Art Madrid'25 – Wifredo Lam Enhibition in Museo Reina Sofía Madrid

 

 

Son of Cantonese father and a Cuban mother with hispanoafricanas roots, Wifredo Lam (Sagua La Grande, Cuba, 1902-Paris, 1982) took the concept of miscegenation to its last consecuences. The ancestors African slaves provided him with spirituality and connection with the earth and roots and his Chinese ancestors inoculated the passion for the psyche but also the art of the emperors, the porcelains, delicacy and symbolism; multiple influences that in Wifredo were taking shape in an absolutely personal hybrid style.

 
 

 


The huge anthology dedicated to Wifedo Lam organized by the Reina Sofia Museum in co-production with the Pompidou Museum (Paris) and the Tate in London, lets us go to all facets of the artist and devotes special attention to their work during the past season in Spain, from 1923 to 1938, period whose influences are essential to understanding his later work.

 

 

Wifredo Lam was related to all the avant-garde artists and modern creation in the  fervent century, a convulsive time he also lived with his brand of eternal emigrant. And so, his work was changing and evolving between cubism, abstraction, expresionionismo, Western modernism and African symbolism, and that was carrying the concerns of the painter, deeply committed to the world's problems (racial issues, socio-political relations, colonialism) and curious with all the methods and techniques painting, drawing, sculpture, ceramics, printmaking, traveling between one and other as in an "external and internal exile" with the words of Manuel Borja-Villel, director of the reina Sofía Museum.

 

 

 

 
 

 

For the curator Catherine David "the fast assimilation with cubism and surrealism was an entry card into the clan of the modernity, but his work is much more complex." According to Borja-Villel, Lam "is the most fascinating painter of the twentieth century but is difficult to understand, and he has been placed into categories too defined and stable ".

 

The exhibition, with 250 works, is designed in 5 parts that place Lam's work in relation with the history of international art and highlights the progressive stages of a work built between Spain, France, Italy and Cuba ... In Spain he knows the avant garde and coincides with Benjamin Palencia and the surrealism ... Later in Paris is essential the meeting with Pablo Picasso and André Breton's circle. Since 1942, Lam painting gives a master spin and seeks their African origins present in Cuban culture. Since then, he shapes and defines his style, the total union between the European avant-garde and Afro-Cuban plastic, total rupture between center and periphery, an original language to defend life and individual freedom.

 

 

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.