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. PERFORMANCE CYCLE 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: ALTA FACTURA. BY COLECTIVO LA BURRA NEGRA

March 4 | 7:00 PM. Galería de Cristal of the Palacio de Cibeles.

"Discipline for Power.” Performance by La Burra Negra for Displacement of the Congress of Deputies by Roger Bernat. 2025.

Alta Factura subverts the conventional structure of the fashion runway to foreground the often-invisible processes that underpin artistic production. Through a series of conceptual textile works, the performance draws attention to the discipline of craft and the artist’s vulnerability, ultimately revealing those seams typically consigned to the margins, behind the scenes.

Colectivo La Burra Negra.

ABOUT EL COLECTIVO LA BURRA NEGRA

La Burra Negra is a nomadic performance art collective based in Málaga, founded in 2024 following its first residency in Totalán. The group is self-managed by Ascensión Soto Fernández, Gabriela Feldman de la Rocha, Sasha Camila Falcke, Sara Gema Domínguez Castillo, Sofía Barco Sánchez, and Regina Lagos González—six artists from diverse backgrounds and trajectories who met at the Hospital de Artistas at La Juan Gallery.

The collective brings together practitioners working across jewelry, painting, the performing arts, music, dance, cultural mediation, and arts management. Its activities include an annual residency in Totalán, the production of performative works, cultural mediation initiatives, and site-responsive interventions.

Since its inception, the collective has participated in the Periscopio series at La Térmica; presented A granel at the MVA in Málaga; carried out a number of actions in Totalán—the most recent during its second annual residency—and contributed its own proposals to the performance Displacement of the Congress of Deputies by Roger Bernat in Madrid.

At the core of La Burra Negra lies a commitment to collective creation and the exchange of knowledge. United in their effort to experiment with and disseminate performance art, the group explores the invisible dimensions of artistic labor—its temporalities, efforts, and relational dynamics, which so often remain unseen—as a form of critical affirmation.

Their practice emerges from dialogue and shared reflection, in the pursuit of decentralized spaces where art can be experienced and its processes made visible. Each residency and each action becomes an attempt to inhabit creation collectively, challenging conditions of precarity while fostering networks of care and collaboration that sustain both their own practice and that of those around them.