The seventeenth edition of Art Madrid, which was held in the Galería de Cristal of the Palacio de Cibeles from 23 to 27 February, closed its 17th edition with more than 16,000 visitors, a similar figure prior to the pandemic. The fair was attended by, among others: Andrea Levy, Delegate for Culture, Tourism, and Sport of Madrid City Council; Begoña Villacís, Deputy Mayoress of Madrid City Council; several Ambassadors; representatives of museums from all over Spain; and heads of important national and international collections.

Photo by Christian Monsalve from Too Many Flash

Alberto Cornejo, director of ART MADRID, says: "We are very satisfied with the results of this edition. After these years of uncertainty due to the pandemic, we are happy to see that the public and collectors continue to respond to the fair with the same enthusiasm as in previous years". And he adds: "It is interesting to note that sales at this edition have been very important, which means a remarkable dynamization of the Spanish art market". In this respect, it is worth noting that our VIP program of advice for collectors, directed by Ana Suárez Gisbert, has been a great success, providing a service to experienced collectors and generating new buyers.

Photo by Maria Astorga from Too Many Flash

The selection of 35 galleries at ART MADRID'22 was made up of: 3 Punts Galeria (Barcelona), Alba Cabrera Gallery (Valencia), Arena Martínez Projects (Madrid), Art Lounge Gallery (Lisbon), ARTITLEDcontemporary (Herpen), Aurora Vigil-Escalera (Gijón), Collage Habana (La Habana), DDR Art Gallery (Madrid), Dr. Robot Gallery (Valencia), FLECHA (Madrid), Galería BAT alberto cornejo (Madrid), Galería de la Bálgoma (Madrid), Galería Espiral (Noja), Galería Hispánica Contemporánea (Madrid-Mx DF), Galería Jorge Alcolea (Madrid), Galería Kreisler (Madrid), Galería La Aurora (Murcia), Galería Luisa Pita (Santiago de Compostela), Galeria São Mamede (Lisbon), Galerie Alex Serra (Köln), Galerie LJ (Paris), GÄRNA Art Gallery (Madrid), Helarea (Madrid), Inéditad (Barcelona), Jackie Shor Arte (São Paulo), Kur Art Gallery (San Sebastián), MA Arte Contemporáneo (Palma), Marita Segovia (Madrid), Moret Art (A Coruña), Nuno Sacramento (Ílhavo), Rodrigo Juarranz (Aranda de Duero), Shiras Galería (Valencia), Studija Mindiuzarte/Kaunas (Kaunas), Víctor Lope Arte Contemporáneo (Barcelona), Yiri Arts (Taipei).

Photo by Maria Astorga from Too Many Flash

The Fair consolidates the proposal "One Shot Collectors", an initiative that encompasses a collecting program directed by the advisor Ana Suárez Gisbert and the curatorial route ICONOSFERA, coordinated for the second consecutive year by the critic and independent curator Natalia Alonso Arduengo. Regarding this initiative, Gabriela Correa and Nuria Blanco, directors of the Kreisler (Madrid) and Moret Art (A Coruña) galleries respectively, both veterans of the fair, point out that the collectors' program is a very beneficial service that helps to boost sales during the fair and even in the days following the fair.

The Parisian gallery LJ Galerie, in its second year at the fair, makes a positive balance of its participation. Its director, Adeline Jeudy affirms that on the first day of the fair they already sold an important piece by Léo Caillard (the artist whose work was the image of the poster for this edition), and some works to new collectors. "The fair has a large number of visitors, an interesting public that is very open to buying works at a considerable price and by artists who are little known in Spain. We have also noticed the presence of an amateur public that is very interested in the work of the artists we present".

The Brazilian gallery Jackie Shor, participating for the first time in Art Madrid, also obtained good results in terms of sales. All the works presented at the stand by their youngest artist, Isabella Despujols, were sold. Most of the sales were made to local or foreign clients residing in Madrid. Moreover, its directors comment that "Art Madrid is a fair that attracts a diverse public profile, and that is very interesting".

Photo by Maria Astorga from Too Many Flash

DDR Art Gallery (Madrid), sold works by the four artists in its exhibition proposal. The gallery sold two large pieces by the Venezuelan artist Roger Sanguino, both of which will form part of two very important collections in Spain. The acquisition of two of the "avatars" by the artist Roberto López Martín, also by renowned collectors, and the great interest generated by the work "Los refugiados en las Meninas de Velázquez", by the photographer David Delgado Ruiz, also stand out.

Photo by Maria Astorga from Too Many Flash

This edition featured more than 190 national and international artists, including young artists such as the Russian Costa Gorelov (Dr.Robot Gallery) and the Portuguese Carolina Serrano (Alex Serra Galerie), and other mid-career artists such as Kepa Garraza (Víctor Lope Arte Contemporáneo) and Juana González (Arena Martínes Projects), both national artists.

ART MADRID has been sponsored by One Shot Hotels, Liquitex and Catawiki; and with the collaboration of the Proyector platform; 9915. Contemporary Art Collectors Association; and the photographic entrepreneurship school Too Many Flash.

Daniel Barrio. Guest artist of the third edition of OPEN BOOTH. Courtesy of the artist.

DESPIECE. PROTOCOLO DE MUTACIÓN

As part of the Art Madrid’26 Parallel Program, we present the third edition of Open Booth, a space conceived as a platform for artistic creation and contemporary experimentation. The initiative focuses on artists who do not yet have representation within the gallery circuit, offering a high-visibility professional context in which new voices can develop their practice, explore forms of engagement with audiences, and consolidate their presence within the current art scene. On this occasion, the project features artist Daniel Barrio (Cuba, 1988), who presents the site-specific work Despiece. Protocolo de mutación.

Daniel Barrio’s practice focuses on painting as a space for experimentation, from which he explores the commodification of social life and the tyranny of media approval. He works with images drawn from the press and other media, intervening in them pictorially to disrupt their original meaning. Through this process, the artist opens up new readings and questions how meaning is produced, approaching painting as a space of realization, therapy, and catharsis.

Despiece. Protocolo de mutación is built from urban remnants, industrial materials, and fragments of history, inviting us to reflect on which memories we inherit, which we consume, and which ones we are capable of creating. Floors, walls, and volumes come together to form a landscape under tension, where the sacred coexists with the everyday, and where cracks matter more than perfection.

The constant evolution of art calls for ongoing exchange between artists, institutions, and audiences. In its 21st edition, Art Madrid reaffirms its commitment to acting as a catalyst for this dialogue, expanding the traditional boundaries of the art fair context and opening up new possibilities of visibility for emerging practices.

Despiece. Protocolo de mutación emerges from a critical and affective impulse to dismantle, examine, and reassemble what shapes us culturally and personally. The work is conceived as an inseparable whole: an inner landscape that operates as a device of suspicion, where floors, walls, and volumes configure an ecosystem of remnants. It proposes a reading of history not as a linear continuity, but as a system of forces in permanent friction, articulating space as an altered archive—a surface that presents itself as definitive while remaining in constant transformation.

The work takes shape as a landscape constructed from urban waste, where floors, walls, and objects form a unified body made of lime mortar, PVC from theatrical signage, industrial foam, and offering wax. At the core of the project is an L-shaped structure measuring 5 × 3 meters, which reinterprets the fresco technique on reclaimed industrial supports. The mortar is applied wet over continuous working days, without a pursuit of perfection, allowing the material to reveal its own character. Orbiting this structure are architectural fragments: foam blocks that simulate concrete, a 3D-printed and distorted Belvedere torso, and a wax sculptural element embedded with sandpaper used by anonymous workers and artists, preserving the labor of those other bodies.

A white wax sculptural element functions within the installation as a point of sensory concentration that challenges the gaze. Inside it converge the accumulated faith of offering candles and the industrial residues of the studio, recalling that purity and devotion coexist with the materiality of everyday life. The viewer’s experience thus moves beyond the visual: bending down, smelling, and approaching its vulnerability transforms perception into an intimate, embodied act. Embedded within its density are sanding blocks used by artists, artisans, and laborers, recovered from other contexts, where the sandpaper operates as a trace of the effort of other bodies, following a protocol of registration with no autobiographical intent.

Despiece. Protocolo de mutación addresses us directly, asking: which memory do we value—the one we consume, or the one we construct with rigor? The audience leaves behind a purely contemplative position to become part of the system, as the effort of moving matter, documentary rigor, and immersive materiality form a body of resistance against a mediated reality. The project thus takes shape as an inner landscape, where floor, surface, and volume articulate an anatomy of residues. Adulteration operates as an analytical methodology applied to the layers of urban reality, intervening in history through theatrical and street advertising, architectural remnants, and administrative protocols, proposing that art can restore the capacity to build one’s own memory, even if inevitably fragmented.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

DANIEL BARRIO (1988, Cuba)

Daniel Barrio (Cienfuegos, Cuba, 1988) is a visual artist whose practice articulates space through painting, understanding the environment as an altered archive open to critical intervention. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts of Cienfuegos (2004–2008), specializing in painting, and later at the Madrid Film School (ECAM, 2012–2015), where he studied Art Direction. His methodology integrates visual thinking with scenographic narrative.

His trajectory includes solo exhibitions such as La levedad en lo cotidiano (Galería María Porto, Madrid, 2023), Interiores ajenos (PlusArtis, Madrid, 2022), and Tribud (Navel Art, Madrid, 2019), as well as significant group exhibitions including Space is the Landscape (Estudio Show, Madrid, 2024), Winterlinch (Espacio Valverde Gallery, Madrid, 2024), Hiberia (Galería María Porto, Lisbon, 2023), and the traveling exhibition of the La Rioja Young Art Exhibition (2022).

A member of the Resiliencia Collective, his work does not pursue the production of objects but rather the articulation of pictorial devices that generate protocols of resistance against the flow of disposable images. In a context saturated with immediate data, his practice produces traces and archives what must endure, questioning not the meaning of the work itself but the memory the viewer constructs through interaction—thus reclaiming sovereignty over the gaze and inhabiting ruins as a method for understanding the present.