Art Madrid’20 turns this edition into a celebration of the latest and more dynamic contemporary art. On the occasion of the 15th anniversary, we have prepared an intense program of activities program of activities since February 12th and that extends during the five days of the fair. In collaboration with the video art platform PROYECTOR and under the curatorship of its director Mario Gutiérrez Cru, the program also has the MediaLab Prado and Sala Alcalá 31 spaces.

As a newness and on the occasion of this very festive edition, Art Madrid will have this year its own stand dedicated exclusively to video-creation, action art and performance. An immersive experience in the most complete artistic paradigm.

The program of activities will begin next February 12th in Medialab Prado with the masterclass (from 17:30 to 20:30) of Patxi Araújo under the title of All Prophets are Wrong. The artist will share his creative experience, the paths explored in communication and his production process incorporating technology without losing the burden of speech.Then as an opening the interactive work of Patxi, Sherezade will be projected on the facade of MediaLab Prado. This work proposes a game with the public through the random generation of sentences and phrases according to the position of the spectator in the front square of the facade.

During the next two days, the master classes of Olga Diego will be held in this space with El vuelo como materia viva and Lois Patiño with Tiempo e imagen. Olga Diego stages a practical, unique and exclusive meeting for the public: work on the construction of the concepts of Flight, Art and Action through the installation that will be part of his performance at the fair. An intimate experience between the artist, creation and the audience.

To close this cycle of masterclasses Lois Patiño proposes an approach to video art and feature film through his work and the treatment that is made of these universals, reflecting on time, image and contemplative experience.

Olga Diego, "The bubble woman show". Photo: Carolina Diego

For its part, the auditorium of Sala Alcalá 31, will host on Thursday 20th the meeting with professionals De la imagen fija al New Media . They will discuss the evolution of the image in contemporary culture and the impact it currently has for the creators and the society that enjoys and consumes it. The experts will make a tour of the still image, the video art or moving image and its multiple visions until reaching the new media. Rafael Doctor, historian, independent curator and cultural manager, critic and curator Karin Ohlenschläger, today director of activities of Laboral Centro de Arte y Industrial Creación, and Berta Sichel, cultural agent and curator who today directs Bureauphi Art Agency, all moderated by Miguel Álvarez-Fernández.

Finally, in this cycle of previous activities, Art Madrid organizes on Saturday, February 22nd, a visit to the artist Eduardo Balanza's workshop, in which we will have the opportunity to know his creative space and approach one of his last pieces “B71”, which combines sound and technology with an impressive result. B71 organ is an instrument that works activated by vibrating speakers on plates capable of connecting to meteorological data websites, works in manual and automatic mode, generating its own sounds. The visit will also end with performance in petit committee.

Eduardo Balanza, "B71"

Art Madrid wants to accommodate less visible artistic disciplines that, however, house some of the most groundbreaking and contemporary languages. An own stand inside the fair, from February 26th to March 1st, will be dedicated to moving image and contact with more ephemeral manifestations such as installation or performance.

Every day at the fair, we will enter the video art thanks to the screenings of a selection of award-winning pieces and finalists from the main international festivals dedicated to the moving images. Mario Gutiérrez Cru presents an international tour of Argentina, Colombia, France, Greece, Mexico, the Netherlands, Morocco, Peru and Portugal.

Among its goals, this programming is to promote dialogue and understanding of the new working methods that the authors follow in the field of video creation and the action art. For this, every afternoon at 5:00 p.m. we will attend the presentation and meeting with an outstanding artist from the field of video creation: Abelardo Gil-Fournier, Fernando Baena, Mario Santamaría y Maia Navas will star in this space where he will introduce his work and then proceed to the visualization of a selection of his most recent work on the screen.

To end this art festival, we will have an exclusive experience every evening at 8:00 p.m: live audiovisual performances by artists with great international recognition. Iván Puñal, Olga de Diego, Eunice Artur con Bruno Gonçalves y Arturo Moya con Ruth Abellán.

ABIERTO INFINITO. LO QUE EL CUERPO RECUERDA. CICLO DE PERFORMANCE X ART MADRID'26

Art Madrid, committed to creating a discursive platform for artists working within the field of performance and action art, presents Abierto Infinito: lo que el cuerpo recuerda, a proposal inspired by Erving Goffman’s ideas in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (Amorrortu Editores, Buenos Aires, 1997).

The project unfolds within a theoretical framework that directly engages with these premises, conceiving social interaction as a stage of carefully modulated performances designed to influence others’ perceptions. Goffman argues that individuals deploy both verbal and involuntary expressions to guide the interpretation of their behavior, sustaining roles and façades that define the situation for those who observe.

The body — the first territory of all representation — precedes both word and learned gesture. Human experience, conscious and unconscious alike, is inscribed within it. Abierto Infinito: lo que el cuerpo recuerda departs from this premise: representation inhabits existence itself, and life, understood as a succession of representations, transforms the body into a space of constant negotiation over who we are. In this passage, boundaries blur; the individual opens toward the collective, and the ephemeral acquires symbolic dimension. By inhabiting this interstice, performance simultaneously reveals the fragility of identity and the strength that emerges from encounter with others.

PERFORMANCE: OSCURECER UN PAPEL. BY ROCÍO VALDIVIESO

March 5 | 7:00 PM. Galería de Cristal of the Palacio de Cibeles.

Nocturnality. Installation. Rocío Valdivieso..

Oscurecer un papel forms part of a series of actions in which the artist engages in reading through repetition, memorization, and a measured degree of improvisation. Within this framework, a non-linear mode of reading emerges from a written text that is transformed when spoken aloud, assuming a different form in the act of articulation. The texts stem from an ongoing investigation into materiality, space, the relationships between body and matter, writing, the sculptural, and a sustained interest in the exploration of voice and orality.

The material from which Oscurecer un papel is constructed consists of a collection of purchase receipts the artist has been accumulating over time. The printed text they contain, together with the action of bringing them into proximity with a heat source—thereby activating the thermal paper on which they are produced—generates meanings that revolve around the notions of consumption and wear.

Rocío Valdivieso. Latent Aura. Performance documentation.

ABOUT ROCÍO VALDIVIESO

Rocío Valdivieso is an artist, researcher, and cultural manager. She is currently a PhD candidate in Fine Arts at the Complutense University of Madrid. She holds an MA in Research in Artistic Practices from the University of Castilla–La Mancha (UCLM) and a BA in Fine Arts from the National University of Tucumán, Argentina. She was a Fundación Carolina fellow from 2022 to 2023. She currently co-directs Errática. Laboratory of Processes and Critique in Madrid, alongside Romina Casile.

She was part of the PEEPA 2023 Program at the Centro de Residencias Artísticas, Matadero Madrid. She completed the 2021/22 Artists Program at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, Buenos Aires, and in 2020 participated in the Intensive Curatorial Program of Proyecto PAC at Galería Gachi Prieto, Buenos Aires. She received the Visual Arts Promotion Award at the 4th Visual Arts Week of the Ente Cultural de Tucumán. She was awarded an AUGM scholarship for an exchange residency at UNESP, São Paulo, Brazil. She also participated in the International Residency Program La Ira de Dios and in the Acéfala Galería Residency for Argentine artists.