Art Madrid'23 – Contemporary Art for the Nave 9 of Matadero Madrid

Maurizio Cattelan, “Bidibidobidiboo”, 1996.

 

 

In 2008, only one year after the opening of Matadero Madrid, the COAM launched a call for projects to rehabilitate the naves 8 and 9. These naves were initially devoted to “Leader Dryer” and “Market and avian abattoir”. The project should include a design to relocate the Intermediae headquarters and other centres of artistic creation, architecture and design of Matadero.

 

 

 

Exterior of nave 9 in Matadero Madrid. @Carlos Rosillo

 

 

Since long ago several proposals were studied to make out of the nave 9 a place devoted to contemporary art. Negotiations to assign to this space a specific goal and turn it into a permanent exhibition space started last year. By then, one of the strongest ideas was to transform it into the headquarter of the contemporary art collection of the Sandretto Madrid Foundation.

 

 

 

Sarah Lucas, “Love Me”, 1998.

 

 

Last September an agreement was finally settled to assign the space for fifty years. The nave will be turned into an exhibition venue to host 105 pieces of this huge collection, which gathers contemporary artworks from the 80’s onwards and includes essential names of the international artistic panorama like Damien Hirst, Maurizio Cattelan, Anish Kapoor, Helen Marten, Cindy Sherman or Doug Aitken.

 

The opening is scheduled for 2019, but until then there is a lot of work to do, starting with the transformation and adaptation of this surface of 6.300m2, through an architectural project led by David Adjaye and Arturo Franco that will keep untouched the external façade of the nave.
 

 

 

 

Patrizia Sandretto (image taken from El Español).

 

 

The will of Patrizia Sandretto is to maintain part of the activity that characterises the Italian foundation and to turn this space into a place of reference into the Spanish contemporary panorama, which is the natural spot of connection with Latin America and the rest of Europe. One of the essential pillars of this project since the beginning was its support for education, to make contemporary art accessible to everybody and to foster emerging artists. As Patrizia says “I want a centre where everyday something happens”. Therefore, one does not need to wait until the opening to enjoy the programming organised around this collection. Let's keep up to date.

 

In the year 2020 in the heart of Barcelona a wandering gallery was born, the same one that in February 2021 would debut at Art Madrid with an exhibition proposal focused on contemporary portraits; with this subject matter it would manage to create a powerful dialogue between artwork and audience and make the seal Inéditad remain in the history of the event that contained it.

Jean Carlos Puerto. Protección. Oil and copper leaf on wood. 60 x 48. 2021. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Since that first time and until today, the wandering gallery has managed to build projects on otherness, has repositioned in the spotlight the discourses on the LGTBIQ+ collective, has consolidated a group of artists who share its principles of resilience and empathy and the best thing is that it continues to bet from the professionalism and commitment to give voice to the difference.

Claudio Petit-Laurent.. El Joven de la Perla. Oil on wood. 30 x 30 cm. 2023. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Inéditad Gallery, thanks to its founder Luis López, its collaborators and the infinite possibilities manifested in the works of the artists it represents, is a gallery that has demonstrated its capacity and courage to stimulate the sensibility of the public through art and seduce a generation that moves between the glass window and the analogical story. Inéditad is a nomadic gallery that has gathered around it a community of artists and has moved the context with exhibition projects that think about LGTBIQ+ art without prejudices.

Pepa Salas Vilar. Las marcas del arcoiris. Oil on canvas. 40 x 50 cm. 2022. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Pride and Prejudice was inaugurated. An exhibition that brings together the works of sixteen artists: Abel Carrillo, Alex Domènech, Carlos Enfedaque, Silvia Flechoso, Jamalajama, Daniel Jaén, Claudio Petit-Laurent, Jean Carlos Puerto, Fernando Romero, Pablo Rodríguez, Pepa Salas Vilar, Jack Smith, Pablo Sola, Bran Sólo, Elia Tomás and Utürüo. Painting, illustration, photography and digital art are the manifestations that bring into dialogue around fifty neatly threaded pieces, in a discursive line that discusses such a latent phenomenon as discrimination. To achieve this, the artists invited to the exhibition question themselves whether: Does discrimination exist within the LGTBIQ+ collective?

Pride and Prejudice Official Poster. Image courtesy of the gallery.

With approaches on and from the body, the proposal invites to celebrate diversity, proposes to question and self-question the prejudices and attitudes of society against the collective. Pride and Prejudice is a space for dialogue about the constructs imposed on us by society. It is also an oasis in which to deconstruct with tolerance and respect the subjectivities that sometimes prevent us from approaching the production of the participating artists, simply because "the beautiful" does not fit in an androgynous body. The subjugation of stereotypes are pressed with determination to find the beauty of diversity in other palpable facets of reality.

Pablo Sola. All men are dogs. Photography. 2014. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Throughout these three years Inéditad has stimulated the vindictive projection towards bad practices, has questioned estates around the LGTBIQ+ body and the most admirable thing, is that these capacities have resurfaced around the dialogue and the visual narrative of the stories that are told from the visual: Artworks that are people, art that is, per se, humanity. Overcome impositions and accept what is different in order to continue fighting against homophobia, biphobia, lesbophobia or transphobia and defend the equal rights that all the acronyms of the collective deserve in our community.

That's Pride and Prejudice: One creature, the happiest in the world. And maybe other projects and other people have said it - or felt it - before, but none so fairly.

Silvia Flechoso. Hola, soy maricón. Oil on canvas. 73 x 54 cm. 2023. Image courtesy of the gallery.

From June 8th until June 22nd you can visit Pride and Prejudice. Carrer de Palau núm. 4. Canal Gallery space. Barcelona.