Like the collectable journals, the beginning of the school course, the inscriptions in the gym and a great list of new purposes that usually meet in September, this month also marks the beginning of the new season in the art world. Museums, galleries and cultural centres reorganise their calendar to shake summer off and face fall with a renewed schedule. And so that nobody gets surprises, we bring you some of the most interesting activities that the new course holds for us.

CANIDO (FERROL)

Las Meninas de Canido returns with its 11th edition, from August 31st to September 2nd. Since the launch of the idea in 2008, the project has gained in quality and recognition. The artist Eduardo Hermida is the promoter of this initiative that was born to revitalise the most depressed areas of the Canido neighbourhood, in Ferrol, especially affected by the crisis and the change of business model that had left the industrial fabric of the place very weakened. After ten years of work, not only part of the activity has been recovered, but the neighbourhood has become a benchmark in the urban art landscape. Around 2000, artists from Taiwan, Slovenia, Poland, Brazil, Syria, Ethiopia, Germany or France, as well as from Spain, have passed through Canido. The name of the festival responds to one of its working guidelines: artists must be inspired by this famous painting of Velázquez for their works and recreate variations that will remain forever on the facades of the city. As the organisers say: "Las Meninas de Canido is a triumph of artistic talent as a vehicle of communication and a foothold for the solution of urban needs." Last year, besides, there was an enormous expectation when a work attributed to Banksy appeared in one of the murals, although the artist denied it. For the festival, this author is an undeniable reference, and in homage, they reserve each edition a unique space under the claim “Banksy, in Canido we have a wall reserved for you”. It may appear this year…

Cartel “(Fe)meninas de Canido 2019” (detalle) María Maquieira

PHOTOGRAPHY IN MADRID

The Fundación Telefónica Space organises the workshop “Son ciudad” by the photographer Consuelo Bautista. This course takes place from September 11th to 13th, from 5 pm to 8 pm and is aimed at experienced professional or amateur photographers. Hand in hand with the artist, participants will take a tour of urban photography and the power of communication that city images can have, also reviewing the work of other authors such as Wiliam Klein. After a more theoretical first session, it is time to put into practice the concepts worked and the vision of the attendees to develop a project around street photography and the creation of micro-stories with the characters of urban life.

PROYECTOR FESTIVAL

From September 11th to 22nd, Madrid opens its arms to video-creation to host the 12th edition of the PROYECTOR Festival. On this occasion, 14 spaces distributed throughout the city will host this large program for a video art immersion. The agenda incorporates visits to collections, curated cycles of projections, workshops, masterclasses, professional meetings, guided tours... There is no excuse to get to know this discipline that every year gains new followers. Contemporary video creation offers an immense field of exploration that attracts numerous artists, in addition to using a language adapted to the consumption habits of today's society. The power of the moving image and its use for the elaboration of a new contemporary discourse will surprise us with a program of activities designed for all audiences.

Lien Cheng Wang, “Reading Plan”

FESTIVAL OPEN HOUSE

In its 5th edition, the Architecture and City Festival will have the collaboration of more than 100 spaces that will open their doors to the public on the weekend of September 28th and 29th. It is the perfect occasion to get to know some hidden corners of buildings of enormous interest that remain habitually closed to the public. For lovers of architecture, design, interior design, art and history this is an unavoidable event. Last year, visits overpassed the records, and there were long waiting lists, so stay tuned for registration.

BOTIN CENTRE

On September 9th and 10th, the Botín Centre organises the second edition of its “Meeting on Science, Art and Creativity”. These sessions bring together professionals from different branches of knowledge to discuss the similarities that exist in creative artistic processes and scientists. In this way, the similarities between the two spheres can be noticed, and the influence that art and science have on each other can be observed. Concepts such as the golden ratio, art and fractal mathematics, the aesthetics of structures subject to tensegrity or the fascinating reaction of the brain to art and music will be discussed. As Pedro García Barreno, director of the meeting explains, “the speakers will present how artistic beauty has penetrated the scientific theories and the design of the machines, while the artists have incorporated scientific ideas and technological advances in their creative processes".

ALCALÁ 31 SHOWROOM AND REINA SOFÍA MUSEUM

To accompany the exhibition that the Reina Sofía Museum dedicates to the Hispanic-Brazilian artist Sara Ramo, Sala Alcalá 31 organises a parallel exhibition that opens on September 12th under the title "The fall and other forms of life". This exhibition focuses on a site-specific project created by the author for the room and revolves around the idea of ​​simulation and appearance. For its part, the Reina Sofía Museum collects a part of her most extensive work, with pieces of video, installation, sculpture and collage. Sara Ramo always considers the position of the individual in their context and the maintenance of the established standards. This permanent questioning of the status quo soaks its pieces and seeks to open an internal dialogue with the viewer. In the exhibition "lindalocaviejabruja" Ramo works the role of women in our society and explores their domestic or daily context with works that feed on numerous references, even to incorporate absurd objects that produce a disconcerting effect.

The work of Cedric Le Corf (Bühl, Germany, 1985) is situated in a territory of friction, where the archaic impulse of the sacred coexists with a critical sensibility characteristic of contemporary times. His practice is grounded in an anthropological understanding of the origin of art as a foundational gesture: the trace, the mark, the need to inscribe life in the face of the awareness of death.

The artist establishes a complex dialogue with the Spanish Baroque tradition, not through stylistic mimicry, but through the emotional and material intensity that permeates that aesthetic. The theatricality of light, the embodiment of tragedy, and the hybridity of the spiritual and the carnal are translated in his work into a formal exploration, where underlying geometry and embedded matter generate perceptual tension.

In Le Corf’s practice, the threshold between abstraction and figuration is not an opposition but a site of displacement. Spatial construction and color function as emotional tools that destabilize the familiar. An open methodology permeates this process, in which planning coexists with a deliberate loss of control. This allows the work to emerge as a space of silence, withdrawal, and return, where the artist confronts his own interiority.

The Fall. 2025. Oil on canvas.195 × 150 cm.

In your work, a tension can be perceived between devotion and dissidence. How do you negotiate the boundary between the sacred and the profane?

In my work, I feel the need to return to rock art, to the images I carry with me. From the moment prehistoric humans became aware of death, they felt the need to leave a trace—marking a red hand on the cave wall using a stencil, a symbol of vital blood. Paleolithic man, a hunter-gatherer, experienced a mystical feeling in the presence of the animal—a form of spiritual magic and rituals linked to creation. In this way, the cave becomes sacred through the abstract representation of death and life, procreation, the Venus figures… Thus, art is born. In my interpretation, art is sacred by essence, because it reveals humankind as a creator.

Between Dog and Wolf II. 2025. Oil on canvas. 97 × 70 cm.

Traces of the Spanish Baroque tradition can be seen in your work. What do you find in it that remains contemporary today?

Yes, elements of the Spanish Baroque tradition are present in my work. In the history of art, for example, I think of Arab-Andalusian mosaics, in which I find a geometry of forms that feels profoundly contemporary. In Spanish Baroque painting and sculpture, one recurring theme is tragedy: death and the sacred are intensely embodied, whether in religious or profane subjects, in artists such as Zurbarán, Ribera, El Greco, and also Velázquez. I am thinking, for example, of the remarkable equestrian painting of Isabel of France, with its geometry and nuanced portrait that illuminates the painting.

When I think about sculpture, the marvelous polychrome sculptures of Alonso Cano, Juan de Juni, or Pedro de Mena come to mind—works in which green eyes are inlaid, along with ivory teeth, horn fingernails, and eyelashes made of hair. All of this has undoubtedly influenced my sculptural practice, both in its morphological and equestrian dimensions. Personally, in my work I inlay porcelain elements into carved or painted wood.

Between Dog and Wolf I. 2025. Oil on canvas. 97 × 70 cm.

What interests you about that threshold between the recognizable and the abstract?

For me, any representation in painting or sculpture is abstract. What imposes itself is the architectural construction of space, its secret geometry, and the emotion produced by color. It is, in a way, a displacement of the real in order to reach that sensation.

The Anatomical Angel. 2013. Ash wood and porcelain. 90 × 15 × 160 cm.

Your work seems to move between silence, abandonment, and return. What draws you toward these intermediate spaces?

I believe it is by renouncing the imitation of external truth, by refusing to copy it, that I reach truth—whether in painting or in sculpture. It is as if I were looking at myself within my own subject in order to better discover my secret, perhaps.

Justa. 2019. Polychrome oak wood. 240 × 190 × 140 cm.

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

It is true that, on occasions, I completely forget the main idea behind my painting and sculpture. Although I begin a work with very clear ideas—preliminary drawings and sketches, preparatory engravings, and a well-defined intention—I realize that, sometimes, that initial idea gets lost. It is not an accident. In some cases, it has to do with technical difficulties, but nowadays I also accept starting from a very specific idea and, when faced with sculpture, wood, or ceramics, having to work in a different way. I accept that.