From Taiwan to Brazil and from Ecuador to Thailand

More than 200 artists represented by 41 galleries make up the general program of this edition of Art Madrid. During the fifteen years of the fair, the international presence of both artists and galleries has increased to 40% of the total.

Artists have come from Cuba, Venezuela, the United States, South Africa, Algeria, Iran, Taiwan, Brazil, Argentina... and dozens of countries that have participated in Art Madrid over the years.

In this edition we have such a variety of artists from faraway countries that we have found the line of the antipodes among several of them.

Mu Pan, Taiwan. Represented by Galerie LJ

Mu Pan describes his work as "simply about telling stories " In his intricate battle scenes, human figures, beasts and strange mixtures of the two come together in epic life-and-death struggles. In his "origaMU" paper sculptures, colorful creatures take on a 3D form. The artist is "a creator of worlds" as he puts it. He portrays critical stories full of details taken to the extreme, entering into an art where references to literary, political and cultural stories are intermingled.

Mu Pan

Locusts, 2015

Acrílico sobre panel de madera

121 x 91cm

Mu Pan of Taiwanese origin studied Art at the School of Visual Arts in New York, where he now teaches illustration. During the past 2019 the collection SOLO welcomed part of this peculiar world in which one can get lost for hours discovering in every detail and in every corner of the painting something new.

With a critical and incisive look, but without losing his sense of humour and irony, the author captures in his paintings everything that displeases him, such as racism, violence or lies, and puts both the present time and nature in focus.

His artworks reflect the many cultural influences to which he has been exposed, from Chinese literature to superheroes, from ukiyoe to cinema and comics. To contemplate a work of Mu Pan is to soak up action, dynamism and energy through his meticulously constructed battles. His paintings have an extreme degree of detail that is reminiscent of the paintings of El Bosco, with connotations of the end of the world, hybrid characters, half man, half animal, on the verge of caricature, as well as epic scenes in which he mixes references to current events and manga culture. Mu Pan's work is a pretext to highlight everything that displeases him: violence, conflict or lies, which he captures in his paintings in the key of anger and humour. In the artist's words: "Drawing and painting are for me the most obvious ways to claim justice". Global warming, racism, classism or the trade wars between superpowers serve as inspiration for this artist who puts current events and human nature in the spotlight.

Mu Pan

Jesura The Holy Kaiju, 2019

Acrílico sobre panel de madera

92 x 243cm

Mu Pan

Tiger, 2017

Acrílico sobre panel de madera

92 x 243cm

Chen Yun, Taiwan. Yiri Arts Gallery

Chen Yu's drawings have evolved from horizontal to vertical constructions, a compositional style that grows upwards, visually exploring the dimensional and psychological impact. Behind this methodically planned composition, and as in poetry, there are clues that allude to time and reality. With scenes in fixed camera, a detailed shot on one side, the silhouette of a woman on the opposite side, an image full of symbolism... Chen acts as a guide, carrying a weak light that accompanies the viewer into the depths of memory.

Chen Sheng-Wen studied Visual Communication Design at National Yunlin University in Taiwan. He has had several solo and group exhibitions in Taiwan and Japan. He has been awarded with Taipei Free Art Fair, Huashan 1914 Taipei.

Chen Yun

Indigo. The light from the forest shine on the blue ocean, 2018

Ácrilico sobre lienzo (2 piezas)

130 x 194cm

Lai Wei-Yu, Taiwan. Yiri Arts Gallery

The artist Lai Wei-Yu takes seemingly absurd situations and explores them with childlike amazement. However, in the dark corners we can also glimpse the frustration and desolation of life. Lai Wei-Yu studied at the MFA Institute of Arts in Taiwan. His artwork has been shown in several individual and collective exhibitions and is also present in public collections such as that of the National Museum of Fine Arts in Taiwan.

Lai Wei-Yu

My Family, 2018

Acrylic and charcoal on canvas

160 x 160cm

Paul Rosero Contreras (Quito, 1982). Más arte Galería

Paul is a conceptual artist who works with scientific information, speculative realism and different fictional narratives. His work explores issues related to geopolitics, environmental problems and the relationship of humans in extreme ecosystems. Rosero received an MFA from the California Institute of Arts - CalArts and an Interdisciplinary Master's Degree in Cognitive Systems and Interactive Media from Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. Her work has received national and international awards and has been widely exhibited at the 57th Venice Biennale, Antarctic Pavilion, Italy, at the 5th Moscow Biennale of Young Art, at the Quai Branly Museum in Paris, France, at the Cervantes Institute in Rome, Italy, at the Museum of History in Zaragoza, Spain, the H2 Art Center in Augsburg, Germany, at the 11th Moscow Biennale of Young Art. Biennial of Cuenca, Ecuador, in Import Projects, Berlin, Germany, in the 1st Antarctic Biennial, in the 1st Southern Biennial in Argentina, in the SIGGRAPH 2017 in Los Angeles, among others. Rosero teaches and researches at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito.

Chamnan Chongpaiboon

Girl, 2019

Acrylic on canvas

120 x 100cm

Chamnan Chongpaiboon, Thailand. Soraya Cartategui

Chamnan Chongpaiboon is part of the new generation of young Thai artists. He attended the Faculty of Fine Arts in Shupanburi and obtained his Bachelor of Fine Arts with a major in Printmaking from the King Mougkut Institute of Technology in Ladkrabang.

Chamnan artworks with an innovative graphic style, under the modern bases of multimedia art and Japanese printing forms. His inspiration is closely linked to artists such as the Japanese Yayoi Kusama (1929, Matsumoto, Japan) whose work revolves around psychedelia, repetition and patterns. Her artistic production is limited due to the artist's meticulous work in making each piece. He is an artist with a great international career. Among the countries and cities where he has exhibited his pieces we find Australia, London, New York, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Miami, Singapore, etc.

Eduardo Marco, Porto Alegre (Brazil). Zielinsky Gallery

The artistic envoy that moves this photographer is the concern to clear up what is hidden from the common gaze; to reveal in its most literal sense what is apparently insignificant, but which the artist's gaze makes us perceive as a harmonic, igniting in us the spark of enthusiasm. In this process, Marco's honesty does not carry the heavy burden of theoretical assumptions; it is given without learned dogmas. Marco's gaze rescues the pristine beauty of the lotus lit in the mud puddle. He has participated in many projects in different parts of the world, such as China and Brazil.

Nina Franco. Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Paulo Nunes Arte Contemporânea

The work of the visual artist Nina Franco leads us into the depths of contemporary socio-political conflicts. She has had two solo exhibitions presenting her main series: "Soul Black" in Brazil and "Let Me Scream" in Ireland, as well as several group exhibitions in Brazil, Ireland, Greece and the United Kingdom.

LECTURAS. CURATED WALKTHROUGHS BY ART MADRID'26

Lecturas: Curated Walkthroughs by Art Madrid’26 is a cultural mediation initiative designed to bring audiences closer to the exhibitions presented by the participating galleries in this edition. Its aim is to transform the experience of the fair into an opportunity to reflect on the work of the artists featured, to analyze contemporary issues through their works, and to awaken new perspectives in society—thus fostering a critical and contextualized understanding of contemporary art as an instrument for cultural and social dialogue.

In this edition, art historians and cultural communicators Zuriñe Lafón and Marisol Salanova will address, from complementary approaches, diverse perspectives on contemporary creation and its impact within today’s social context.

Each thematic walkthrough will be structured around a carefully curated selection of ten works, accompanied by a solid curatorial discourse aimed at deepening their analysis, context, and significance. Beyond aesthetic contemplation, these guided visits will promote a critical understanding of contemporary art, facilitating direct dialogue between the audience and the curators, and encouraging a participatory and enriching experience.

With this third edition, Lecturas: Curated Walkthroughs x Art Madrid consolidates Art Madrid’s commitment to cultural mediation and the dissemination of contemporary art, offering an immersive proposal that expands interpretative frameworks and fosters the inclusion of new audiences within today’s artistic landscape.

CONSTRUCTIONS OF THE VISIBLE. CURATED WALKTHROUGH BY ZURIÑE LAFÓN

Constructions of the Visible proposes a journey shaped by one central idea: every image is a way of organizing the visible. Rather than understanding abstraction as a withdrawal from the world and figuration as fidelity to reality, this itinerary presents both as perceptual strategies. They are not opposing styles, but different ways of ordering experience. Each artist deploys a distinct strategy that affects our way of looking. Through framing, color, repetition, geometry, or fragmentation, the works do not merely show something; they position us within a particular mode of relating to the visible. They do not simply represent the world—they construct an experience from it.

As the viewer moves through the selection, they encounter different intensities of mediation. Some pieces begin with recognizable images—bodies, spaces, scenes—that appear to offer a direct relationship with reality. Yet as the gaze lingers, it becomes evident that this familiarity is carefully articulated. The rhythm of forms, the distribution of color, the organization of space, or the repetition of certain elements reveal that even the most seemingly transparent image is sustained by an underlying structure.

Other works, by contrast, reduce or transform figurative reference almost to the point of dissolution. Where the recognizable world appears to disappear, the constructive dimension of the image emerges forcefully. Geometry, gesture, or chromatic vibration do not function as an escape from reality, but as intensified forms of the world’s own appearance. Abstraction ceases to be perceived as distance and instead manifests as another way of sustaining reality—of making it appear under different conditions.

The walkthrough adopts a circular structure: it begins and concludes with the same work. This gesture does not seek repetition, but transformation. After passing through different works, different configurations of the visible—from the recognizable to the apparently abstract—the initial image can no longer be read as a faithful representation of reality. It is revealed as yet another construction within a broad field of perceptual possibilities. What changes is not the work itself, but our position before it. Looking ceases to be a passive act and becomes an active practice, an exercise in relation.

As Andrea Soto Calderón suggests, images do not merely reflect the world: they make it appear. From this perspective, the fair may be understood as a micro-cartography of ways of seeing, a space in which each work proposes a singular form of perceptual experience. The visible is not a stable datum or a neutral surface, but a process in constant elaboration, renewed in the encounter between artwork and viewer.

Constructions of the Visible does not propose a closed classification, but an invitation: to pause, to question appearances, and at the same time to allow oneself to be affected by the creative power of forms. In the movement between figuration and abstraction, we discover that every image is an operation—a way of ordering experience. The walkthrough invites us to assume this perceptual responsibility and to recognize that reality is not simply there: it is constructed in every act of creation.

SELECTION OF GALLERIES AND ARTISTS:

Ana Cardoso — Galeria São Mamede. Antonio Barahona — Galería María Aguilar. Leticia Feduchi — Galería Sigüenza. Joost Vandebrug — Kant Gallery. Beatriz Castela —Galería Beatriz Pereira. Fernando Mikelarena— Kur Art Gallery. Camil Giralt — Pigment Gallery. Virginia Rivas — Galería Beatriz Pereira. Miguel Piñeiro — Moret Art. Maria Svarbova — Galería BAT alberto cornejo.

ABOUT ZURIÑE LAFÓN

Zuriñe Lafón. Courtesy of the curator.

Zuriñe Lafón (1987) holds a PhD in Audiovisual Communication from the University of Navarra with the dissertation Francisco Calvo Serraller, Art Critic. Since 2015 she has devoted herself to research and teaching in Visual Culture, delivering courses such as Visual Culture, Photojournalism, Editorial Design, Foundational Texts on Photography, Digital Media Editing, and Fashion and Artistic Movements. She has taught at the University of Navarra, Universitat Internacional de Catalunya, UNIR, and the University of Montevideo. She has also worked in cultural departments of institutions such as El Correo Bilbao and the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid.

Through her project Atelier de imágenes, she shares research and outreach on contemporary images, creating a space dedicated to reflecting on painting, photography, and cinema. She is currently writing the book Uninhabiting the Frame, a research project on the ontology of photography through selected photographic archives of women in Spain.

“THE PREDOMINANCE OF BRILLIANT AESTHETICS”. CURATED WALKTHROUGH BY MARISOL SALANOVA

Framed by the theme “The Predominance of Brilliant Aesthetics”, this selection brings together works that understand brilliance not as superficiality, but rather as visual strategy, as contemporary seduction, as a symptom of an era that requires impact, color, polish, and perhaps at times certain excesses in order to think (itself).

This proposal, in which works of different formats and techniques coexist and are created by artists from various generations, opens a debate aimed at better understanding our present aesthetic condition—one in which the public is invited to participate.

Marisol Salanova approaches brilliant aesthetics as a tension rather than a closed solution. In the works of Urdiales and Celada, brilliance appears as an internal conflict within pictorial language; in Monge and Okuda, so different from one another, as a direct spectacularization of space and the urban imaginary; in Juncal, Rivas, and Alpuente, as a fragile balance between material and perception; and in Palito Dominguín, as an iconographic and symbolic affirmation, almost performative in nature. What particularly interests the curator and critic about this group is that brilliant aesthetics is not perceived as unified, but fragmented—at times ironic, at times ornamental, at times almost violent; elsewhere softened or symbolic. It is not an innocent brilliance: it seduces, imposes, distracts, and orders the gaze, much like the visual ecosystem in which we live today.

SELECTION OF ARTISTS AND GALLERIES:

Eduardo Urdiales — Inéditad Gallery. Arol — Est_ArtSpace. Perrilla — Est_ArtSpace. Ángel Celada — Galería BAT alberto cornejo. Antonio Ovejero — CLC Arte. Alejandro Monge — 3 Punts Galería. Okuda San Miguel — 3 Punts Galería. Steen Ipsen — Kant Gallery. Marina Puche — Galería Alba Cabrera. Marcos Juncal— Galería La Mercería. Gemma Alpuente — LAVIO. Palito Dominguín — DDR Art Gallery.

ABOUT MARISOL SALANOVA

Marisol Salanova. Foto de Bertha Delgado.

Marisol Salanova is an art critic, exhibition curator, and director of the platform Arteinformado. She is a regular contributor to ABC and Cadena Ser. She holds a degree in Philosophy and a Master’s degree in Artistic Production. She has taught at university level and has published essays such as Art Criticism Today (Akal, 2024).