2020 promises to be a special year, full of news, action and movement. In Art Madrid, we face with enthusiasm these final steps before the opening of the fair, an edition in which we want to celebrate our 15th anniversary with all of you. Save the dates on the agenda: join us from February 26th to March 1st 2020 at the Crystal Gallery of the Palacio de Cibeles.

Mónica Sumillera, imagen de la pasada edición de Art Madrid

Within emblematic space of Art Madrid in the heart of the city, this year we will count on 41 exhibitors who will exhibit works by almost 200 artists. From emerging creators to mid-career artists, Art Madrid defines as an open and global proposal that offers the perfect opportunity to discover and acquire unique pieces by dozens of artists that cover all disciplines: painting, sculpture, graphic work, photography, video art and installation.

The fair will become a dynamic event where the audience will enjoy an immersive experience in contemporary art thanks to our program of actions outside and inside the fair. The contact with art will become an experience that transcends the limits of the Crystal Gallery and extends its programming to all lovers of contemporary creation, with a proposal designed for all audiences and that houses the most avant-garde and emerging artistic projects of the moment.

On its 15th anniversary, Art Madrid brings together 27 national and 14 foreign galleries from 9 countries. From France, Portugal, Austria, Germany and Italy, through Ecuador and Cuba, up to Taiwan. International participation is consolidated year after year, and today 35% of the fair is filled with proposals, ideas and projects come from other places to live with national initiatives in the intense Art Week of the capital. This exchange generates a great positive impact on the experience of the public and collectors, that each edition can enjoy a renewed, current and accessible fair.

There are 13 exhibitors that come to Art Madrid for the first time: es.Arte Gallery from Marbella, Galería ATC from Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Galerie LJ from París, Galleria Stefano Forni from Bolonia, Kaplan Projects from Palma de Mallorca, Luisa Catucci Gallery from Berlín, MA Arte Contemporáneo from Palma de Mallorca, Más ARTE Galería from Quito, N2 from Barcelona, Offspace | galerie panoptikum from Gilgenberg, Pigment Gallery from Barcelona, Plastic Murs from Valencia y Urban Spree from Berlín.

Among the galleries that visit again the fair there are the national exhibitors Alba Cabrera Gallery and Shiras Galería from Valencia, Arancha Osoro from Oviedo, Aurora Vigil-Escalera and Bea Villamarín, both from Gijon, Moret Art from A Coruña, Galería Luisa Pita from Santiago de Compostela, Galería Espiral from Noja, Kur Art Gallery from San Sebastián, Rodrigo Juarranz from Aranda de Duero; from Barcelona they come 3 Punts, Galería Miquel Alzueta, Víctor Lope Arte Contemporaneo and the Galería Zielinsky, while from Madrid they come DDR Art Gallery, Galería BAT Alberto Cornejo, Galería Hispánica Contemporánea, Galería Kreisler, Marita Segovia and Soraya Cartategui. In the international sphere, they return: Art Lounge Gallery, Lisbon, Collage Habana, Havana, Galeria São Mamede, Lisbon, Norty, Paris, Nuno Sacramento, Ilhavo, Paulo Nunes Arte Contemporânea, Vila Franca de Xira, Schmalfuss, Berlin, and Yiri Arts, Taipei.

Artwork by Jorg Karg

Nor can we forget the ONE PROJECT program. Under the enigmatic title of Salvajes Art Madrid has wanted to go a step further in this curated section turning it into a place of dialogue (but also of conflict) where nine artists will share a face-to-face space presenting new projects specific to the fair. The program is directed by the art critic and independent curator Fernando Gómez de la Cuesta.

For the ART MADRID-PROJECTOR’20 program, Art Madrid once again trusts on Mario Gutiérrez Cru, director of the pioneering video art festival PROYECTOR, who will be the curator of this program dedicated to visual and interactive arts and action art. The goal is to involve the public outside and inside the fair through performative actions, masterclasses, meetings with artists and a cycle of screenings. Soon, we will release all the details of this program that starts on February 12th until March 1st and will have the collaboration of spaces such as Medialab Prado and Sala Alcalá 31.

The practice of the collective DIMASLA (Diana + Álvaro) is situated at a fertile intersection between contemporary art, ecological thinking, and a philosophy of experience that shifts the emphasis from production to attention. Faced with the visual and material acceleration of the present, their work does not propose a head-on opposition, but rather a sensitive reconciliation with time, understood as lived duration rather than as a measure. The work thus emerges as an exercise in slowing down, a pedagogy of perception where contemplating and listening become modes of knowledge.

In the work of DIMASLA (Diana + Álvaro), the territory does not function as a framework but rather as an agent. The landscape actively participates in the process, establishing a dialogical relationship reminiscent of certain eco-critical currents, in which subjectivity is decentralized and recognized as part of a broader framework. This openness implies an ethic of exposure, which is defined as the act of exposing oneself to the climate, the elements, and the unpredictable, and this means accepting vulnerability as an epistemological condition.

The materials—fabrics, pigments, and footprints—serve as surfaces for temporary inscriptions and memories, bearing the marks of time. The initial planning is conceived as an open hypothesis, allowing chance and error to act as productive forces. In this way, the artistic practice of DIMASLA (Diana + Álvaro) articulates a poetics of care and being-with, where creating is, above all, a profound way of feeling and understanding nature.

In a historical moment marked by speed and the overproduction of images, your work seems to champion slowness and listening as forms of resistance. Could it be said that your practice proposes a way of relearning time through aesthetic experience?

Diana: Yes, but more than resistance or vindication, I would speak of reconciliation—of love. It may appear slow, but it is deliberation; it is reflection. Filling time with contemplation or listening is a way of feeling. Aesthetic experience leads us along a path of reflection on what lies outside us and what lies within.

The territory does not appear in your work as a backdrop or a setting, but as an interlocutor. How do you negotiate that conversation between the artist’s will and the voice of the place, when the landscape itself participates in the creative process?

Álvaro: For us, the landscape is like a life partner or a close friend, and naturally this intimate relationship extends into our practice. We go to visit it, to be with it, to co-create together. We engage in a dialogue that goes beyond aesthetics—conversations filled with action, contemplation, understanding, and respect.

Ultimately, in a way, the landscape expresses itself through the material. We respect all the questions it poses, while at the same time valuing what unsettles us, what shapes us, and what stimulates us within this relationship.

The Conquest of the Rabbits I & II. 2021. Process.

In your approach, one senses an ethic of exposure: exposing oneself to the environment, to the weather, to others, to the unpredictable. To what extent is this vulnerability also a form of knowledge?

Diana: For us, this vulnerability teaches us a great deal—above all, humility. When we are out there and feel the cold, the rain, or the sun, we become aware of how small and insignificant we are in comparison to the grandeur and power of nature.

So yes, we understand vulnerability as a profound source of knowledge—one that helps us, among many other things, to let go of our ego and to understand that we are only a small part of a far more complex web.

Sometimes mountains cry too. 2021. Limestone rockfall, sun, rain, wind, pine resin on acrylic on natural cotton canvas, exposed on a blanket of esparto grass and limestone for two months.. 195 cm x 130 cm x 3 cm.

Your works often emerge from prolonged processes of exposure to the environment. Could it be said that the material—the fabrics, the pigments, the traces of the environment—acts as a memory that time writes on you as much as you write on it?

Álvaro: This is a topic for a long conversation, sitting on a rock—it would be very stimulating. But if experiences shape people’s inner lives and define who we are in the present moment, then I would say yes, especially in that sense.

Leaving our comfort zone has led us to learn from the perseverance of plants and the geological calm of mountains. Through this process, we have reconciled ourselves with time, with the environment, with nature, with ourselves, and even with our own practice. Just as fabrics hold the memory of a place, we have relearned how to pay attention and how to understand. Ultimately, it is a way of deepening our capacity to feel.

The fox and his tricks. 2022. Detail.

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

Diana: Our planning is limited to an initial hypothesis. We choose the materials, colours, places, and sometimes even the specific location, but we leave as much room as possible for the unexpected to occur. In the end, that is what it is really about: allowing nature to speak and life to unfold. For us, both the unexpected and mistakes are part of the world’s complexity, and within that complexity we find a form of natural beauty.