Art Madrid'26 – ART AND THE MARKET: HOW CULTURAL VAT IMPACTS SPAIN

When, in September 2012, the Spanish government decided to raise cultural VAT from the reduced rate of 8% to the standard rate of 21% (effective 1 September 2012), it was not merely implementing a fiscal adjustment measure in the midst of an economic recession. It was making a strategic decision that placed Spanish culture at a structural disadvantage compared to its European counterparts. The measure affected an industry that generated 503,700 jobs and accounted for 4% of Spain’s GDP, turning the country into one of the few in the eurozone where reduced VAT was not applied to cultural activities.


Paradoxically, that draconian increase of 13 percentage points—affecting cinema, theatre, concerts, and so on—failed to achieve its expected revenue goal; instead, it produced the opposite effect. According to data from the General Society of Authors and Editors (SGAE), the Spanish cultural industry at that time generated 503,700 jobs and represented 4% of GDP. When the Union of Business Associations of the Cultural Industry warned that the measure would result in the loss of 43 million spectators and €530 million in revenue, no one in government appeared to listen.


Iván Quesada. Playing hide and seek. Acrylic on canvas. 146 x 114 cm. 2025. Galería Aurora Vigil - Escalera.


The correction came late and in a fragmented manner. In 2017, theatre and live performances returned to a VAT rate of 10%. In July 2018, cinema joined this reduced rate. But here is where the real anomaly begins: while the audiovisual and performing arts sectors were able to breathe again, the visual arts—understood as the commercial activity carried out by galleries—remained at 21%. And they remain there today, in January 2026.


Spain currently maintains a deeply fragmented and contradictory cultural VAT system. Artists who sell their works directly are taxed at 10%. Galleries that sell those same works may be taxed at 21% under the Special Regime for Used Goods (REBU), although under this regime VAT is calculated on the margin of the transaction rather than on the total price, and not all gallery operations are necessarily covered by it. The result is Kafkaesque: the main channel for the commercialization of contemporary art often bears the highest tax burden in the entire Spanish cultural industry.


Isabel Ruiz. Sin título 4. 2025. Fotografía impresa en dibond. 100 x 160 cm. Nuno Sacramento Arte Contemporânea. Nuno Sacramento Arte Contemporânea.


The data dismantle any argument based on equity. According to the Art Basel report (The Art Basel and UBS Survey of Global Collecting 2025), 95% of art buyers acquire works through galleries, whether via their physical spaces, websites, social media, or fairs. In Spain specifically, gallery sales account for around 76% of the total value of the market. Tax-penalizing the main channel of commercialization is not tax neutrality; it is structural blindness.


The comparison with Europe is devastating. France applies a 5.5% rate to art sales, Germany 7%, Italy 5%, and more recently Portugal has joined with 6%. After Brexit, France accounts for more than 50% of art sales in the European Union and approximately between 6% and 9% of global auction sales, consolidating a dominant position that is no coincidence: it is the direct and expected result of a fiscal policy that understands art as an economic and cultural lever, not as a dispensable luxury good.


The consequences for Spain are tangible and documented. A Spanish museum that wishes to acquire a work by a Spanish artist from a Spanish gallery may be taxed at 21%; if it purchases the same work through a French gallery, in many cases it pays only 5.5%. The paradox is so grotesque that it borders on the Kafkaesque. The Spanish state fiscally penalizes its own cultural institutions for supporting the national market.

At fairs held within Spanish territory, national galleries compete with French, German, or Italian stands that can offer the same artists with a fiscal advantage of up to 16 percentage points. It should be noted, however, that in cross-border purchases within the EU, tax treatment depends on factors such as whether the museum acts as a taxable person with a VAT ID and on the nature of the transaction (domestic supply versus intra-Community supply, etc.), so this comparison serves as an illustrative example rather than a strict fiscal statement. This is not merely about competition; it is, in reality, structural dumping.


Daniel Bum. Self-Portrait II. 2025. Oil and acrylic on linen. 27 x 35 cm. CLC ARTE.


On 5 April 2022, the European Union approved Directive 2022/542, amending Directives 2006/112/EC and 2020/285 concerning the common system of VAT. This regulation explicitly allows Member States to apply reduced rates down to a minimum of 5% to “the supply of works of art, collectors’ items and antiques.” The deadline for its transposition into national legislation was 31 December 2024, with application from 1 January 2025. Spain has not transposed this directive with regard to the art market.


While France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, and Belgium have already adopted reduced rates for contemporary art, Spain maintains administrative silence. More than one thousand artists, gallerists, and professionals in the sector—including representatives of Spain at the Venice Biennale and National Fine Arts Award recipients—have signed the manifesto “Spanish Visual Artists Sign for Cultural VAT NOW.”


Thus, the government’s lack of action transcends the legal sphere and becomes a serious problem of economic vision. The Professional Committee of Art Galleries of France noted that a 5.5% rate for all transactions would generate between $40 million and $650 million in additional tax revenue through employment and art sales, whereas a 20% tax could generate losses of between $320 million and $610 million in tax revenue. The experience of countries such as the Netherlands and Portugal, which raised their cultural VAT rates and later reversed course after observing the devastating effects, should serve as a lesson.


Kim Han Ki. Don't forget me. 2024. Oil on canvas. 33.4 x 24.4 cm. Banditrazos Gallery.


FFrance and the effect of an intelligent fiscal policy

The French case dismantles the argument that culture does not generate fiscal returns. After implementing a 5.5% VAT rate for art, France currently accounts for more than 50% of art sales in the European Union and between 6% and 9% of global auctions. This dominant position is undoubtedly the direct result of a fiscal policy that understands art as an economic lever.


The Professional Committee of Art Galleries of France (CPGA) documented that a 5.5% VAT rate generates between $40 million and $650 million in additional tax revenue through employment and commercial activity in the sector, while maintaining rates of 20% produces losses of between $320 million and $610 million in tax revenue due to decreased activity. The data are conclusive: lowering VAT does not reduce revenue; it increases it.


Germany experienced a similar situation. The German Federal Association of Art Galleries and Dealers (BVDG) documented that a 19% VAT rate had stifled the market and caused gallery closures. The reduction to 7% in January 2025 was justified precisely as an economic reactivation measure. Italy, after years of debate, reduced its rate from 22% to 5% in 2025, with the aim -according to Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli- of “putting an end to an anomaly that made us less attractive compared to other European countries.”


Beatriz Castela. Spectrum IX. 2025. Acrylic on table. 80 x 60 x 3.5 cm. Galería Beatriz Pereira.


One of the most frequently repeated arguments for maintaining a 21% VAT rate on art is its perception as a luxury good. This reasoning reveals a profound misunderstanding of how the contemporary art market functions. The Art Basel 2024 report documented a significant shift in collector behavior: transactions under $5,000 grew by 7%, while galleries with sales below $250,000 increased by 17%. The art market is not the exclusive domain of millionaires; that is a stigma that new generations must break. In fact, the art market is an ecosystem increasingly accessed by the middle class through the acquisition of works.


Spain’s fiscal classification treats works of art at the same rate as tobacco, alcoholic beverages, or luxury gyms (21%), while books are taxed at a super-reduced 4%, and cinema and theatre at 10%. What cultural logic justifies taxing a photography book by an artist at 4%, but an original photograph by the same artist at 21%? The answer, however ironic it may seem, does not lie in cultural coherence, but rather in administrative inertia.


Onay Rosquet. Once upon a time there was a world. 2022. Oil on canvas. 100 x 100 cm. Collage Habana,


The consequences: from talent to brain drain

The numbers are stubborn. Spain has not managed to increase its share beyond 1% of the global art market since 2009. Meanwhile, the country has more than 24,000 artists and around 11,000 jobs directly linked to the visual arts ecosystem. This critical mass of talent and professionals is subjected to a fiscal pressure that does not exist in any other Spanish cultural sector or in any other major European art market.


he result is predictable and increasingly visible: talent drain, gallery closures, relocation of operations… and the list could go on. Some gallerists absorb part of the VAT to match prices with foreign competitors; others invoice through companies in other countries for intra-European transactions. These are survival strategies, not competitiveness strategies. The Spanish art market is becoming a second-division market, not due to a lack of artistic quality, which it has in abundance, but because of persistent administrative incompetence. Ultimately, the question is not technical but ideological: does Spain consider the visual arts to be part of its strategic cultural heritage, or does it treat them as an elitist whim?

The answer is in the Official State Gazette (BOE): as long as VAT remains at 21%, the answer is clear.


Alejandro Monge. See you in the streets. 2025. Fiberglass, cement, and pigments. 170 x 85 x 50 cm. 3 Punts Galeria.


Epilogue: a missed opportunity

Spain had until 31 December 2024 to transpose Directive (EU) 2022/542 and fiscally align its art market with Europe. It did not do so. Meetings with the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Finance have been ongoing for two years. Promises are repeated. The BOE remains unchanged. Meanwhile, the transactions that take place, the fairs held at home and abroad, and the artists who (fortunately) find representation with foreign galleries serve as a stark reminder of the cost of institutional inaction for culture.


The sector is not asking for privileges; it is simply demanding fairness. It asks that contemporary art receive the same fiscal treatment as cinema, theatre, or music. It asks that Spain stop penalizing those who build its contemporary cultural heritage.


The question is not whether Spain can afford to lower cultural VAT. French, German, and Italian data show that VAT reductions generate more economic activity and therefore more indirect tax revenue. The question is whether Spain can afford to continue ignoring it. Because at this moment, every percentage point of difference with France, Germany, or Italy is not merely a cold fiscal matter—it is a decision about what kind of cultural country we want to be. And administrative silence is also a decision.


Bibliography for Reference 🙂


Spanish Tax Agency (Agencia Tributaria) (2022). Council Directive (EU) 2022/542 of 5 April 2022 amending Directives 2006/112/EC and (EU) 2020/285 as regards value added tax rates. Available at: https://sede.agenciatributaria.gob.es/ Official State Gazette (BOE) (2022). Council Directive (EU) 2022/542 of 5 April 2022. Official Journal of the European Union, L 107, 6 April 2022. Available at: https://www.boe.es/buscar/doc.php?id=DOUE-L-2022-80541 EUR-Lex (2022). Council Directive (EU) 2022/542 of 5 April 2022. Available at: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2022/542/oj?locale=es Law 37/1992, of 28 December, on Value Added Tax. Official State Gazette. Ministry of Culture and Sport (2024). Culture Satellite Account 2022. Madrid: Ministry of Culture and Sport. ARTEINFORMADO (2025). “Directive 2022/542: New Rules for the Art Market in Europe.” January 2025. Available at: https://www.arteinformado.com/magazine/n/la-directiva-2022542-nuevas-reglas-para-el-mercado-del-arte-en-europa-7402 AVA Castilla y León (2024). “Art VAT in 16 European Union Countries: What Are Their Current and Future Reduced Rates?” Available at: https://www.avacastillayleon.es/ AVA Castilla y León (2025). “A 5% VAT in Italy? Spain’s Comparative Disadvantage with 21% VAT on the Art Market.” Available at: https://www.avacastillayleon.es/ Finestre sull’Arte (2025). “The VAT Revolution in the Italian Art Market: New Perspectives for the Sector.” July 2025. Available at: https://www.finestresullarte.info/es/ elDiario.es (2025). “Spanish Galleries Switch Off ARCO to Demand the Promised Reduction of Cultural VAT.” 5 March 2025. Available at: https://www.eldiario.es/cultura/arte/ EXIBART.es (2025). “Spanish Art Facing the Fiscal Challenge: Galleries Call for Reduced VAT to Compete in Europe.” October 2025. Available at: https://www.exibart.es/mercado/ FACUA (2017). “FACUA Demands That the Government Apply the Same VAT Reduction to Cinema as to Live Performances.” Available at: https://www.facua.org/ Infobae (2025). “Culture Reiterates It Is ‘Fully in Favor’ of Lowering the 21% VAT on Contemporary Art Purchases.” 7 March 2025. Available at: https://www.infobae.com/ ARES – Aragón Escena (2023). “For a Reduced VAT Rate in Culture.” September 2023. Available at: https://www.aresaragonescena.com/ Bonet, Lluís (2014). “Causes and Effects of the Increase in Cultural VAT: A Comparative Analysis.” The Economy Journal, 10 February 2014. Available at: https://www.theeconomyjournal.com/ FUNCAS Blog (2016). “Is It Progressive to Reduce VAT on Cinema, Theatre, or Concerts?” 4 October 2016. Available at: https://blog.funcas.es/ INEAF Tribuna (2018). “Impact of the Increase in ‘Cultural VAT.’” 27 August 2018. Available at: https://www.ineaf.es/tribuna/ Consortium of Contemporary Art Galleries. Institutional statements and the manifesto “Spanish Visual Artists Sign for Cultural VAT NOW” (2024–2025). Institute of Contemporary Art (IAC). Mateu de Ros, Rafael. “The Controversial VAT on Art.” Available at: https://www.iac.org.es/ The Art Basel and UBS Survey of Global Collecting 2025. Available at: https://www.ubs.com/global/en/our-firm/art/art-market-research.html/ “The Spanish Art Market Contracts to 2014 Levels Due to the Pandemic.” Available at: https://www.elindependiente.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/NdP-Informe-Mercado-Arte-Espan%CC%83a-2021-OS-la-Caixa-CAST.pdf


The cited sources are verifiable and publicly accessible. Figures on VAT rates in European countries have been verified with official EU sources and national tax agencies. Percentages and economic data come from published sector studies or documented institutional statements in the media.



In the ecosystem of contemporary art fairs, where the acceleration of visual consumption threatens to drain meaning from even the most solid proposals, Art Madrid faces a challenge that is anything but minor: how to remain relevant without being lost in the noise. This is not merely about showing artworks; it is about articulating an experience of reading, about offering visitors something more than a succession of brief stimuli that are quickly forgotten.

This edition of Art Madrid is played out precisely on that terrain: the persistence of the gaze. In contrast to easy spectacle or outdated rhetoric, many of the participating galleries commit to practices that demand time, attention, and a certain critical disposition from the viewer. There is no single dominant aesthetic or unified narrative; what emerges instead is a field of tensions in which painting insists on its continued relevance, the body is understood as a political archive, matter operates as a form of resistance, humor functions as a critical tool, and memory appears as an unstable territory.

Far from claiming false neutrality, this selection underscores something worth noting: each artistic choice implies a stance, a reading of the present and, in many cases, a response to an art scene saturated with images. It is particularly refreshing to see how many of the works resist immediate impact. There is a clear intention to work through process, through the gradual accumulation of meaning, through languages that cannot be exhausted in a single encounter.

It is also noteworthy how the body appears as a site of historical inscription; how landscape ceases to function as a backdrop and instead becomes a symptom; how abstraction is no longer an escape, but a way of thinking through contemporary complexity. In many of the artists presented, the work seeks to tighten its bond with those who encounter it.

This text is not intended to function as an explicit catalogue, nor as a conventional list of recommendations. Its aim is instead to propose a critical journey, grouping the works into thematic constellations that help make sense of what is taking place in this edition of Art Madrid. Each gallery is represented through a single artist—not as an isolated figure, but as part of a broader conversation that the public can continue by visiting the fair from March 4 to 8 at the Galería de Cristal of the Palacio de Cibeles.


WU Chia-Yun. Yiri Arts. Nowhere II, 2021. LED light, carton. 36 x 54 x 6 cm.


WU Chia-Yun - Yiri Arts

WU Chia-Yun (Taiwan, 1988) is an artist and filmmaker whose practice lies at the intersection of experimental cinema, installation, and conceptual art. Through the use of expanded cinematic language, her work investigates issues related to identity, displacement, belonging, and contemporary existential experience. Her practice is characterized by a precise attention to the materiality of image and sound, which are transformed into spatial and temporal devices. By layering media such as moving image, photography, printing techniques, drawing, and transfer, WU constructs complex perceptual environments that invite the viewer to inhabit the time and space of the work.

From a position shaped by transnational experience and cultural nomadism, her production articulates a sensitive reflection on how political, social, and affective contexts shape subjectivity. Far from linear narratives, her works function as carefully composed scenarios in which each element participates in a visual choreography that exceeds the traditional limits of cinema to become a bodily and reflective experience.


Rob van Hoek. Uxval Gochez Gallery. Where the days are longer. 2025. Mixed media on canvas. 70 x 120 cm.


Rob van Hoek - Uxval Gochez Gallery

Rob van Hoek (Netherlands, 1957) is a self-taught artist whose professional trajectory, since its beginnings in 1993, has revolved around a sustained investigation of the cultivated landscape understood as a visual, rhythmic, and emotional construction. Removed from the idealization of untouched nature, his work focuses on territories shaped by human intervention, where fields, rows of trees, paths, and rural architectures configure a geography marked by order, repetition, and memory. His painting is characterized by a deliberately playful use of perspective and a refined figuration that oscillates between flatness and depth. This balance lends the compositions an appearance of simplicity, supported by a carefully developed formal structure. The titles of his works are drawn from fragments of popular and jazz song lyrics, reinforcing the poetic dimension of his landscapes and expanding their symbolic resonance through a dialogue between image, music, and everyday experience.


Lúcia David. Trema Arte Contemporânea . Alone. 2024. Técnica mixta. 24 x 30 x 12 cm.


Lúcia David - Trema Arte Contemporânea

Lúcia David’s practice (Anadia, Portugal, 1966) unfolds within the realms of installation, sculpture, artist’s books, and text, integrating techniques such as collage and hand embroidery. Her work constructs visual narratives that address the female condition and Portugal’s collective memory through a conscious valuation of imperfection, roughness, and simplicity. Articulated through a poetics of silence understood as a space of resistance and reflection, her production takes the form of a series of “question-objects,” primarily made of paper, in which materiality and the handmade gesture operate as core generators of meaning.


Lana Khayat. Shiras Galería. Botanic Cipher, 2024. Óleo sobre lino. 182 x 152 cm.


Lana Khayat - Shiras Galería

Lana Khayat (Lebanon, 1983) is a contemporary artist whose practice lies at the intersection of nature, heritage, and abstraction. Her work is built upon the movement between Spanish landscapes and the silent vastness of the Arabian desert, weaving contrasting territories into a visual language that is deeply personal yet universal. Through the dialogue between organic forms and geometric structures, Khayat develops a visual poetics rooted in memory and open to the present. Her work creates spaces of remembrance and reinvention that transcend the purely aesthetic, where the past is not preserved as a relic but reactivated and transformed.

Her production can be read as a tribute to feminine resilience and as a sustained reflection on identity as a living inheritance. At the same time, it proposes an experience of art understood as language, archive, and shared legacy.


Ignacio Iñigo. Pigment Gallery. El vuelo del Águila navegante, 2025. Piel de pintura sobre bastidor con varilla de bambú. Pintura instalativa. 70 x 50 cm.


Ignacio Iñigo - Pigment Gallery

Ignacio Iñigo (Chile, 1980) is a multidisciplinary artist trained in Architecture who develops a pictorial practice focused on materiality, minimal gesture, and the bodily dimension of painting. His work stems from a sustained interest in what he terms the “skin of painting”: an understanding of the pictorial surface as a sensitive body in which chromatic application manifests as material presence capable of modulating perception. His practice thus forms part of a broader reflection on the relationship between body, perception, and experience, expanding the limits of painting toward a space of active contemplation and conscious presence.


Isabel Ruiz. Nuno Sacramento Arte Contemporânea. Sin título 2, 2025. Fotografía impresa en dibond. 100 x 160 cm.


Isabel Ruiz - Nuno Sacramento Arte Contemporânea

Isabel Ruiz (Montevideo, Uruguay, 1959) has developed a sustained investigation into perception and the economy of the image. Trained in Communication Sciences at the University of Lima (Peru), her relationship with photography began early and was consolidated through a prolonged engagement with landscape, understood as a space of experience and emotional projection. After a professional career developed in parallel with the corporate world, she resumed her artistic practice with renewed intensity in 2010, deepening her engagement with digital photography in a self-taught manner and complementing her training through masterclasses, advanced workshops, and specialized printing processes.

Through measured compositions and rigorous editing, her work activates a space of contemplation that gradually engages the viewer, understanding the image not as a closed object but as a field of relation. In a context marked by visual saturation and the hyperproduction of digital images, her practice proposes a slowing of the gaze and a more conscious perceptual experience, in which landscape functions as a trigger for memory, presence, and affect.


Iván Prieto. Moret Art. Mr Lacasitos. 2025. Cerámica. 34 x 16 x 18 cm.


Iván Prieto - Moret Art

Iván Prieto’s practice (O Barco de Valdeorras, Ourense, 1978) is grounded primarily in sculpture, understood as a space for critical exploration of the body and normative models of representation. His work begins with a conscious deformation of the human figure: rather than constructing individual portraits, he creates altered typologies—bodies that expand, swell, or overflow—calling into question traditional canons of identity, beauty, and appearance.

Holding a degree in Fine Arts from the Complutense University of Madrid, Prieto lived in Berlin for five years, a city that had a decisive influence on the consolidation of his visual language. After returning to Spain, he settled in Galicia while maintaining an active connection with the German capital. This transnational experience is reflected in a body of work that combines formal sophistication with a critical gaze toward contemporary discourses on the body, identity, and the cultural construction of the image.


Cedric Le Corf. Loo & Lou Gallery. Torpeur I, 2025. Oil on canvas. 140 x 119 cm.


Cedric Le Corf - Loo & Lou Gallery

Cédric Le Corf’s painting (Bühl, Germany, 1985) focuses on the body understood as a site of tension and conflict. His figures do not seek anatomical representation or narrative, but appear instead as unstable physical presences, constructed through matter and gesture.

He works with oil paint in an intensely material and expressive manner, where visible brushstrokes and dark, earthy—occasionally luminous—colors act as emotional vehicles. His compositions avoid equilibrium, generating bodies that seem to emerge and disintegrate across the pictorial surface. His practice engages in dialogue with German Expressionism and the Spanish Baroque tradition, consolidating a painting that addresses fragility, memory, and the persistence of the body.


Reload. LAVIO. Blond Ambition. 2025. Mármol rosa, negro y blanco. 62 x 32 x 12 cm.


Reload - LAVIO

Reload (Barcelona, 1972) is a visual artist and performer whose practice centers on hand-carved marble sculpture, understood as a site of friction between tradition and contemporaneity. His work falls within what he terms retrofuturist art: a fusion of the classical sculptural canon with codes drawn from popular culture, cinema, music, and contemporary narrative universes.

Far from a formalist approach, his work proposes a critical reinterpretation—often infused with humor—of Western art iconographies. By transferring popular imaginaries into a material historically associated with permanence and canon, Reload destabilizes cultural hierarchies and rewrites tradition from a contemporary subjectivity. Sculpture thus becomes an active device in which the cultured and the popular, the canonical and the countercultural, coexist in tension.


Carlos Quintana. Kur Art Gallery. ST. Óleo sobre lienzo. 100 x 70 cm. 2025.


Carlos Quintana - Kur Art Gallery

Carlos Quintana’s work (Havana, Cuba, 1966) occupies the margins of post-expressionism, articulating a singular pictorial language distinguished by chromatic intensity, gestural force, and deep psychological charge. His painting does not establish a direct relationship with dominant trends or specific generations, but instead develops a distinctive voice, recognizable for its visual power and its ability to address the human condition from a complex, non-literal perspective.

The bold use of color and a figuration that avoids direct description transform his surfaces into fields of emotional and symbolic tension. The pictorial gesture operates as a vehicle for inner resonance rather than a formal device, generating dense visual atmospheres that engage the viewer on a sensory and affective level. In this sense, his work has been recognized as one of the most solid and singular proposals within the contemporary Cuban post-expressionist panorama.


Fabian Treiber. Kant Gallery. It Matters Still. 2025. Acrílico, tinta, pastel al óleo, pastel y papel sobre lienzo. 150 x 130 cm.


Fabian Treiber - KANT Gallery

Fabian Treiber’s work (Ludwigsburg, Germany, 1986) occupies an intermediate territory between figuration and abstraction, articulated through a formal investigation into the relationship between interior and exterior as perceptual devices. In his paintings, these notions do not function as narrative categories, but as visual structures that question subjective projections and our ways of constructing reality.

Treiber makes pictorial decisions based on form rather than storytelling, generating a conscious rupture that turns the supposed “falsehood” of painting into one of its central qualities. His works produce a subtle sense of estrangement—something seems slightly off—which, far from being an error, constitutes the core of his pictorial precision. The image is thus constructed as a field of perceptual tension rather than a stable representation.

Trained in Fine Arts at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Stuttgart, he has received significant recognitions such as the Karl Schmidt-Rottluff Grant (2018), the Marianne Defet Painting Grant awarded by the Kunsthalle Nürnberg (2018), and was a finalist for the Große Hans-Purrmann-Preis in 2021. His work has been presented in solo exhibitions at institutions and galleries including Kunsthalle Nürnberg, Kunstverein Ludwigsburg, Museum zu Allerheiligen (Schaffhausen), Ruttkowski;68, and KANT Gallery, among others, as well as in numerous group exhibitions across Europe, Asia, Australia, and the United States.


Eduardo Urdiales - Inéditad Gallery. Pulsar start y dejarse corroer, 2025. Grafito y carboncillo y tinta china sobre papel fijado a tabla. 65 x 55 cm.


Eduardo Urdiales - Inéditad Gallery

Eduardo Urdiales (Roquetas de Mar, 1998) appears at Art Madrid ’26 with a series of drawings in which graphite and charcoal on paper mounted on board become the core of an introspective and performative poetics. His practice conceives drawing as a space of conceptual and emotional tension that exceeds representation, activating the surface as a site of presence and resistance.

Works such as El Nómada, Pulsar start y dejarse corroer, and Cinco minutos de silencio demonstrate a precise command of the medium and a rigorous exploration of tonal density and economy of means. The choice of paper mounted on board breaks with the notion of drawing as a preliminary stage and positions the discipline on an autonomous plane, where every gesture and every void acquires structural weight.

Holding a degree in Fine Arts from the University of Granada and a Master’s in Interdisciplinary Artistic Production from the University of Málaga, Urdiales deepened his engagement with drawing in the final years of his training, consolidating a personal language that has already been recognized in competitions such as the 25th Gregorio Prieto Drawing Prize (2019), ModPortrait Drawing Prize (2020), and the International Painting Competition Villa de Fuente Álamo (2022).

Pilar Salvá. Gerhardt Braun Gallery. Metamorfosis. 2025. Acrylic ink and Indian ink on canvas. 146 x 114 cm.


Pilar Salvà - Gerhardt Braun Gallery

Pilar Salvà’s practice (Palma de Mallorca, 1978) unfolds within a subtle tension between realism, surrealism, and introspective contemplation. Her work arises from a sustained exploration of the human figure—particularly the face—understood not as mimetic representation but as a threshold between the visible and the interior. The figures she constructs operate in a space of ambiguity where the conscious and the unconscious intertwine.

Working primarily with watercolor and Chinese ink on paper, she has developed a refined technique. Her compositions stand out for their precision and attention to minimal gestures and subtle expressions, capable of activating a deep emotional charge without resorting to narrative exaggeration. While her practice has focused largely on figurative portraiture, Salvà also explores other registers and approaches abstraction as a means of expanding her visual investigation. Her work proposes an experience of slow contemplation, where the image functions as an introspective device rather than a closed narrative, always ready to unfold.


Mathieu Lucas. Galerie One. Petit navire. 2025. Técnica mixta. 70 x 70 cm.


Mathieu Lucas - Galerie One

Mathieu Lucas (France, 1985) is a multidisciplinary artist trained in graphic arts whose practice integrates sculpture, painting, installation, and visual storytelling within a coherent and singular language. Influenced by urban culture, he has developed a body of work that oscillates between miniature realism and a conceptual poetics closely linked to contemporary issues.

His work is characterized by the creation of meticulous scenes and volumetric compositions that address the complexity of today’s world through a restrained aesthetic in which rawness and refinement coexist. Through frequent use of reclaimed materials, Lucas pays particular attention to materiality, processes of transformation, and the symbolic value of objects, constructing visual narratives that function as micro-scenarios charged with critical tension.

The apparent fragility of his compositions contrasts with the conceptual density of the themes he addresses, generating a precise balance between technical rigor and critical discourse. His work proposes a careful, attentive gaze in which the small becomes an effective device for thinking about the social, the political, and the everyday.


Ángela Mena. Galería Sigüenza. The power of Color, 2023. Óleo sobre lienzo. 81 x 81 cm.


Ángela Mena - Galería Sigüenza

Ángela Mena (Seville, 1985) presents The Power of Color, an oil on canvas in which color stands as the conceptual and formal engine of the work. With solid training in Fine Arts, the artist has developed a practice centered on abstraction, rooted in sharp sensory intuition and a deep commitment to landscape and perception. She works with oil paint in a way that reveals a deliberate articulation between flat color fields and gradual transitions, generating compositions that read as visual echoes of perceptual experiences. Her strident palette responds to an internal logic in which each tone establishes relationships of contrast and resonance that guide the viewer’s gaze across the pictorial plane.


Francisco Pereira Coutinho. Galería São Mamede. Bruxelas I. 2023. Fotografía Diasec. 120 x 80 cm.


Francisco Pereira Coutinho - Galería São Mamede

Francisco Pereira Coutinho (Lisbon, 1992) is a photographer and film director whose work is embedded in an experimental image tradition. He explores multiple-exposure techniques—a cinematic procedure consisting of exposing the same negative several times to light—creating compositions in which lines, planes, and textures converge into a hybrid visual fabric. His photography is characterized by the construction of images that resemble urban kaleidoscopes, where elements of the city are juxtaposed and layered, producing effects of visual ambiguity and spatial tension. Works such as Bruxelas I function as visual maps of fragmentation in which each element modulates the perception of depth, rhythm, and texture.


Beth Shapeero. Galería Rodrigo Juarranz. 2024. Fingers Neon 6 R. Acrílico sobre lienzo.


Beth Shapeero - Galería Rodrigo Juarranz

Beth Shapeero (Glasgow, 1985) presents a body of work that opens up a space between abstraction and playful narrative. Her pieces are not defined by a single style or recognizable motif, but by a tension between imperfection and control that achieves an unstable balance between constructive decision-making and aesthetic chance. She works with materials and strategies that combine drawing, form-making, and surface manipulation, articulating spaces where glossy shine, graphic line, and accidental fissure interact in a visual polyphony. Her interest in the subconscious, imperfection, and desire transforms the visual into a space of psychological and affective inquiry.


Manuel Barreiro. Paparolo. Galería METRO. Soma Inclinado. 2023. Gres esmaltado. 52 x 50 x 30 cm.


Manuel Barreiro (Paparolo) - Galería METRO

Manuel Barreiro (Paparolo) (O Grove, Pontevedra, 1951) presents a selection of glazed stoneware pieces, among which Soma Inclinado stands out. His trajectory combines artistic training with a background in Biological Sciences, traversing ceramics, sculpture, and a hybrid practice in which traditional form is placed under tension by contemporary readings of volume. He uses glazed stoneware with a gestural approach that oscillates between the organic and the structural, exploring surfaces of visual density and textures that evoke both the archaeological and the biomorphic. The apparent technical simplicity of his work conceals a complex negotiation between weight, balance, and tension. The use of titles such as Soma (body) suggests a reflection on the corporeality of the object and its analogy with living structures.


Antonio Barahona. Galería María Aguilar. Retiro. 2025. Óleo sobre tabla. 81 x 116 cm.


Antonio Barahona - Galería María Aguilar

Antonio Barahona (Seville, 1984) presents a series of works, among which Retiro—a large-format oil on panel—stands out. The piece combines the tradition of landscape and figure with a critical gaze toward representation and memory. His careful brushwork and composition balance presence and void, while the treatment of light operates as a structural element that situates the viewer within a reflective atmosphere. The palette, inclined toward tones of controlled lyricism, establishes an ongoing dialogue between figure and environment, constructing a visual narrative that connects the viewer with the nostalgia of childhood courtyards.


David Planas. Galería Luisa Pita. ST. 2025. Mixta sobre lienzo. 125 x 45 cm.


David Planas - Galería Luisa Pita

David Planas (San Antonio de los Baños, Havana, Cuba, 1976) problematizes landscape as an epistemological construction. He articulates the pictorial plane through fragmentation, texture, and compositional decisions that transform the gaze into a meaning-producing operation. Landscape appears in his work as an unstable semiotic system that must be interrogated, dismantled, and reconfigured as a field of thought. This practice establishes a cognitive displacement in which landscape is constituted in the very act of being thought, shifting its condition from a given object to that of a constructed experience.


Marcos Juncal. Galería La Mercería. Amarillo en Equilibrio. 2024. Madera pintada, cuerda, mármol. 60 x 30 x 14 cm.


Marcos Juncal - Galería La Mercería

Marcos Juncal (Pontevedra, 1975) develops a visual practice in which the pictorial surface and the presence of the object meet at a point of constant tension. His work commits to formal structures derived from geometric abstraction in order to rework rules of perception and space. He operates through a reduction of the visual spectrum using lines, planes, and colors—elements calculated to activate a physical and cognitive response in the viewer. The artist proposes conditions of play and relation, underscoring the importance of an active gaze. An invitation for the viewer to feel implicated in the construction of meaning.


Carmen Van den Eynde. Galería Espiral. Reflejos en el estanque IV, 2022. Óleo sobre lienzo. 89 x 146 cm.


Carmen Van den Eynde - Galería Espiral

Carmen Van den Eynde (Torrelavega, 1947) is a key figure in contemporary photography and vegetal art. Her work spans decades of technical exploration, from still lifes to more recent series such as Reflejos en el estanque IV. Her practice occupies a territory in which the natural establishes a bridge between the tradition of classical still life and a contemporary sensitivity toward processes of transformation within vegetal and visual environments. Van den Eynde reclaims traditional photographic discipline only to unfold it into pictorial compositions that operate as reflective surfaces, where composition, light, and contrast become means of activating the object’s presence and visual impact beyond the merely natural.


Prado Vielsa. Galería Carmen Terreros. Cartografía de luz II. 2025. Impresión digital en metacrilato de colada transparente. 40 x 40 cm.


Prado Vielsa - Galería Carmen Terreros

Prado Vielsa (Soria, 1972) presents a sculptural proposal based on research into color, transparency, and light as elements that structure space. In works such as Cartografía de luz II, she articulates folded volumes in transparent or black methacrylate, introducing a tension between luminosity, shadow, and form. Light ceases to be an effect and becomes a material driver of the work—an agent that shapes and defines both visible and invisible surfaces. Her work explores the spectator’s sensory perception. Her folded structures emerge from a dialogue between image and specific space. Methacrylate becomes an interface of reflection and refraction, where light bends, disperses, and constructs virtual planes.


Beatriz Castela. Galería Beatriz Pereira. Interference I, 2022. Madera de roble y metacrilato. 30 x 20 x 30 cm.


Beatriz Castela - Galería Beatriz Pereira

Beatriz Castela (Cáceres, 1985) departs from a sustained concern with perception and the limits of reality in the digital age. Her practice is polyphonic and transdisciplinary, spanning drawing, painting, sculpture, installation, and new media to investigate how we construct sensory experiences in a context saturated with images. Castela alternates traditional techniques (ballpoint pen on paper, acrylic painting) with strategies incorporating contemporary materials such as methacrylate and conceptual installations. Her work offers a critical perspective on how technology and contemporary visual culture shape our understanding of others and of reality itself.


Manuel Martí Moreno - Galería BAT alberto cornejo.Inanna. 2025. Varillas corrugadas, soldadas y pintadas. 105 x 73 x 55 cm.


Manuel Martí Moreno - Galería BAT alberto cornejo

Manuel Martí Moreno (Valencia, 1979) develops a sculptural practice that problematizes form at its core. Structures made of nuts, corrugated rods, and welded steel are articulated into pieces where void becomes as central as matter itself. Works such as Inanna condense a radical use of welding; the open, perforated structure reveals internal contractions, tensions, and spaces that redefine the work. In his sculptures, void operates as a constructive element by nature. It is not only about what is present, but also about what is deliberately absent. Martí Moreno works at the intersection of presence and absence, producing objects that seem to emerge from a collage of tensions and fragilities.


Faustino Ruiz de la Peña. Galería Arancha Osoro. Derivion. 2025. Óleo, lapiz y pigmento. 31 x 27 cm.


Faustino Ruiz de la Peña - Galería Arancha Osoro

With a trajectory rooted in painting and drawing, Faustino Ruiz de la Peña (Oviedo, 1969) is an artist whose work gathers visual experiences and personal transformations that conceal a poetics of melancholy and enigma. His production relies on memory as a plastic resource. The scenes he paints—houses, trees, birds, urban structures—do not function as anecdotal representations, but as signs carrying a sense of mystery. The pictorial gesture appears deliberately slow, almost meditative, creating planes where color, light, and composition reinforce a sensation of expanded time.


Andrey Budko. g·gallery. Hear My Roooar. 2022. Bordado con hilo cerámico sobre fieltro de lana. 450 x 140 cm.


Andrey Budko - g·gallery

Andrey Budko’s work (Russia, 1989) builds a bridge between tradition and contemporaneity, positioning textile as a device for cultural thought. Initially trained in design, Budko shifts his materials toward a critical poetics in which felt and embroidery function as both surface and symbolic territory. Works such as Hear My Roooar condense historical, iconographic, and cultural references that oscillate between the familiar and the strange. He manipulates embroidery and felt with a striking economy of means, dispensing with ornament in order to highlight the handmade trace, texture, and raw materiality.


Arol. Est_ArtSpace. Like a virgin. 2025. Acrílico y óleo sobre tablero 3D de madera. 50 x 30 cm.


Arol - Est_ArtSpace

Arol (Buenos Aires, 1974) represents the intersection between digital language and pictorial tradition that dominates many contemporary practices. His work evidences a transition from digital media to oil on wood, constituting a critical gesture against prevailing technological acceleration. The images formalize a field of tension between layers, pixels, and organic materials activated across the pictorial surface. This dynamic reveals an underlying question: how are speed, virtuality, and digital fragmentation translated into terms of physical and material presence within painting? His production articulates a logic in which pictorial gesture dialogues with the visible residues of code and the underlying structure of digital images.


Palito Dominguín. DDR Art Gallery. La niña de las trenzas. 2025. Acrílico sobre papel. 100 x 100 cm.


Palito Dominguín - DDR Art Gallery

Palito Dominguín’s proposal (Badajoz, 1996) reveals a creative practice that moves between drawing, painting, and imagination. Her works display a narrative impulse linked to a playful logic represented through hybrid figures, fantastic characters, and universes of form that seem to emerge from a childlike imaginary. Her use of color—bright and bold, with contrasts that sediment the gesture—reinforces this logic of an alternative universe in which each stroke functions as the sign of a micro-story. Her visual world moves between the precision of drawing and the chromatic freedom of painting.


Enrique A. Cabrera. Collage Habana. Biforme I. 2024. Tinta sobre madera. 90 x 65 cm.


Enrique A. Cabrera - Collage Habana

Enrique A. Cabrera (Havana, Cuba, 1993) presents work situated at the crossroads of geometry, structure, and materiality. His assemblages on wood expand traditional pictorial application; they fragment planes and surfaces, establishing spatial tensions where gesture and form converge, evoking states, rhythms, and discontinuities. He works from a poetics of geometric abstraction that does not shy away from references to specific socio-historical and sensory contexts, inscribing his practice within a Latin American tradition that dialogues with the notion of limits—both spatial and conceptual.


Alejandra Gandía-Blasco. CLC ARTE.Serie atardecer 2 en ibiza, 2022. Copia Ultrachrome en papel fotográfico Photo Rag 188 g Hahnemühle, montaje en dibond de 2 mm, montado y enrasado sobre marco de madera. 85 x 64 cm.


Alejandra Gandía-Blasco - CLC ARTE

Alejandra Gandía-Blasco’s proposal (Alicante, 1984) manifests a poetic tension between the transitory and the meditative. She works with horizons, light, and atmospheres that seem to encode the passage of time and the variability of landscapes. Her production suggests a dialogue between climatic conditions and human relationships with the environment: the coastline, the uncertainty of change, and the sensory intuition of light as a structural element of the painting. A synthesis of lyrical abstraction is articulated, grounded in precise compositional decisions that subject the pictorial elements structuring her work to subtle metrics.


Soonik Kwon. Banditrazos Gallery. Absence of Ego. Shadow 2-01. 2024. Técnica mixta sobre lienzo. 150 x 150 cm.


Soonik Kwon - Banditrazos Gallery

Soonik Kwon (Seoul, 1959) arrives at Art Madrid ’26 with a group of mixed-media works on canvas characterized by dense surface treatment. The painting is built through superimposed layers, marks that brush against one another, and textures that suggest tension between figure and ground. His work operates through a reflection on the self and its dissolution. Variations across his series explore interstices between form and void as a strategy for questioning stable notions of identity, presence, and figuration. His practice dialogues with Western abstraction and Eastern visual sensibility.


Anita Suárez de Lezo. Aurora Vigil-Escalera. Nyvra, 2025. Acrílico y oro de 24k sobre madera. 167 x 129 cm.


Anita Suárez de Lezo - Aurora Vigil-Escalera

Anita Suárez de Lezo (Madrid, 1980) presents a body of work in which geometry, color, and mirrored surfaces converge in a plastic discourse of structural clarity. Working with acrylic, 24k gold, and mirrors on wood or linen, she generates surfaces that respond to space and to the viewer’s gaze. Her work combines rigorous planes and intense colors with precious materials, creating a tension between sobriety and ostentation. The rigid geometric forms— inspired by Eastern minimalist architecture and the visual memory of New York—function as structures of meaning that organize visual space. The use of mirrors introduces depth, movement, and viewer participation by fragmenting and multiplying the image.


Marina Puche. Alba Cabrera Gallery. ST. 2025.Técnica mixta sobre papel. 100 x 70 cm.


Marina Puche - Alba Cabrera Gallery

Marina Puche (Valencia, 1982) participates with a series of mixed-media works on paper that exploit the surface through contained strokes, economical application of color, and breathing spaces. Her work arises from careful attention to details of human experience. Seemingly disparate influences—such as the circus, patchwork, or Valencian Fallas art—converge in a proposal that seeks to capture small affective or psychological tensions. The repetition of formats and the choice of paper as support underscore an interest in intimacy, the domestic, and the relational.


Bidias Romaric. 3 Punts Galería. One for the road. 2024. Acrílico sobre tela. 200 x 180 cm.


Bidias Romaric - 3 Punts Galería

Bidias Romaric (Cameroon, 1995) presents a series of paintings in which pictorial gesture dialogues with political urgency and contemporary social memory. Working with acrylic on large-format canvas, Romaric combines intense gestural marks, saturated colors, and texts or graphic elements layered among color fields. This concatenation creates a visual presence that functions as both social critique and affirmation of identity. In One for the road, human forms overlap with chromatic blockages that fragment the body, generating tension between what is represented and what is repressed. His painting—strongly influenced by the expressive energy of Basquiat—is reconfigured through an African subjectivity that rejects exoticization and paternalistic gazes.





If anything runs through this edition, it is the conviction that contemporary art, far from being exhausted, is recalibrating its tools. It is no longer about inventing entirely new languages, but about rigorously revisiting existing ones, stretching them, and making them frictional with the social, economic, and affective realities we inhabit. In this sense, one of Art Madrid’s greatest achievements is assuming that the public no longer needs to be told what to look at, but why to pause. And so, as a kind of appetizing starter, we invite you to stop, to return to the works, so that each person may trace their own map of Art Madrid' 26. A non-definitive map, open to expanding its boundaries, that reveals the persistence of the gaze upon what moves us from within.