Art Madrid, which will be held from February 23 to 27 at the Galería de Cristal del Palacio de Cibeles, has selected 5 works that will be donated to the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo (MMAC), which depends on the Madrid City Council. The selected pieces are: 'Isabel II' by Kepa Garraza; 'Humo VI' by Isabel Alonso Vega; 'Palacio de Cristal' and 'Madrid, Gran Vía, 2018' by Leticia Felgueroso; and 'Flexia 9' by Toño Barreiro. The four Spanish artists have an already consolidated career within the contemporary art scene in our country and with an important international projection. The works are currently on display at the fair and once it is over, this Sunday, February 27, they will be moved to the museum so that they can be admired by all visitors.

Kepa Garraza

Isabel II, 2021

Carbón comprimido sobre papel

100 x 75cm

Las piezas elegidas son:

"Isabel II' by Kepa Garraza made in compressed charcoal on paper in 2021. The works of Kepa Garraza (Berango, Vizcaya, 1979) reflect on the nature of the images we consume every day. Through fictitious scenarios where a parallel reality is recreated, he invites the viewer to question issues related to identity and the manipulation of information. His work questions official discourses, and questions the processes of institutional legitimization. His ironic and acid look offers alternatives to the reality we know and proposes a healthy exercise: to always doubt the official version. This piece can be seen at Victor Lope Contemporary Art Gallery.

Isabel Alonso Vega

Humo VI, 2018

Fumes and methacrylate

50 x 50cm

'Humo VI', exhibited at Hispánica Contemporánea gallery, is Isabel Alonso Vega's sculpture created with smoke and methacrylate in 2018. The works of Isabel Alonso (Madrid, 1968) speak of the intangible, of that which is there but can hardly be seen, it is almost impossible to touch, let alone catch. The intangible becomes present and presents itself enclosed, but not immobile, since the forms have their own life and change according to the lighting and the perspective from where you look at them.

Leticia Felgueroso

Madrid, Gran Vía 2018, 2018

Fotografía y gelatina de plata sobre papel RC

150 x 205cm

The photographs 'Palacio de Cristal' and 'Madrid, Gran Vía 2018', exhibited at the BAT Alberto Cornejo gallery, are two of the pieces that will be donated belonging to Leticia Felgueroso. The works of Felgueroso (Madrid, 1963) are based on urban scenes of an attractive chromatism that make us imagine a different city. Her photographs can be found in numerous Spanish embassies around the world and she has been commissioned by entities such as Ifema or the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum.

Toño Barreiro

Flexia 9, 2018

Esmalte sobre aluminio

65 x 65cm

'Flexia 9' by Toño Barreiro, made in enamel on aluminum in 2018, is another of the pieces that will be incorporated into the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art and can be seen at Shiras Galería. Toño Barreiro (Zamora, 1965) has been developing, since the mid-1980s, a multidisciplinary work that alternates photography, painting, sculpture and digital processes. In his work we can observe a whole series of new methodologies and creative processes that give rise to sinuous and synaesthetic paintings, playing with the concept of deconstruction, the symbiotic or the most elementary biological processes.

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.