Although the main desire of Art Madrid is the promotion of Spanish contemporary art, it is true that the fair has become the favorite setting for many foreign galleries to show their proposals. And they come from Germany, France, China, Mexico or Ukraine. To all of them, thanks for the trust.

Veronika Veit

Survivertrophy, 2015

Plastic, fabric, paper and acrylic

57 x 25cm

The Schmalfuss gallery (Berlin, Germany) is one of the veterans of Art Madrid, a fair in which it has already participated eight times. Originally founded in Marburg in 1998 and with a second location in Berlin since 2011, it is directed by Michael W. Schmalfuß and Liane von Plessen who have brought to our fair the influences of northern Europe linked to its most characteristic lines, realism, figurative painting and sculpture. Schmalfuss gallery represents artists whose work, through individual expression, is an example of the artistic transition from the 20th to the 21st century, building bridges towards the future. In Art Madrid'18 they participate with the work of Oliver Czarnetta, Jürgen Paas, Willi Siber, Luzia Simons and Veronika Veit.

Luzia Simons

Stockage 83- 3/5, 2010

Scanogram

180 x 126cm

We highlight among them Luzia Simons, dedicated to the construction of images through photography and video as well as performance and installations. More than a decade ago she began to use the scanner as a working tool and she developed her own mode of production with which she achieved the representation of the object with a lot of detail and sharpness, almost getting to dissect the poetics of the forms.

Rusudan Khizanishvili

Temperance, 2017

Acrylic on canvas

130 x 100cm

Another of the galleries that works on Art Madrid for years is the Parisian Norty (Carrières-sur-Seine, France), directed by Dominique Guerin. And it is a very pleasant surprise because his style, heartbreaking and raw, has always been one of the most risky at the fair and, nevertheless, it has seduced collectors, being one of the obligatory stops for connoisseurs. The Norty gallery was founded in 2013 and represents emerging artists, mainly painters, selected for their committed and risky work, dedicating itself enthusiastically to its international projection. Norty promotes a new vision about the art world, proposing Expressionism and Art Brut as a new artistic line. On this occasion they present the recent work of Rusudan Khizanishvili, L'homme Jaune, Adlane Samet, Carmen Selma and Pierre Sgamma.

On other occasions we have highlighted the work of the Spanish Carmen Selma, so this time we will talk about another woman, Rusudan Khizanishvil, a young artist who works in Tbilisi, capital of Georgia. With influences from great artists such as Gauguin and Cézanne, the work of Khizanishvili visibly recognizes the history of painting and the works of the great masters. Her brilliant use of color, combined with a palpable and sensual handling of oil painting, demonstrates her enormous pictorial maturity. "The canvas - explains the artist- is a way of escape or connection with the world of my imagination. I see the canvas as a door. I create interdimensional portals in my painting, and I use the image of animals as a symbolic key between cultures, nations and identities. My animals are a reflection of past life to the present."

Daniel R. Collazo

De la serie Cartas a la Luna, 2017

Charcoal on canvas

160 x 132cm

Daniel R. Collazo

De la serie Dibujos Fotogénicos, 2017

Charcoal on canvas

230 x 160cm

From Cuba, the Collage Habana Gallery (Havana, Cuba) visits us for the 8th year. Directed by Eduardo Pupo Laffita, Collage Habana is the gallery that leads the promotion and commercialization of the Visual Arts within the Cuban Fund of Cultural Assets. Through the network of galleries that operate under its direction, it brings together a diverse group of creators, from national awards such as Manuel Mendive and Roberto Fabelo, to novel artists who win each year the Post-it contest, designed for emerging creators. In this sense, they are responsible for the diffusion of the aesthetic plurality of Cuban art.

For this edition of Art Madrid the gallery has decided to bet on the work of three young artists: Roldán Lauzán Eiras, Andy Llanes Bultó and Daniel R. Collazo. Their works share technical skill in the treatment of drawing and painting, and even though they are different from each other, they coexist harmonically in the same space. We stayed this time with the spectacular charcoals of Daniel Rodríguez Collazo, city and country landscapes, unstructured as a kaleidoscope in grayscale.

Guim Tió Zarraluki

Cavall Blanc, 2017

Oil on linen

89 x 116cm

Guim Tió Zarraluki

Hamaca, 2017

Oil on linen

27 x 35cm

Yiri Arts (Taipei, Taiwan), with Orton Huang as director, was founded in 2014 with the spirit of creating a "Museum of everyday art" for art to enter and enrich the lives of people. Through curating, exhibitions, publications and attendance at international art fairs, the gallery presents inspiring works full of vitality. They have 3 locations but, in addition, it has four multidisciplinary venues in Taipei that combine art, books and gastronomy. At Art Madrid, they participate with the work of Taiwanese artist Lai Wei-Yu and one of our favorite artists, the Catalan Guim Tió Zarraluki.

Guim treats human beings with humor, irony and a strong degree of provocation, reflection of a society full of taboos and subjected to the visual tyranny of television, advertising and of course, fashion magazines. From his intervened portraits, stained and veiled, he now moves to almost empty landscapes, huge plains of pure color in which the human figure is a milestone due to its absolute presence and concomitant fragility.

Venske & Spänle

Schnoepp, 2017

Marble

33 x 19cm

Venske & Spänle

Palermo, 2016

Marble

35 x 27cm

This group of galleries are joined this year witn newcomers such as the German gallery Robert Drees (Hannover), currently the most important contemporary art gallery in the state capital of North Germany. Robert Dress is located in an impressive industrial space of more than 300 square meters and its program is oriented towards artists already established in the international art market and emerging talents, to which they dedicate collective exhibitions that connect classical media such as painting and sculpture with photography, video and installation art. In Art Madrid'18 they present works by Sabine Dehnel, Mikael Fagerlund, Jürgen Jansen, Pepa Salas Vilar and Venske & Spänle.

To the Spanish Pepa Salas, to her almost monochromatic scenes, apparently innocent between realism and surreal fiction, we have already referred to on other occasions (outstanding projects of Art Madrid'18) so we will now highlight Venske & Spänle, artists duo formed by Julia Venske and Gregor Spänle, known for their Smörfs, sculptures made of marble capable of transmitting movement and life. The material adopts light shapes and appears malleable and soft, light and fluid. Venske and Spänle have held numerous solo and group exhibitions in Germany, Spain, the United States and Denmark.

Andrei Zadorine

North wind, 2016

Watercolour on paper

63 x 95cm

Andrei Zadorine

Daughter, 2013

Oil on canvas

120 x 180cm

Nebo Art Gallery, from Kyiv, Ukraine, is directed by Valeriia Ivanova and represents artists from Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Georgia, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands and the United States. It has become a platform for independent projects in two branches, NEBO BOOKLAB PUBLISHING, a publisher specialized in fiction for children, poetry collections and books on art; and NEBO ART SCHOOL, an educational project that brings together painting classes, workshops and excursions in various areas of art. It is one of the most personal proposals of this year's fair, with the painter Andrei Zadorine and his almost photographic paintings in homage to the Spanish filmaker Victor Erice, an exotic and poetic combination.

Linet Sánchez

Sin titulo, 2012-2014

Digital print

100 x 150cm

Linet Sánchez

Sin titulo, 2012-2014

Digital print

150 x 80cm

With venues in Cancun (Mexico) and in Havana (Cuba), Alterna Studio gallery is oriented to the support, dissemination and promotion of recently graduated Cuban emerging artists. In Art Madrid we will see the proposal of Carla Maria Bellido de Luna, Linet Sánchez and Yoxi Velázquez, 3 women whose work in different disciplines (photography, sculpture, installation ...) is characterized by the power of their images and their questioning of the status quo. In her painting, Carla María Bellido reflects on concepts such as subjectivity, truthfulness or imagination and wonders what builds us and what precedes us as creators. Yoxi Velázquez uses resin in his human and animal figures to generate questions about injustice, cruelty or abuse. Some of her art pieces for Art Madrid are a collaboration with the artist David Madruga. Linet Sánchez, on the other hand, presents empty and rarefied spaces, models where human presence is felt but not visualized and where only loneliness, isolation and introspection inhabit.

We will dedicate a separate chapter to the galleries that have come from Portugal, to which we have been paying special attention in Art Madrid for years. In Art Madrid'18 we will count on visit the Art Lounge and Art Peripheral galleries, both in Lisbon, and Paulo Nunes Arte Contemporânea, in Vila Franca de Xira. Within the One Project Program, Art Madrid will have the participation of the Portuguese gallery Nuno Sacramento, of Ílhavo, who participates for the second consecutive year in the fair. The foreign representation ends up with the Brazilian RV Cultura e Arte, of Rio de Janeiro and Pantocrator Gallery, based in Suzhou, China.

The work of Julian Manzelli (Chu) (Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1974) is situated within a field of research in which art adopts methodologies close to scientific thinking without renouncing its poetic and speculative dimension. His practice is structured as an open process of experimentation, in which the studio functions as a laboratory: a space for trial, error, and verification, oriented less toward the attainment of certainties than toward the production of new forms of perception. In this sense, his work enters into dialogue with an epistemology of uncertainty, akin to philosophical traditions that understand knowledge as a process of becoming rather than closure.

Manzelli explores interstitial zones, understood as spaces of transit and transformation. These ambiguous areas are not presented as undefined but as potential—sites where categories dissolve, allowing the emergence of hybrid, almost alchemical configurations that reprogram the gaze. Geometry, far from operating as a normative system, appears tense and destabilized. His precarious constructions articulate a crossing between intuition and reason, play and engineering, evoking a universal grammar present in both nature and symbolic thought. Thus, Manzelli’s works do not represent the world but rather transfigure it, activating questions rather than offering closed answers.

Avícola. Escultura magnética. Madera, imanes, laca automotriz y acero. 45 x 25 cm. 2022.

Science and its methods inspire your process. What kinds of parallels do you find between scientific thinking and artistic creation?

Science and art are two disciplines that I believe share a great deal and are undoubtedly deeply interconnected. I am interested in that point of intersection, and although they are often placed in opposition, I think they share a common origin. Both involve a continuous search, a need for answers that stems from curiosity rather than certainty, and that often—or in many cases—leads both artists and scientists into uncomfortable, uncertain positions, pushing them out of their comfort zones. I believe this is a fundamental and very compelling aspect shared by these two disciplines, which in some way define us as human beings.

In this sense, both share experimentation as a core axis of their practice. Trial and error, testing, and the entire process of experimentation are what generate development. In my case, this applies directly to the studio: I experience it as a laboratory where different projects are developed and materials are tested. It is as if one formulates a hypothesis and then puts it to the test—materials, procedures, forms, colors—and outcomes emerge. These results are not meant to be verified, but rather, in art, I believe their function is to generate new modes of perception, new ways of seeing, and new experiences.

Receptor Lunar #01. Ensamble de Madera Reciclada torneada. 102 x 26 x 26 cm. De la serie Fuerza orgánica. 2023.

You work within the interstices between the natural and the artificial, the figurative and the abstract. What interests you about these ambiguous zones, and what kinds of knowledge emerge from them?

I have always been quite restless, and that has led me to immerse myself in different fields and disciplines. I believe there is a special richness in interstitial spaces—in movement back and forth, in circulation between media. These spaces have always drawn my attention: ambiguous places, hybrid zones. There is something of an amphibious logic here—amphibians as entities that carry and transmit information, that share, that cross boundaries and membranes. In my case, this is closely linked to what I understand as freedom, especially at a time marked by categorization, labeling, and a profound distortion of the very concept of freedom.

On another level, more metaphysical in nature, it is within the mixture—within that blending—that the living energy of creating something new appears, which is undoubtedly a fundamental aspect of what it means to be human. It is as if “one thing becomes something else outside the mold.” This interaction is necessary to break structures, to build new ones, to transmute—to undergo something almost alchemical. I believe fixation is the enemy. In a way, ambiguity is what allows us to reprogram our gaze and generate new points of view.

De la serie Naturaleza orgánica. Madera torneada recuperada de podas de sequía y rezagos de construcción. 2025.

Movement, repetition, and sequence appear as visual strategies in your work. What role does seriality play in the generation of meaning?

Movement, repetition, and sequence are very present in my work. I have a long background in animation, and in some way that interest begins to filter into the other disciplines in which I work. Thus, movement also appears in my visual art practice.

Seriality is a way of thinking about time and of introducing a certain narrative and sense of action into the work, while at the same time conditioning the viewer’s experience. It invites the viewer to try to decipher repetition as a kind of progression. I am particularly interested in more abstract forms of narrative. In this type of narrative, where there is no clear figuration, repetition begins to establish a pulse, a “beat” that marks the passage of time. What is interesting, I think, is the realization that repetition is not exactly duplication, and that what seems identical begins to mutate over time, through rhythm, or through its own unfolding history.

De la serie Naturaleza orgánica. Madera torneada recuperada de podas de sequía y rezagos de construcción. 2025.

You work with geometric and constructive systems. What role does geometry play as a symbolic language within your practice?

Geometry is present in my work in multiple forms and dimensions, generating different dynamics. Generally, I tend to put it into crisis, into tension. When one engages closely with my works, it becomes clear that constructions based on imprecise and unstable balance predominate. I am not interested in symmetry or exactness, but rather in a dynamic construction that proposes a situation. I do not conceive of geometry as a rigid system.

I believe this is where a bridge is established between the intuitive and the rational, between playfulness and engineering—those unexpected crossings. At the same time, geometry functions as a code, a language that connects us to a universal grammar present in nature, in fractals, and that undoubtedly refers to symbolism. It is there that an interesting portal opens, where the work begins to re-signify itself and becomes a process of meaning-making external to itself, entirely uncertain. The results of my works are not pieces that represent; rather, I believe they are pieces that transfigure and, in doing so, generate questions.

WIP. Madera torneada recuperada de podas de sequía y rezagos de contrucción. 2022.

To what extent do you plan your works, and how much space do you leave for the unexpected—or even for error?

In terms of planning, it depends greatly on the project and even on the day. Some projects, due to their scale or complexity, require careful planning, especially when they involve the participation of other people. In many cases, planning is undoubtedly essential.

That said, in the projects I do plan, I am always interested in leaving space for improvisation, where chance or the unfolding of the process itself can come into play. I believe this is where interesting things begin to emerge, and it is important not to let them pass by. Personally, I would find it very boring to work on pieces whose outcome I already know in advance. For me, the realization of each work is an uncertain journey; I do not know where it will lead, and I believe that is where its potential lies—not only for me, but also for the work itself and for the viewer’s experience.