Art Madrid'25 – ES.ARTE GALLERY: CONSCIENCE, CONSTRUCTION AND REFLECTION

The artists José Benítez, Marifé Núñez, Johan Wahlstromand Ángela Lergo, are participating in Art Madrid with the gallery Es.Arte Gallery, which is making its debut at the fair with an exhibition proposal where awareness and reflection define the discourse.

Social criticism, feminism, individual and collective conscience, construction and destruction, are the main subjects of concern of the four artists who participate in Art Madrid with Es.Arte Gallery.

Johan Wahlstrom

The Art of Flying Part 2, 2019

Mixed media

101 x 76cm

Johan Wahlstrom

The Art of Flying Part 1, 2019

Mixed media

101 x 76cm

Johan Wahlstrom (Sweden, 1959), describes in his art work the current political and social panorama. His first approach to art was with music, but after twenty years of a successful musical career, he abandons rock and roll and begins to take an interest in painting.

The Swedish artist is a great observer of our time. In the art works belonging to his series "The Art of Flying ", the artist draws human figures in backgrounds of faded landscapes. Meanwhile, in his "Abstract Paintings ", Wahlstrom explores and creates more aggressive forms between positive and negative space, focusing more on abstract forms than on the narrative image. Despite of these changes, man remains the center of his art work, and in some of his abstractions a human face will dissolve among the stains of color. Wahlstrom explores the tense world political situation in which we live today. His art work evokes the absurdity we encounter every day as a result of forces beyond our control.

Marifé Núñez

I love Louis Vuitton, 2019

Neocollage

170 x 140cm

The artist from Cordoba Marifé Núñez, has participated in numerous individual and collective exhibitions throughout Europe. In her works, we can see a reflection of the individual, collective and even universal conscience.

The eye that sees everything appears in the most recent series of Marifé Núñez, "Ángeles perdidos", emphasized as a neon eye (God) that observes the spectator and leads him to reflection. Full of symbolism, it is a reflection that goes beyond the physical plane, reaching the spiritual plane through the incorporation of the Man of Vitruvius, a perfect combination between the square, represented by the body, and the spherical, which represents the spirit.

In her "Ángeles perdidos", the woman is the protagonist of the events. An empowered woman who with her gaze, naive but defiant at the same time, shows herself to be a prey to banality and still aware of the power that her wings manifest. According to the art critic Marin Ivanović: "her focus on women as the protagonists of events is very close to feminist theories of gender inversion, which place women in situations previously reserved for men".

José Benítez

Brahma 1, 2018

Oil on cardboard

97 x 67cm

José Benítez (Málaga, 1963), depicts in his art works two possible paths for the human being: construction or destruction.

Through his fantastic beings and his infinite labyrinths, Benítez takes us to a utopian world, full of sublime landscapes full of ruins and inhabited by monstrous characters. In his art works, the notion of time and space is non-existent, organic forms dissolve and objects are complex organisms in continuous metamorphosis.

José Benítez's chromatic palette is reduced to the minimum expression. A special care in the drawing added to the dominion of the lights and shades, accentuated in addition by the use of gray tonalities and sepias, they approach Benítez to the baroque painting, more concretely to the series of black paintings of Goya.

"The sunshine of your smile", Ángela Lergo

Finally, we will be able to see in the gallery's stand Es.Arte Gallery, the impressive three-dimensional representations of the Sevillian artist Ángela Lergo. Lergo seeks to generate sensations and emotions in the spectator through sculpture and performance, transforming it into "a feminine message".

“Her creations, always linked to Salustiano's painting, are fed by the painter's universe. They start from the timeless aesthetics of his paintings and then fly on their own,", says the journalist Margot Molina.

 

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.