Art Madrid'26 – LINO LAGO INTERVIEW, AN IRONIC AND CRITICAL ARTIST WITH A COMPLETE TECHNICAL DOMAIN

“Everything that reduces art to a subjective, subconscious and spiritual discourse is a total adulation that discredits the art world”

Lino Lago looking forward inspiration in daily life to create a painting with a great conceptual load. In his most recent series entitled Fake Abstract, which he will exhibit at Art Madrid with the Moret Art Gallery, he plays with the characteristic elements of abstract painting: line and colour, where under a painting of flat colours they are guessed, through lines, famous classic portraits.

 

His work has been exhibited in renowned national and international spaces such as the Flint Institute of Michigan and the outstanding George Adams Gallery in New York and has participated in important fairs such as Arco, Art Miami or Art Fair “SH Contemporary 09″ from Shanghai.

 

Moret Art brings your production back to the Fair. How do you feel your work fits in Art Madrid?

Works of art today reflect the individualism of their authors; works of art are mobile, they travel and fit anywhere. Needless to say that this individualism is a generalized feature. There is another more academic art which is institutionalized art, less free. Art in Institutions and Government museums is the only one that has reliable regulated guidelines when it comes to “fit” in such places. In this case I normally refer to propaganda art. Art Fairs are generally perfect places to find free art (if that were possible, or made sense to some extent, or if we understand art as a social phenomenon based on liberty.)

 

In your work we can perceive the questioning of the glance as an abstract concept. How do you think contemporary art is viewed today?

There is a social stream that views art with some criticism and skepticism. I think this is healthy and it has a foundation that we do not want to analyze in depth. If we compared it to some other areas we would understand why. For example, in sports we can clearly see a more normal “justice.” He who is objectively faster or stronger wins. Talent in the sports world is something evident and because of that sports are disdained by the world of art. I believe anyone can reach their own conclusions. By all means Art is (in theory) an intellectual phenomenon, which does not mean that art turns intelligent anyone who approaches it, just as anyone who touches a soccer ball is not a Maradona. As an intellectual phenomenon it is impossible for art not to have lots of misguided argumentations, false judgments, sophistry, and hot air.

Your work has been recognized internationally on many occasions… Do you believe that artistic recognition is a dynamic facet?

More than dynamic. The results an artist needs are the sequel of the relationship between the artist and his work and society. This is something that is not learnt in any university.

 

As an artist, what do you feel committed to?

With liberty. This word has almost been shunned from the paraphernalia of today’s art. I am very critical with official art which is nothing but academe. In my work I introduce 19th-century academe as an ironic way of pointing out this problem: I believe that postmodern education and philosophy have been, and still are, a hoax that has diminished the intellectual capability of the humanities.

 

Criticism through irony over a great technical mastery is your hallmark. Although you have a diverse production… do you feel a unity in your work as a whole? Is that generated consciously or is it a natural artistic trait?

In my case I am aware of it. Besides, it is the process of hard work. To speak of naturalness, and above all to speak of unconsciousness is an aberration. Whatever reduces art to a subjective subconscious or spiritual discourse is an all-out sham that discredits the world of art.

 

Do you believe that artistic originality is getting to be difficult to find? Is it there where the value of your work rests?

I believe so. Although the difficulty here is to decide what to be original means. In times where the cultural predominance is in the hands of the passing anecdote, the emptiness, and the all goes… perhaps originality might be something else, right?

 

The gallery Moret Art will present the recent art works of the artists: Daniel Sueiras, Xurxo Gómez-Chao, Miguel Piñeiro, Pilar Diez

 

 


ABIERTO INFINITO. LO QUE EL CUERPO RECUERDA. PERFORMANCE CYCLE 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: ALTA FACTURA. BY COLECTIVO LA BURRA NEGRA

March 4 | 7:00 PM. Galería de Cristal of the Palacio de Cibeles.


"Discipline for Power.” Performance by La Burra Negra for Displacement of the Congress of Deputies by Roger Bernat. 2025.


Alta Factura subverts the conventional structure of the fashion runway to foreground the often-invisible processes that underpin artistic production. Through a series of conceptual textile works, the performance draws attention to the discipline of craft and the artist’s vulnerability, ultimately revealing those seams typically consigned to the margins, behind the scenes.


Colectivo La Burra Negra.


ABOUT EL COLECTIVO LA BURRA NEGRA

La Burra Negra is a nomadic performance art collective based in Málaga, founded in 2024 following its first residency in Totalán. The group is self-managed by Ascensión Soto Fernández, Gabriela Feldman de la Rocha, Sasha Camila Falcke, Sara Gema Domínguez Castillo, Sofía Barco Sánchez, and Regina Lagos González—six artists from diverse backgrounds and trajectories who met at the Hospital de Artistas at La Juan Gallery.

The collective brings together practitioners working across jewelry, painting, the performing arts, music, dance, cultural mediation, and arts management. Its activities include an annual residency in Totalán, the production of performative works, cultural mediation initiatives, and site-responsive interventions.

Since its inception, the collective has participated in the Periscopio series at La Térmica; presented A granel at the MVA in Málaga; carried out a number of actions in Totalán—the most recent during its second annual residency—and contributed its own proposals to the performance Displacement of the Congress of Deputies by Roger Bernat in Madrid.

At the core of La Burra Negra lies a commitment to collective creation and the exchange of knowledge. United in their effort to experiment with and disseminate performance art, the group explores the invisible dimensions of artistic labor—its temporalities, efforts, and relational dynamics, which so often remain unseen—as a form of critical affirmation.

Their practice emerges from dialogue and shared reflection, in the pursuit of decentralized spaces where art can be experienced and its processes made visible. Each residency and each action becomes an attempt to inhabit creation collectively, challenging conditions of precarity while fostering networks of care and collaboration that sustain both their own practice and that of those around them.