, Kolkata
Fonti, Naples
Freedman Fitzpatrick, Los Angeles
Freymond-Guth Fine Arts, Zurich
François Ghebaly Gallery, Los Angeles
Grey Noise, Dubai
Dan Gunn, Berlin
High Art, Paris
Hopkinson Mossman, Auckland
Jan Kaps, Cologne
Koppe Astner, Glasgow
Galerie Emanuel Layr, Vienna
Limoncello, London
Galeria Jaqueline Martins, São Paulo
Misako & Rosen, Tokyo
Múrias Centeno, Lisbon
Night Gallery, Los Angeles
Simon Preston Gallery, New York
Project Native Informant, London
Dawid Radziszewski, Warsaw
Jessica Silverman Gallery, San Francisco
Société, Berlin
Gregor Staiger, Zurich
Stereo, Warsaw
Simone Subal Gallery, New York
Sultana, Paris
The Sunday Painter, London
Rob Tufnell, London
Leo Xu Projects, Shanghai
Live Program (performances and live shows)
Arcadia Missa, London Amalia Ulman
Luhring Augustine, New York / Franco Noero, Turin Tunga
Meyer Riegger, Berlin Eva Ko?átková
Misako & Rosen, Tokyo Ken Kagami
Southard Reid, London Edward Thomasson & Lucy Beech
Kate Werble Gallery, New York Rancourt / Yatsuk

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.