Gastón Lisak

CCONVERSATIONS WITH MARISOL SALANOVA. INTERVIEW PROGRAM. ART MADRID'25

Gastón Lisak (Barcelona, 1989) approaches conceptual art through a path deeply tied to his teaching experience, the facilitation of workshops, and experimenting with collective creations. His work is rooted in meticulous research into mundane archaeology, exploring the transformation of anachronistic objects.

With a background in design, much of his work intersects with industrial processes. Applying industrial techniques to art, working with waste materials, and transforming them into friezes results in pieces of immense appeal. Lisak seeks beauty in what is discarded, in the abject, challenging the contemporary concept of hyperproduction. Ultimately, his goal is to make us stop and observe what might otherwise go unnoticed. Playfulness is ever-present, reflecting his interest in learning and material recovery.

Polyptych. Gastón Lisak Exhibition: Mundane Archaeology, curated by Mariella Franzoni, La Sala Centre d'Art Vilanova i la Geltrú, 2023. Photograph by Roberto Ruiz.

What role does experimentation play in your creative process?

I believe experimentation plays a crucial role in my work—whether it's with new materials or industrial processes that I adapt to the art world. Experimentation is closely linked to the uncertainty of how a piece will turn out.

We live in a time when we have access to vast amounts of information—everything seems perfect, the entire system is polished. But experimentation involves error, things not turning out as expected, surprises, and discoveries.

My work is heavily centered on understanding societies through the objects we use. A mass-produced object—something hyper-new, like a spinner or a tiny figurine—appears everywhere, only to vanish into obscurity.

Through art and this process of rediscovering objects from our surroundings, we can help future generations—50, 100, or even 200 years from now—understand how we once lived. My work essentially preserves a snapshot of a specific moment in art history and in the world we're living in today.

Mundane Archaeology. 2022. Photography on aluminum. 100 x 70 cm.

Who are your references?

Like many people, most of my references come from those around me—individuals I grow with every day. However, I did spend some time in England, where I was fascinated by the Fluxus movement. Its chaos contained in boxes—the mix of disorder and absolute structure—was captivating. Similarly, randomness, the unexpected, and the accidental have always intrigued me.

I also admire Pistoletto's Arte Povera—the act of repurposing and giving new meaning to everyday objects. Antoni Miralda’s compulsive obsession with objects, his ability to listen to them and understand them, has deeply influenced my work.

Currently, artists like Joana Vasconcelos inspire me with her ability to rediscover, rethink, and recontextualize objects. Beyond individuals, markets are a great source of inspiration for me. Markets are like open-air museums that are constantly changing. When you visit them, you encounter strange objects that draw you in, making you want to learn about their origins, purpose, and stories.

Much of my inspiration stems from everyday life—small interactions, mistakes, the amateur, the ugly, the odd, and the bizarre elements of daily existence. I often try to add a twist to the mundane, to the monotonous cycles of life, transforming them into something new and different each day.

Metal Touch. 2022. Sacred Plastic Collection.

How do you select the objects that inspire you?

Sometimes the objects choose me, and other times, I choose them. Often, I’m drawn to strange objects that don’t make sense or that I don’t fully understand.

For instance, marine items are a recurring element in my work—objects from the sea or nature, as well as hyper-contemporary objects. How can we transform something ephemeral, like a plate of food, into a permanent piece—a sculpture, a totem, something enduring? How can we turn something small into something monumental?

Markets are great for discovery. Layer by layer, you can explore: What happens if I look closer? Those objects that might lack voice or presence can be transformed through art, giving them a new meaning and place.

When I transform objects and give them a new purpose, they become spaces for sharing thoughts about how we live today. It’s important that these objects are accessible and easy to connect with. In our environment, there’s a lot of visual noise—chaos, stimuli. Everything competes for our attention. Through art, I strive to create moments of pause: Stop. Breathe. Understand. Value what surrounds you.

Art, in this sense, is an exercise in thought, offering an opportunity for action both to the viewer and the creator. It’s a space for inspiration and change. While we may not change the world overnight, art can inspire small shifts in perspective, enabling us to see life differently.

I’ve also noticed that many of the objects in my work appear in different places. An object I see in a market in Buenos Aires might also appear in Chile or at Mexico’s La Lagunilla market. These objects travel globally, which fascinates me. Many objects in my work have a history—they’ve been seen and lived elsewhere before they reached me.

View of the ex-votos in the exhibition at the Fundación Espai Guinovart. Agramunt. 2023.

What role does nature play in your work?

I grew up near the sea, and I love it. It’s always been a part of my life. When working with objects, if you look at cabinets of curiosities, you’ll notice that humans have always been compelled to document, collect, and possess nature.

Markets often have remnants of nature—like shells or corals—that are admired in their original environment. This raises the question: What is nature today? How do humans impact it? We can’t view nature as separate from ourselves—it’s an ecosystem where everything coexists, even within the objects we create.

There’s little sense in the mass production of trendy, disposable objects, but art allows us to reflect on questions of consumption: What do we consume? How? Why? Does it make sense today?

Nature’s ability to inspire is also powerful. The sea, shells, and the mysteries of the underwater world captivate me. Observing our surroundings through a scientific lens—like a laboratory—helps us learn more about the world. When I analyze objects systematically in a market, it’s similar to how someone might study an ant or butterfly in a lab.

Ketchup. 2022. Sacred Plastic Collection.

When do you feel a piece in a series is complete?

For me, the end of a piece is as important as its creation. The process involves a journey and discovery that lead to the final work.

The conclusion is significant, but so is the story behind it. A piece is finished when you feel it is, but its value lies not only in the final result but in the time and journey it took to get there.

A phrase that inspires me is “to make the familiar unfamiliar and the unfamiliar familiar” by the German poet Novalis. It resonates because it’s fascinating to see how familiar objects can be transformed into something magical, distinct, and extraordinary.

I’ve become obsessed with this dichotomy between the familiar and the strange. Through curiosity and discovery, we can question and understand how we live today. This creates a pause, a moment to reflect.

We live in a fast-paced world, constantly on the move. Art offers us the opportunity to pause, reflect, and breathe.

Each edition of Art Madrid is, above all, an exercise in observation. Rather than a closed declaration of intent, it functions as a space where different artistic practices coexist and enter into dialogue, reflecting the moment in which they are produced. In 2026, the fair reaches its 21st edition, consolidating an identity grounded in plurality, close attention to artistic practice, and the coexistence of diverse languages within a shared curatorial framework.

Simone Theelen. Dream Botanic. 2023. Mixed media on leather. 160 × 140 cm. Uxval Gochez Gallery.

In this context, Art Madrid’26 does not present a single dominant aesthetic or a unified narrative. What unfolds in the Galería de Cristal of the Palacio de Cibeles is a broad and varied landscape, shaped by the proposals of national and international galleries working with artists whose practices respond—each from very different positions—to shared questions: how to continue producing images, objects, and discourses in a saturated context; how to engage with tradition without becoming trapped by it; and how to make the contemporary visible without falling into the ephemeral.

This text offers a reading of the aesthetic currents running through the fair, understood not as closed categories but as lines of force. These currents help to clarify what visitors will encounter and from which coordinates a significant part of contemporary artistic production is emerging today. This approach is rooted in one of Art Madrid’s core principles: respecting the DNA of each exhibitor while fostering a plural creative ecosystem capable of reflecting the richness and diversity of the current artistic landscape.

Sergio de la Flora. La cena. 2022. Oil on canvas. 120 × 120 cm. Inéditad Gallery.

One of the most consistent features of Art Madrid’26 is the attention paid to materiality. Painting, sculpture, and works on paper are presented as spaces where material is not merely a support, but an active element within the discourse itself. Many of the works draw on traditional techniques—oil, acrylic, graphite, ceramic, or wood—but are approached with a fully contemporary awareness. Surfaces become sites of accumulation, erosion, sheen, or density. Gestures remain visible, and the construction of the work is embraced as an essential part of each artistic language.

This emphasis on materiality does not stem from nostalgia for craftsmanship, but from a desire for presence. In contrast to the relentless circulation of digital images, these works demand time, close viewing, and physical attention. Rather than seeking immediate impact, they invite a slower and more sustained relationship with the viewer.

Ana Cardoso. Ser Casa #2. 2025. Acrylic on MDF. 78 × 100 cm. Galeria São Mamede.

Painting occupies a central place within the fair, though it does so from highly diverse positions. This is not a return to academic models, nor a rejection of contemporaneity, but an expanded understanding of painting—open to the incorporation of other materials and visual languages. Works appear in which oil coexists with spray paint, collage, resins, or graphite; surfaces where the pictorial merges with the object-based; images that move between abstraction, fragmented figuration, and symbolic reference. Painting is understood here as a flexible field, capable of absorbing influences from urban art, design, photography, and archival practices. For visitors, this results in a journey where painting is not presented as a homogeneous language, but as a territory of constant exploration shaped by varied and enriching formal decisions.

Mario Soria. My Candy House. 2024. Oil on canvas mounted on panel. 59 × 50 cm. Aurora Vigil-Escalera.

Rather than fading away, art history emerges at Art Madrid’26 as an active working material. Some proposals engage directly with classical iconographies or traditional genres such as portraiture, still life, or historical scenes, but do so from a critical and displaced perspective.

These works do not aim to reproduce past models. Instead, they place them under tension by altering context or scale, introducing unexpected elements, or foregrounding aspects that today appear problematic or revealing. Tradition is approached not as a fixed canon, but as an open archive—one that can be revisited, questioned, and rewritten. This dialogue resonates both with viewers who recognize historical references and with those who encounter them through a contemporary lens, aware that images of the past continue to shape how we understand the present.

Yasiel Elizagaray. From the Liminal series, No. 1. 2025. Mixed media on canvas. 170 × 150 cm. Nuno Sacramento Arte Contemporânea.

Another defining thread of Art Madrid’26 is the dissolution of boundaries between disciplines. Many works resist classification within a single category, operating simultaneously as painting and object, sculpture and drawing, image and structure.

This hybridity reflects a contemporary context in which artistic languages no longer function in isolation. The resulting works call for open-ended readings, where form, material, and idea interact without fixed hierarchies, encouraging viewers to navigate meaning through experience rather than predefined frameworks.

Faustino Ruiz de la Peña. Lope. 2025. Oil, pencil and pigment. 31 × 27 cm. Galería Arancha Osoro.

Drawing and works on paper hold a significant presence in this edition. Far from being understood as preparatory or secondary, many of these pieces function as autonomous works—precise, deliberate, and conceptually robust.

Through lines, grids, voids, and repetitions, artists construct images that explore territory, memory, architecture, and the body. An economy of means does not diminish complexity; instead, paper becomes a space for visual thinking, where the passage of time and the trace of gesture are clearly registered. These works introduce a slower rhythm into the fair, inviting moments of pause and attentive observation.

Prado Vielsa. Haz de luz 2502. 2025. Digital print on folded transparent cast acrylic. 29 × 27 × 23 cm. Carmen Terreros Gallery.

Sculpture occupies an especially meaningful position at Art Madrid’26, situated between the organic and the structural, and between artisanal processes and industrial solutions. The use of recycled wood, ceramics, metals, and synthetic materials is not merely technical, but conceptual—prompting reflection on materiality, time, and transformation.

These pieces emphasize form, balance, and spatial relationships, understanding sculpture as a body that engages in dialogue with its environment and with the physical presence of the viewer. Often presented as symbolic objects rather than narrative devices, they activate open fields of association where meaning emerges through experience rather than explanation.

Reload. Blond Ambition. 2025. Pink, black and white marble. 62 × 32 × 12 cm. LAVIO.

Alongside more gestural and material-based approaches, the fair also includes works grounded in geometry, pattern, and structure. Built upon precise visual systems, these pieces employ repetition, symmetry, and modulation to generate rhythm and tension. They offer a counterpoint of restraint and formal control within the broader context of the fair, expanding the aesthetic spectrum and underscoring the diversity of contemporary artistic approaches.

Many of the works presented articulate non-linear narratives composed of symbols, cross-references, and deliberately ambiguous spaces. Rather than offering closed stories or singular interpretations, they function as open images—points of activation that invite interpretive engagement.

This approach reflects a contemporary sensibility that challenges the notion of fixed meaning, shifting part of the responsibility for interpretation onto the viewer. The artwork becomes a space of negotiation, where memory, experience, and perception actively shape understanding.

MINK. CRISTATUS – Ambition. 2025. Spray paint on wood. 120 × 106 cm.La Mercería.600:800

The body of work brought together in this edition reveals a sustained engagement with matter as a site of reflection and meaning-making. In the face of increasingly rapid and dematerialized modes of production, these works reaffirm the value of material support, process, and time as fundamental elements of artistic practice. This shared orientation does not define a single aesthetic, but establishes a common ground where diverse practices converge around the need to anchor artistic experience in the tangible and the constructed. Within this context, Art Madrid consolidates itself as a meeting space where contemporary art is presented with critical awareness, rigor, and clarity—fostering an active relationship between artwork, artist, and audience.