Action art is a varied group of techniques or artistic styles that emphasize the creative act of the artist, the action. The term was created by Allan Kaprow, who pointed out the interrelationship between the artist and the viewer at the moment of the artistic creation.

It can be said that the concept of action art was born in the 1920s with Dadaism and Surrealism, in artistic montages such as collage and assemblage. Among the various forms of expression of action art are happening, performance, environment and installation.

In its most festive edition, this year Art Madrid presents its most innovative commitment with a specific programme dedicated to new media and action art. In this 15th edition we will have a booth at the fair for the realization of presentations and live actions in collaboration with the video art platform PROYECTOR and under the curatorship of its director Mario Gutiérrez Cru.

If you come to Art Madrid, you will be able to enjoy the different parts of the programme throughout the day. From the morning onwards, you will be able to view the best selection of pieces from the most outstanding international video art festivals in the world, with proposals from Portugal, Mexico, Morocco, Colombia, Peru, Argentina, France, Greece and the Netherlands. A selection made by Mario Gutiérrez Cru that will present us with new languages of artistic expression in the field of video creation so that we can compose a general idea of the international artistic paradigm of this area.

Then, every afternoon at 5pm we will attend the presentation and meeting with an outstanding artist to end the day of the fair with a performance at 8pm from Wednesday to Saturday. This program seeks to be an immersive experience in contemporary art and explore new languages linked to technology.

Opening the program on Wednesday 26th we will have Abelardo Gil-Fournier, in the presentation we will be able to contemplate the installation of the work "The Quivering of the Reed" and comment it with its creator in the whole of its trajectory. His work revolves around the hybridization between the real and the sensitive, approached from a perspective in which perception, image and material production are fused in a practice based on research into territorial planning and plant growth. His projects are conceived as material operations proposed for an open space between art, nature and politics.

Art Madrid will host at 8pm the performance of Iván Puñal “RRAND 0-82.” The artist Iván Puñal (a.k.a. The Pleasant View) will explore through a live audiovisual performance the concept of "random" and "chaos". Iván Puñal, works with determinism and freedom in his performances questioning how much belongs to the conscious self and how much is a mirage of illusion. To this end, uncontrolled elements will be introduced into the performance using mathematical algorithms, both to generate visual pictures and improvised sound spaces so that the result is "non-repeatable", "uncontrolled" and "non-voluntary". Atonal music within the territory of "musique concretè" or "noise" will accompany the projections, also framing the concept of "all sound is music".

On Thursday 27th, the public will be enjoy an encounter with Fernando Baena, a multidisciplinary artist who cultivates video, photography, installation and performance as means to reach the spectator with greater strength. His works seek to interact by approaching them through the use of common materials, and the use of direct discourses that demonstrate his communicative intention.

Afterwards, a site-specific participatory action will be carried out for the 'Partidura'. A project by Eunice Artur with the collaboration of Bruno Gonçalves. This project is part of the fascinating and vast panorama of the creation of graphic annotations. The evolution of electronic music requires a new system of notations where, among others, we seek to understand the relationship of new phenomena, such as the relationship between sound and plastic manipulation in performance; unpredictability and error as ways of generating non-linear readings and/or new graphic forms of notation.

On Friday 28th, Mario Santamaría will investigate the phenomenon of the contemporary observer, paying attention to two processes that shape him: the representational practices and the apparatuses of vision and mediation. Mario explores areas such as conflict, memory, virtuality and surveillance through tactics such as appropriation, remake and montage.

Two performers each sing inside the other's mouth. This is how the performance that Arturo Moya and Ruth Abellán will give on Friday 28th begins. The sound resulting from the interaction of the two voices in a single cavity, controls live the water produced by the same performers in a video that is projected during the performance. The same sound also governs the appearance of sounds from water recordings. "Danaides' Barrel", a physical and sound exploration that will leave no one indifferent.

And to finish the program of this edition Art Madrid-PROYECTOR, on Saturday 28th we will have two unmissable activities: on the one hand the meeting with the Argentine artist and curator Maia Navas, Bachelor of Arts and Technology, Bachelor of Psychology and Specialist in Creativity and Innovation, who will explore in a direct conversation with the public all these areas, giving way later to the performance of Olga Diego "The bubble woman show". The girl of plastics. The bubble woman. Outside, the audience interprets the movements of those two pairs of legs under the translucent inflatable. Sharing the air, the emptiness, the fragility…

Art Madrid'20 becomes a space for artistic immersion, involving all those who come and let art flood their lives from February 26 to March 1 in the Crystal Gallery of the Palacio de Cibeles.

We are waiting for you!

The painting of Daniel Bum (Villena, Alicante, 1994) takes shape as a space for subjective elaboration, where the figure emerges not so much as a representational motif but as a vital necessity. The repetition of this frontal, silent character responds to an intimate process: painting becomes a strategy for navigating difficult emotional experiences—an insistent gesture that accompanies and alleviates feelings of loneliness. In this sense, the figure acts as a mediator between the artist and a complex emotional state, linking the practice of painting to a reconnection with childhood and to a vulnerable dimension of the self.

The strong autobiographical dimension of his work coexists with a formal distance that is not the result of conscious planning, but rather functions as a protective mechanism. Visual restraint, an apparent compositional coolness, and an economy of means do not neutralize emotion; instead, they contain it, avoiding the direct exposure of the traumatic. In this way, the tension between affect and restraint becomes a structural feature of his artistic language. Likewise, the naïve and the disturbing coexist in his painting as inseparable poles, reflecting a subjectivity permeated by mystery and unconscious processes. Many images emerge without a clearly defined prior meaning and only reveal themselves over time, when temporal distance allows for the recognition of the emotional states from which they arose.

The Long Night. Oil, acrylic, and charcoal on canvas. 160 × 200 cm. 2024.

The human figure appears frequently in your work: frontal, silent, suspended. What interests you about this presence that seems both affirmative and absent?

I wouldn’t say that anything in particular interests me. I began painting this figure because there were emotions I couldn’t understand and a feeling that was very difficult for me to process. This character emerged during a very complicated moment in my life, and the act of making it—and remaking it, repeating it again and again—meant that, during the process, I didn’t feel quite so alone. At the same time, it kept me fresh and connected me to an inner child who was broken at that moment, helping me get through the experience in a slightly less bitter way.

Santito. Acrylic and oil on canvas. 81 × 65 cm. 2025.

There is a strong affective dimension in your work, but also a calculated distance, a kind of formal coldness. What role does this tension between emotion and restraint play?

I couldn’t say exactly what role that tension plays. My painting is rooted in the autobiographical, in memory, and in situations I have lived through that were quite traumatic for me. Perhaps, as a protective mechanism—to prevent direct access to that vulnerability, or to keep it from becoming harmful—that distance appears unconsciously. It is not something planned or controlled; it simply emerges and remains there.

Night Painter. Acrylic on canvas. 35 × 27 cm. 2025.

Your visual language oscillates between the naïve and the unsettling, the familiar and the strange. How do these tensions coexist for you, and what function do they serve in your visual exploration?

I think it reflects who I am. One could not exist without the other. The naïve could not exist without the unsettling; for me, they necessarily go hand in hand. I am deeply drawn to mystery and to the act of painting things that even I do not fully understand. Many of the expressions or portraits I create emerge from the unconscious; they are not planned. It is only afterwards that I begin to understand them—and almost never immediately. A considerable amount of time always passes before I can recognize how I was feeling at the moment I made them.

Qi. Acrylic on canvas. 81 × 65 cm. 2025.

The formal simplicity of your images does not seem to be a matter of economy, but of concentration. What kind of aesthetic truth do you believe painting can reach when it strips itself of everything superfluous?

I couldn’t say what aesthetic truth lies behind that simplicity. What I do know is that it is something I need in order to feel calm. I feel overwhelmed when there are too many elements in a painting, and I have always been drawn to the minimal—to moments when there is little, when there is almost nothing. I believe that this stripping away allows me to approach painting from a different state: more focused, more silent. I can’t fully explain it, but it is there that I feel able to work with greater clarity.

Crucifixion. Acrylic on canvas. 41 × 33 cm. 2025.

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

I usually feel more comfortable leaving space for the unexpected. I am interested in uncertainty; having everything under control strikes me as rather boring. I have tried it on some occasions, especially when I set out to work on a highly planned series, with fixed sketches that I then wanted to translate into painting, but it was not something I identified with. I felt that a fundamental part of the process disappeared: play—that space in which painting can surprise even myself. For that reason, I do not tend to plan too much, and when I do, it is in a very simple way: a few lines, a plane of color. I prefer everything to happen within the painting itself.