Liquitex, market leader in acrylic paint, will once again participate in this new edition of Art Madrid as a collaborator through a very special project: #SomosKanva. Art and solidarity come together in a broad and admirable project led by (Kanva), International aid network through artistic creation; together with Shanga India, non-profit organization for schooling children from poor families in India; and Un Plato de Comida, a non-profit organization whose purpose is to provide the necessary meals at the "María Soliña" School (India).

The three organizations, together with Liquitex and Art Madrid as collaborators, offer you the possibility of contributing to a project aiming to improve the vital needs and education of children living a poverty situation, marginality or abandonment in India. Although Liquitex has collaborated in the #Somoskanva project from the beginning, donating painting materials for (Kanva), in their visit to India, especially in actions at the Uma Sankar School "María Soliña", giving them the possibility to paint murals and organizing art workshops with children -this uplifting experience was recorded in a brief documentary. Now, Liquitex joins forces with Art Madrid in a new project in which we propose a charity challenge. If you are an artist and you want to help this immense and necessary workforce, we encourage you to support the project in the best way you can: through your art.

The first step of the challenge is selecting or creating a work for the project; in the second, (4th of February-10th of March), you would publish your work with the hashtags #Somoskanva and #Liquitex, this way sharing the project with your followers. This work of art will be a part of the following exhibition (18th of March-18th of April) presented in Art Madrid's online art gallery, the Art Madrid market, where the work will be sold (under contract with the artist). Before, a team of specialists from Art of Madrid will carry out a selection process (11-17 March) of the participating works, choosing a total fifteen works that will form the online exhibition in the Art Madrid market. All 100% of the proceeds from the sale will be given to the NGO Un Plato de comida. In addition, Liquitex will select one of these fifteen works and will reward its author with 500 euros in supplies.

Liquitex, that has been innovating in the acrylic paint industry since 1955, for instance, inventing the first water-based acrylic paint, currently offers a range of intense and vibrant acrylic paints in all formats (thick and thin bodied paint, inks, markers and sprays), acrylic medium and various accessories. In addition, their products have the particularity that they can be mixed perfectly so that the palette of any artist will not encounter any experimentation limits. Thus, Liquitex offers infinite possibilities of expression in one of the cornerstones of creation, colour, something that has undoubtedly made the brand a great reference for contemporary creators.

Artists often as committed as the creators of (Kanva): Desi Civera, Nicolás Chiaravalloti and Rodrigo Molinero, who since 2018 have been working in this social and artistic action bringing the most disadvantaged children closer to art. An aspiration that they share with the organization Un Plato de Comida, founded by Antonio Valiente in 2011 to provide the children of rural Orissa the meals they need at the Uma Sankar School "María Soliña" (Pubai, Orissa, India) a school that offers free basic education and also takes in homeless children non-profit. Likewise, the organization founded by María (Neneta) Herrero, Shanga India, which their main goal since 2004 is educating children from humble families.

National and international artists such as Carla Fuentes, Thomas Cian, Anwei and Julio Linares, have united with this cause, creating and donating works that were later presented in a charity exhibition that raised 6,000 euros, entirely allocated to these NGOs. What about you, do you want to be a part of #SomosKanva?

The CEART opens this Thursday, November 14th in the room A an exhibition dedicated to this master of photography, which will be open to the public until February 9th. The show includes one of the artist's latest projects, focused on the hard work carried out by the miners of Serra Pelada, an open gold mine in the heart of Brazil where employees daily risked their lives.

Immigration, poverty, marginal life, slave labour, man's relationship with the land, the use of natural resources... are issues that have always fascinated Salgado. From the beginning of his career as a photographer, his work has opted to give visibility to the most disadvantaged groups and to create with his images a vivid and impressive visual story without fakes. With a raw black and white, this author's work transits between photo-reportage and naturalistic photography.

And the idea that permeates all his work is human dignity. Salgado portrays employees, miners and gatherers from a purely humanistic approach that wants to value their integrity, their strength and their resilience.

“If you photograph a human, so that he is not represented in a noble way, there is no reason to take the picture. That is my way of seeing things.”

Salgado entered this discipline long after completing his studies in economics between Brazil and the United States, and a doctorate in statistics in France. But in 1973 his life took a turn, and he decided to start his career as a photographer. He achieved to work at the Gamma Agency and Magnum Photos for more than 15 years until in 1994 he founded his own agency “Amazonas Imagen”.

With the “Gold” project, the photographer portrays a harsh reality that takes place in the Serra Pelada mine, a name given to a totally devastated and anarchically excavated mining enclave, the world's largest open-pit gold mine, through which more than 50,000 people have passed. In the heat of the legends about the mysterious “El Dorado”, the enthusiasm for this precious metal led to the development of strenuous exploitation practices for the workers and to originate tales of grief and glory, of human victory and defeat between the soil, the tunnels and the cargo baskets.

The CEART exhibition brings together Salgado's full portfolio in his characteristical black and white and large-format photographs that leave no one indifferent.