Art Madrid'25 – ARTIVISM. THE CLAIM FROM ART

Artivism is defined as the hybridization between art and activism. Claims and resistance art. Visibility, durability and risk are the specific features of an intervention that carries a clear socio-political message. Art becomes a means of communication focused on change and transformation, a language that moves from academic or museum artistic creation to social spaces, becoming an educational tool.

Ángela Lergo

Desde el fondo de un espejo. Narciso, 2019

Piedra con resina y pigmentos naturales, cera y metacrilato

42 x 16cm

Art is an engine that can generate collectivity in individual spaces, and bring resistance to pressure places. Artivism develops a language of freedom and autonomy that moves outside of fixed cultural rules, of academic canons, of aesthetics and the majority tendency. It is an intervention without limits of action, where the conceptual lines of the spaces are blurred.

We could place the origins of artivism in the artistic avant-gardes of the 20th century: dadaism, futurism and surrealism. The development of performance, video art or conceptual art throughout the last century are essential elements that cause the dematerialisation of the artistic object, as Valdevieso develops in his article "The symbolic appropriation of public space through artivism".

Carlos Tárdez

San Sebastián, 2018

Resina policromada y dardo

9 x 5cm

The conceptual art of the 50s provides a key feature in the development of artivism: confronting and questioning the idea of producing traditional works of art, where the result is not as important as the process itself. Conceptual artists generate works that cannot be classified according to artistic traditions, often reflecting their political and social disagreement.

We must add to this the social movements of the late last century adjacent to the anti-globalisation that continue to develop in the 21st century through the generation of new visual and interventionist codes in the public space . For the most part, this political-social activation has developed its artistic expression through graffiti and urban art, both environments being the foundational basis of the multiple forms that we can find today within the global concept of artivism. Art Madrid is fortunate to bring together a wide range of new generation artists who naturally are keen on new contemporary discourses, where the concerns substantiated in artivism meet various channels of expression and creative representation.

Gerard Mas

Sarcofag, 2019

Polychrome wood

168 x 45cm

Artivism takes shape through the groups, associations and artists that add their rebel and nonconformist creativity to the struggle. Walls, façades, monuments, statues, fill with colour turning the urban landscape into a true museum of works of art that respond to the needs of a society that expresses its disagreement before a wide spectrum of inequalities and injustices that cross the backbone of the social structure.

Mário Macilau

A candle man, 2019

Pigmento, tinta

80 x 120cm

Around the collective imaginary that composes the paradigm of activism, we find expressions and artistic creations that share and involve a subversive and confrontational discourse despite not strictly fitting within the concept of artivism.

This is the case with the line on which the One Project program is developed this year. Under the title of "Salvajes", in the words of its curator, Fernando Gómez de la Cuesta, the selected artists "paint and sculpt with effort as a form of resistance and do so in an epidermal, superfluous and vertiginous era, where hardly anyone It stops at nothing. A beasts that create from expressiveness, drive or iconoclast, from a passionate, visceral, desacralising or irreverent perspective”.

PichiAvo

Orphical Hymn III to Nike, 2019

Mixed media on canvas

120 x 90cm

Artists such as the duo PichiAvo delve into some ways of doing that have to do with the rupture that begins in the endless collection of pre-existing images and concepts. A task that they carry out from a classic art that they intervene, turn, merge, integrate, repel and connect with urban art and its creation codes.

We can also see the prominence of public space as an essential element of the message in the work of Julio Anaya. His work is born, in most cases, to cease to exist, since it is a work in continuous transit, the eternal return, in development, in a permanent relocation that causes new interpretations and that transforms the spaces.

Julio Anaya

Ohannes Vermeer - Muchacha con sombrero rojo, 2918

Acrílico sobre cartón

51 x 36cm

In transgression and criticism, we can inscribe the work of Andrés Planas who, without responding to any hint of political correctness, constructs a sarcastic message about the strong manipulation of factual powers in today's societies.

Art Madrid thus develops a not so usual part of the art market, giving space to speeches and creations that move away from the legitimate artistic limits and rules.

 

From July 7 to 9, 2025, the Balsera Palace will host the First Course on Collecting and Contemporary Art, an intensive 15-hour program that will explore the complex and fundamental question of taste in contemporary art. Organized by the Nebrija Institute of Arts and Humanities at Nebrija University and the Avilés City Council, in collaboration with 9915 — Association of Private Collectors of Contemporary Art and the Institute of Contemporary Art, the course offers a unique opportunity for analysis and debate on the dynamics that shape aesthetic and symbolic value in today’s art scene.


First Course on Collecting and Contemporary Art. Avilés, Asturias


The notion of taste, intrinsically tied to aesthetic judgments and power relations, has played a decisive role in the historical prominence of artists and artworks. However, contemporary art—marked by its breaking of conventions, diversity of media and techniques, and critical stance toward traditional canons—raises fundamental questions about the continued relevance of this concept.

This course will explore how the decisions made by key players in the art system—institutions, private collections, galleries, curators, and artists—continually redefine a field of taste shaped by aesthetic, symbolic, cultural, social, and political logics.


"¿But does it exist, and what is the prevailing taste of our time—so seemingly confused, fragmented, indecipherable?" - Omar Calabrese, The Neo-Baroque Era.


The academic program, directed by José Luis Guijarro Alonso, Director of the Master’s in Art Market and Related Business Management at Nebrija University, and Pablo Álvarez de Toledo, Head of the Department of Arts at Nebrija University and the Nebrija Institute of Arts and Humanities, will bring together a distinguished group of national experts—including collectors, critics, curators, gallery owners, and artists—whose contributions will address key issues in shaping aesthetic, symbolic, and market value in today’s art world.


PROGRAM

MONDAY, JULY 7

9:30 AM Registration.

10:00 AM Course Opening Nebrija University Avilés City Council Presented by Rosario López Meras – President of the Association of Contemporary Art Collectors, 9915, and Adrián Piera – President of the ICA, Institute of Contemporary Art.

10:30 AM Course Presentation By José Luis Guijarro Alonso – Art Historian and Anthropologist, Researcher, and Director of the Master’s in Art Market and Related Business Management at Nebrija University.

11:00 AM Coffee Break.

11:30 AM Panel Discussion The Taste of Private Collecting as a Prelude to History. Speakers: Candela Álvarez Soldevilla – Entrepreneur and Collector; Javier Quilis – INELCOM Collection; José Miguel Vegas Valle – Collector. Moderator: Luis Feás – Critic and Curator.

1:00 PM Lunch Break.

3:30 PM Individual Lecture On Good Taste in Contemporary Art. Speaker: Marisol Salanova – Curator and Art Critic, Director of Arteinformado.

4:45 PM Panel Discussion The Influence of Galleries in Shaping Contemporary Taste. Speakers: Elba Benítez – Gallerist; Ricardo Pernas – Gallerist (Arniches 26); Aurora Vigil-Escalera – Gallerist. Moderator: Rafael Martín – Coleccion@casamer.

6:00 PM End of Day.

6:30 PM Activity and Cocktail Visit to the Exhibition Asturian Artists in the Pérez Simón Collection – Avilés.

TUESDAY, JULY 8

10:00 AM Individual Lecture Contemporary (Bad) Taste: Kitsch, Camp, and Tacky. Speaker: Julio Pérez Manzanares – Autonomous University of Madrid.

11:00 AM Coffee Break.

11:30 AM Panel Discussion Institutions and the Formation of Contemporary Taste. Speakers: Virginia López – Artist, Founder of PACA_Proyectos Artísticos Casa Antonino; Julieta de Haro – Artistic Director of CentroCentro; Carlos Urroz – Director of Institutional Relations, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. Moderator: Laura Gutiérrez – Director, School of Art of Oviedo.

1:00 PM Lunch Break.

3:30 PM Panel Discussion Beyond the Eye: The Taste for Ethical, Ecological, Social, or Political Concerns in Contemporary Art. Speakers: Semíramis González – Independent Curator; Eugenio Ampudia – Artist; Claudia Rodríguez-Ponga – Independent Curator. Moderator: Bárbara Mur Borrás – PhD in Fine Arts.

5:00 PM End of Day.

5:30 PM Activity Visit to the Studiolo Exhibition – Candela Álvarez Soldevilla Collection.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 9

9:30 AM Meeting with Asturian Artists Speakers: María Castellanos – Artist; Avelino Sala – Artist; Consuelo Vallina – Artist. Moderator: Pablo Álvarez de Toledo – Nebrija University.

11:00 AM Activity Visit to the Niemeyer Center – Avilés.

Course Closing Ceremony.





This course is designed for art professionals, collectors, researchers, and students seeking an in-depth analysis of the dynamics that shape taste and collecting practices in contemporary art. Adopting a critical and multidisciplinary perspective, it provides a unique opportunity to rigorously examine the aesthetic, symbolic, and structural factors that underpin the legitimization of contemporary art.