Summer is the ideal occasion to enjoy culture and art in a more relaxed way, outside the rush of the rest of the year. In addition to resting and regaining strength, it is good to take advantage of all the cultural activities scheduled at this time to help us stand the heat.

MADRID

Rogelio López Cuenca awaits us at the Reina Sofía Museum with the exhibition “Yendo leyendo, dando lugar”. This is the first monographic exhibition that the Centre dedicates to this creator of Nerja, obsessed with the power of language and plasticity that the message can adopt in its many forms and over time. From his beginnings in the 80s with collaborative works that merged different disciplines, until he changed direction in the mid-90s, becoming more reflective and critical with the system, López Cuenca shares his concern around essential topics for the individual of our time, such as the migratory flows, historical memory or urban speculation. Until August 26th.

Rogelio López Cuenca, “Traverser”, 1986. Yñiguez Aragón Collection (via museoreinasofia.es)

SEVILLE

In 2019, the memorable trip to the Moon turns 50 years, a unique event that marked the history of events of the twentieth century. CaixaForum joins the commemorations with a funny and close exhibition about the work of Hergé and his famous character Tintin. Because Hergé was a visionary and, years before the first human-crewed mission left the planet, he had already put these charismatic protagonists in orbit. “Tintin and the Moon” covers a large part of the most famous and well-known space missions, in addition to planning a journey through the history of space exploration by the hand of Tintin and Milú. Until October 27th.

VALENCIA

Any occasion is a good moment to review the work of Fernando Léger, one of the parents of modernism. The IVAM, in collaboration with Tate Liverpool, organises this exhibition that brings together fifty pieces of the author, as well as videos, fabrics and murals, with which to take a tour of the trajectory of this Parisian creator. Besides, the exhibition revisits some key points of his artistic role and emphasises his profile of political criticism, being Léger, as he was, a staunch defender of the social function of art for all.

Fernando Léger, “Le tableau Les Constructeurs”, 1950

SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA

Media has extensively covered the refugee drama in recent years. However, the approach to the problem has sensationalist dyes that emphasise the drama of the experience lived by its protagonists and the catastrophic consequences of many failed trips. The CGAC of Santiago de Compostela brings together the work of about twenty contemporary artists under the curatorship of Piedad Solans and Santiago Olmo, in an exhibition that addresses this human conflict with a historical perspective and with less emphasis on the journalistic dissemination of the situation. Because societies and identities are also built on the basis of the flows of people. Exile has been, is and will be a great engine of cultural exchange and must be faced as a reality not exceptional, but purely human. "We refugees", until October 13th.

Roland Fischer, “Refugees”, 2016. (via cgac web, courtesy of the artist)

BARCELONA

With educational vocation, the CCCB hosts the exhibition “Quantum”, a project that gathers the joint work of artists and scientists to facilitate the explanation of concepts related to quantum physics. The tour splits into two parts, on the one hand, the work of ten artists who introduce these notions in their work to demonstrate that quantum physics transcends the purely theoretical level of academicism, and, on the other, the development and results of nine research projects around this theoretical physics approach. The visitor faces a multitude of questions about our reality and the perception of the world in an enriching and different experience that will make us rethink the traditional postulates of the known. Until September 24th.

LEON

The exhibition “El giro notacional” of the MUSAC delves into the power of the notation systems in the different fields in which they apply, not only for academic purposes but also for reflection. The desire to limit something, to translate it into a universally understandable encrypted language is at the same time, a form of intervention that eliminates the arbitrariness and freedom of things that happen without a pre-established order. This collective exhibition brings together the work of a large group of artists under the curatorship of José Iges and Manuel Olveira. The route articulates around five main axes: the musical notation, the mathematical and scientific world, the notations of the kinetic movement, those of cartography and space and, finally, those of thought. Until September 15th.

Josep Maria Mestres Quadreny, “Aronada”, 1971.

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.