When you don't want to face a definition, a label; when you like performance, live art and music; or video art, sound art and dance... To play with the words of the dictionary that refer to any aspect of contemporary creation, and you want to be a participant in that concept puzzle. For whom art is more than a contemplative action. With this sum of ingredients, La Caixa launched last year the "Night Found! Festival", an event in which all forms of artistic expression have a place and that seeks to offer a space for the most emerging, most groundbreaking productions in today's contemporary scene, both national and international.

Image of “Walking Out”, 2011 (via bernatdaviu.com)

Although the initiative has a stable programming part, most of the activities concentrate on an intense day designed to awaken the most restless senses and open up the future of art. On November 16th, CaixaForum Madrid will open the scene to different artistic disciplines, offering the viewer a wide range of possibilities. From video-art to electronic and experimental music, through illustration, performance, poetry and contemporary dance.

One of the highlights of the program is the performance of Violeta Gil and Abraham Boba in a literary-musical performance entitled "Before you throw away my things." Violeta's personal story comes at a time of vital transition, when, after living for a while in the United States, she returned to Spain after the worst years of the crisis. The result of this experience is this poem-book, which will be recited with the live music of Abraham Boba, a renowned sound artist.

Imageof the artwork by María Arnal and Ilan Manouach: “Shapereader Chorale”

We must also highlight the appointment "E gira tutto intorno alla stanza", a performance starring Bernat Daviu and a group of dancers choreographed by Mar Aguiló. This proposal rescues a recently extended practice in some avant-garde cities in which young people dance spontaneously in public spaces. On this occasion, the dance will take place in tune with the pieces exhibited in the room, in a dialogue generated in the context of the exhibition “The painting. A permanent challenge ”, with works by Spaletti, Ryman or Ángela de la Cruz. As Daviu explains, the purpose is to generate several layers of discourse, one over the other, although they do not always have a unique meaning and can be discordant.

Besides, you can enjoy "Shapereader Chorale", a performative action by María Arnal and Ilan Manouach. This meeting is articulated as an experimental workshop to inquire about musical composition, tactile exploration and vocal interpretation so that participants can collectively create a unique musical piece.

In addition, there is also room for the little ones with the performance of Spaghetti Monster (Anastasia Bengoechea). This graphic and creative humorist will share with the public her creative process with hints of humour and lots of energy.

After their appointment at CaixaForum Barcelona, last October, the Night Found arrives at the Madrid headquarters on November 16th. Get ready!

The cultural agenda gradually recovers after the health-crisis halt and art lovers are eager to enjoy the rich cultural offer that the different spaces and museums throughout our geography have to offer. In addition, one must remember that these centres have made an enormous effort to adapt to the demands that the new situation imposes and have created abundant online-accessible content to overcome confinement. We bring you a selection of content that can be visited both in person and through the web. There is no excuse for not enjoying contemporary art again.

Olafur Eliasson, “En la vida real (In real life)”, 2019

The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao continues with its exhibition dedicated to Olafur Eliasson and offers numerous resources to understand not only the exhibition but also the work of the centre in the assembly and installation process. The website allows us to expand content with interviews with the artist, the download of the audio guide and the vision of the curator Lucía Aguirre, who offers us different video-pills on the pieces in the exhibition.

"Olafur Eliasson: in real life" brings together a part of this artist's work since 1990 through sculptures, photographs, paintings and installations that play with reflections and colours. Likewise, the integration of elements such as moss, water, ice, fog... put the visitor in a situation that confuses the senses and tries to challenge the way we perceive our environment and move in it.

Regina de Miguel, “Isla Decepción”, 2017

The Botín Centre in Santander hosts the exhibition "Collecting processes: 25 years of Itineraries" which brings together the work of 25 of the 210 scholarship recipients who, to date, have enjoyed the Botín Foundation Plastic Arts Scholarship, started in 1993. With the works Lara Almárcegui, Basma Alsharif, Leonor Antunes, Javier Arce, Erick Beltrán, David Bestué, Bleda and Rosa, Nuno Cera, Patricia Dauder, Patricia Esquivias, Karlos Gil, Carlos Irijalba, Adrià Julià, Juan López, Rogelio López Cuenca, Renata Lucas, Mateo Maté, Jorge Méndez Blake, Regina de Miguel, Leticia Ramos, Fernando Sánchez Castillo, Teresa Solar Abboud, Leonor Serrano Rivas, Jorge Yeregui, David Zink-Yi, the exhibition is a good example of up-to-date and young contemporary art contributed by artists with very diverse profiles.

Clemente Bernad. Series “Ante el umbral”, Madrid, 2020

The Reina Sofía Museum wanted to create a visual chronicle of what the confinement and the tragic numbers of infected and deceased have meant for the lives of many of us: a tale of pain, nostalgia and uncertainty made by the photographer Clemente Bernad. This exhibition, curated by Jorge Moreno Andrés, is entitled “Before the threshold”, a title that expresses the strange sensation that occurs when faced with something new and unknown, something that we cannot control or avoid, and that we all must go through. The alteration imposed on our lives unexpectedly is reflected in the streets, transformed into places of solitude and abandonment where life has been paralysed.

Mario Merz / No title, Triplo Igloo, 1984 MAXXI Collection

At the IVAM, the exhibition "What is our home?" brings together works from the IVAM collection and the MAXXI centre in Rome to propose a reflection on the space we inhabit seen from a personal and social perspective. It is about investigating the value that these spaces have as a home or refuge, as well as part of a city or community.

The exhibition, curated by José Miguel G. Cortés, also wants to delve into the feeling of those who feel like foreigners anywhere, because they do not identify with the habits or customs of the society, they do not fit into these social patterns, and home becomes the only shelter space that can adapt to their identity needs.

Martha Rosler, frame from “Backyard Economy I-II”, 1974 © Courtesy of Martha Rosler, 2020

Es Baluard Museu is committed to video creation and performance and hosts the monographic exhibition “Martha Rosler. How do we get there from here?” dedicated to this New York artist who pioneered the use of video as a mechanism for social and political analysis. This exhibition includes various works, from video to photography and several publications, which synthesise her main lines of discourse. Her concern for public policies and the social equality of women has led her to actively participate in numerous social movements in La Havana, New York, Mexico DC or Barcelona, and these experiences are present in one way or another in her work.

With the curatorship of Inma Prieto, a selection has been made within the abundant production of this artist, which presents one of the most coherent careers in towards-the-new-Millenium contemporary art.

Image from file, via meiac.es/turbulence/archive/acceso.html

The MEIAC - Museo Extremeño e Iberoamericano de Arte Contemporáneo, host the works of the prestigious international digital art archive "Turbulence", a platform dedicated to network and hybrid art. In view of the inevitable closure of this institution, the MEIAC has offered to host all this valuable content collected since 1996. The uploading of the file also served as an opportunity to restore numerous pieces and convert formats so that files that had become obsolete remain readable by new systems. A huge job of conservation and updating that can be enjoyed online today. The archive is made up of hundreds of digital works from around the world that can now be visited remotely.