The activities program that Art Madrid carries out every year always reserves space on the agenda to organise a meeting with professionals in the sector. The goal is to provide a vision more linked to institutional and work practice around the topic that linchpins the set of activities, and in this past edition we had the opportunity to focus on the evolution of the use of the image, video art and the entry on stage of technological art and new media. With these meetings, the renowned voices of curators, directors of creative centres, critics, academics or cultural agents opens up a forum for debate in which to overpass the plane of artistic production to focus on that of exhibition or presence by the exhibition spaces, what invites to reflect on how the process of institutionalization of contemporary art takes place.

Within the framework of the program on video art, new media and performance, the subjects that underpinned the proposal, we were fortunate to have the participation of Rafael Doctor, Karin Ohlenschläger and Berta Sichel in a round table conducted by Miguel Álvarez-Fernández. The professional background of these three curators, cultural agents and historians over the years adds to their experience in charge of departments or institutions of great prestige in the national territory. This allowed them to lead an encounter in which they shared their theoretical knowledge, but also contributed their vision from the management of art centres, identifying gaps and strengths of the system.

It is also remarkable that the most recent professional experience of the speakers has been linked to distant geographical areas within the country, which also offers a more enriching panorama, close to the cultural reality of the whole territory, on a northern-southern axis that portrays the socio-political circumstances to which the contemporary creation sector is sometimes subject.

Photo by Romer Ramos

Rafael Doctor is a historian, independent curator and cultural manager, specialising in the History of Photography and contemporary art. In his role as director, he has been in charge of the Andalusian Photography Center (CAF) between 2017 and 2019, he directed the programming of Canal de Isabel II (1993-2000), the Espacio Uno of MNCARS (1997-2000) and the department of Plastic arts from Casa de América (2001), and was also the first director of MUSAC (2002-2009). Thanks to his long career, Rafael summarised the history of photography from its origins to get to deal with the moving image, a somewhat later discipline that, however, was in the pulse of creative interest since technology made it possible the capture of the image on fixed supports. The transition from a purely documentary interest to an artistic one occurred early, and all of them led to a series of creative movements that marked the great milestones of video art throughout the 20th century. Today we speak of this discipline as something new, when the novelty is the updating of technique and the easy access to the modes of creation, but not so much the creative impulse or the discursive concerns that underlie this type of work.

Photo by Romer Ramos

For her part, Berta Sichel, a cultural agent, curator and director of the Bureauphi Art Agency project, took advantage of her experience in charge of the audiovisual department of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in its early years, to tell us how the museum built up its video art collection. Berta was responsible for curating the selection of pieces for the collection. She aimed to tackle a wide window of time that truly represents world video art, although this objective had to be reduced to adapt to the budgetary conditions that the museum was going through, which is why there is more presence of works in the first years of the movement (1960s) than later decades. During her speech, Berta emphasised one of the characteristics of the beginnings of video creation as a phenomenon: that it was art made mostly by women. The rise of traditional disciplines along with the trend of prevailing male roles in public artistic life as well as in the market made video art an accessible resource for the women authors, who approached their works many times from the seclusion of their own homes. This is also one of the reasons why video pieces very often have a denouncing component around gender issues and capture environments or realities more connected to family, domestic settings.

Photo by Romer Ramos

Karin Ohlenschläger is also a curator, critic and contemporary art theorist. From 2002 to 2006 she was co-director of the MediaLab Madrid program at the Conde Duque Cultural Center in Madrid, and has been in charge of numerous festivals and projects connected with new media and technology. Today she is the director of activities for the LABoral Center for Art and Industrial Creation, in Gijón, an exhibition space specifically dedicated to art, science, technology and the visual industries. Karin has specialised in action art, postmedia art and new transversal creation projects that merge languages, taking references from fields such as communications or science. Thanks to her experience in these years, she offered us an overview of the hybridization of art since the last decade of the 20th century, a period in which many processes initiated during the 70s-80s culminate and which originate collaboratively based creative processes that aspire to break the barriers between branches of knowledge (biotechnology, programming, artificial intelligence) to generate another form of knowledge, materialised in works of art. Today we have gone from the digitisation of creations to the materialisation of digital proposals. Karin's talk leaves a door open to the future of art to come, knowing that the paths to explore will be almost infinite.

Foto de Marta Suárez-Mansilla

The conference was moderated by Miguel Álvarez-Fernández, a jurist, musician, music theorist, and composer, who, in addition to working as a curator and expert in sound art, has directed the radio weekly program Ars Sonora since 2008. Miguel's knowledge of the topic of debate and of the speakers facilitated an easy and friendly conversation in which many people in the audience wanted to participate during Question Time.

The round table took place in the auditorium of Sala Alcalá 31 on Thursday 20th of February. We want to thank the space for its support and, in particular, Antonio Sánchez Luengo for his excellent reception of the proposal to host part of the “Art Madrid-Proyector’20” program.

The pictorial work of Sergio Rocafort (Valencia, 1995) is articulated as a field of questioning rather than a system of closed visual statements. His paintings do not seek to close off meaning, but rather to activate an open perceptual experience, in which the viewer participates in a critical exercise of reconsidering the ways of seeing, interpreting, and conceiving painting in the present. The image thus presents itself as an unstable territory, where perception constantly oscillates between the visible and the imagined, and meaning is constructed in a provisional and shared manner.

One of the structural axes of his work is the tension between scale and intimacy. The format functions as a relational device, alternating physical immersion with concentrated attention, generating an expository rhythm that prompts the viewer to move around, approach, and withdraw. This spatial dynamic engages with a painting situated on the threshold between figuration and abstraction, sustaining a reflection on painting as both window and physical object, while emphasizing its material and spatial condition.

Rocafort’s creative process is also grounded in a dialectic between intuition and control. Far from a romantic notion of chance, the unexpected is understood as guided pictorial thinking, in which every decision—even those that appear accidental—responds to a critical awareness of the act of painting and a progressive refinement of the means of expression.

Untitled. 2024. Oil on panel, 30 x 45 cm..

Questioning seems to inhabit your painting. What kind of questions do you want your work to pose to the viewer?

Generally, my intention is for the work to provoke more questions than answers. Ultimately, I believe my work refers to shared spaces that nevertheless remain open to interpretation. I think that this interplay of questions—questions that arise for me as an artist in the studio—is interesting when it is later transferred to the viewer in the exhibition space. These questions usually concern the way we look, the way we interpret, and the way we conceive painting. It is a constant game between what we see and what we imagine.

Untitled. 2025. Oil on linen. 32.5 × 22.5 cm.

Your works seem to constantly stretch scale, moving from the intimate to the immersive. How do you decide what format each investigation requires?

I believe the main reason I choose one format or another depends on the exhibition installation. Beyond how each individual work functions, I think it is the overall vision that completes the project and gives it coherence and meaning. In many cases, these contrasts arise because a small work encourages an intimate approach, while a large work can have a stronger impact. Ultimately, this play of tensions causes the viewer to move closer, step back, and generates an interesting dialogue within the exhibition space itself.

In my case, I tend to work quite a lot with large formats because of the impact they produce. I believe there is a kind of translation that takes place—one that extends to the tools themselves—and this allows for greater expressiveness and a stronger impact on the viewer.

Untitled. 2015. Graphite on paper. 80 x 65 cm.

Critics often highlight your attention to proportion and detail. How do these concepts operate in a painting that resists figuration?

I do not think my painting resists figuration; rather, it constantly plays at its edges. Most of my references are figurative, but I seek to continually tension the relationship between volume and classical notions of pictorial construction, without losing the idea of the painting as a window—or rather, as an object. This relationship between painting-as-window and painting-as-physical-object is fundamental in my work; both aspects share common ground.

The result would be very different if one of these elements were set aside. But the game is not only formal: it is about generating ambiguity, creating a point at which the viewer must complete the work. I believe this operates both in hyperrealist figuration and in geometric abstraction, which is what I have been working on recently.

Abstraction allows me to detach completely from the image. In fact, I do not work with photographs or a predefined imaginary; instead, I generate my own notion of volume and space without relying on a prior model. Ultimately, even if I do not start from a figurative reference, this freedom coexists with the basic principles of painting. Neo Rauch, for example, does not need a maquette or a photograph, and I believe that same freedom is present in my work without abandoning those fundamental notions of painting.

Untitled. 2025. Oil on linen. 32.5 x 22.5 cm.

In your relationship with black, contrast, and chromatic vibration, how do you decide when a chromatic tension should be restrained or emphasized?

I think something similar happens here to what occurs with formats—it largely depends on the exhibition space. A painting can be small yet possess great chromatic force and a high level of contrast; even if it alludes to intimacy, it can generate a strong visual impact. In a larger format, the opposite may occur: low contrast or subtle nuances may function better. Everything depends on the relationship established between the works in the exhibition space and on how we want to bring the viewer closer or push them back in order to generate visual tension. In my work, synthesis, clarity, and the depth offered by color and material have always been present. I increasingly try to limit my resources so that the work functions with the bare minimum. Lately, for example, I have been drawing a great deal and working almost entirely with monochromatic ranges, because within that simplicity I believe many nuances can be explored and revealed—transparencies, density, contrast. This is, in essence, the chromatic game in my work.

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

I have always thought that I leave a great deal of room for error and chance, but lately I believe less in that version of the creative process. I think there is always a reflection and a guiding hand behind these “accidents.” I do try to allow unforeseen things to happen, but what emerges I would call intuition rather than chance, and I try to embrace it and guide it. This is, essentially, my way of understanding painting.

As for how I manage the timing of my projects, toward the end of this year I have a solo exhibition planned at Shiras Gallery, which will be a good moment to consolidate the works I have been developing and their visual impact. Recently, I have also been focusing on Art Madrid, which is approaching, and I am seeking for the exhibited works to have a cohesion, coherence, and clarity that some earlier works lacked. This time, the luminosity and saturation present in parts of my work shine more than ever, and I trust that the gallery will achieve a very successful exhibition installation at the fair.