In our diverse and full of possibilities world, it is not surprising that artists explore different disciplines and jump from one speciality to another depending on the language that best suits their expressive needs at all times. This has been the story of Eamonn Doyle, to whom the Mapfre Foundation dedicates an exhibition that includes the highlights of his short but brilliant career as a photographer.

Eamonn Doyle, ON (series) nº 1, 2014 © Eamonn Doyle, courtesy Michael Hoppen Gallery

Eamonn Doyle began his career in the art world with painting studies and later on photography, between 1987 and 1991. However, after some initial trips in which he tried to develop as a reporter photographer, in 1994 he left the camera and dedicated entirely to music. For twenty years he worked as an editor and music promoter, which led him to travel the world while organising festivals or recording albums. But six years ago, he decided to retake the photograph, becoming in record time one of the most recognised contemporary photographers.

His previous career, however, has an essential influence on his work. The cultural movements of the last decades, which run in parallel to music, along with his passion for literature, clearly appear in his images. In this context, his hometown, Dublin, gains a unique presence, revealing his urban life and the pulse of the new generations soaked in the socio-political context of the moment.

Eamonn Doyle, "Untitled 28", 2013, © Eamonn Doyle, courtesy Michael Hoppen Gallery

One of his best-known works is the "Dublin trilogy", with the series i, ON and End. To these is added another famous project: K, focused on spectral images that the photographer took in Ireland and Spain. His work characterises by urban ambience in edged frames that force the viewer's point of view. The absence of straight cuts, the abundance of angles and perspective cuts convey a constant sense of activity and movement.

That same movement is present in the K series, where the wind appears to stir the tissues and hide the figures. This concealment game catches the characters with enveloping movements, which also generate confusion and anguish. There is a particular surreal message in these images, with faceless anthropomorphic forms on inert backgrounds of sharp contrast.

Eamonn Doyle, “K-20”, 2017

Likewise, we must highlight the constant presence of music in the photographer's work. The exhibition in the Sala Bárbara de Braganza also holds a video piece entitled “Made in Dublin”, in which sound plays an important role. Doyle has continued to collaborate regularly with composer David Donohoe, whose pieces are an integral part of many of his works such as the K series or his video creations.

Bárbara de Braganza Room (Mapfre Foundation): from September 12th to January 26th.

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.