Art Madrid'25 – ONE PROJECT REDEFINES ITS PROPOSAL UNDER THE TITLE OF “SALVAJES. LA CAGE AUX FAUVES”

The One Project program brings in this edition a risky bet: investigate and question the forms and concepts that dominate the art market. Fashions, trends, the imposition of globalization, the mainstream... All of them are elements that make up the flows, institutions and legitimizing actions of professional artistic development.

One Project has evolved since its creation. This is a transversal proposal that in last years step up its position as one of the fundamental pillars of the fair. Art Madrid wanted to go one step further to celebrate its 15th edition and expand and transform it into a space for dialogue and confrontation that includes a greater number of participating artists working from a different perspective to understand contemporary creation.

Julio Anaya

Edouard Vuillard - Jarrón de flores, 2019

Acrílico sobre cartón

56 x 57cm

Virginia Rivas

Sentir, 2018

Acrylic and graphite on canvas

162 x 130cm

One of the great innovations of One Project is the incorporation of the critic and curator Fernando Gómez de la Cuesta that under the enigmatic title of "Salvajes. La cage aux fauves" presents a selection of 9 artists who will exhibit their work in a differentiated space of symbiosis, stimulation, contact and friction.

Fernando Gómez de la Cuesta makes his proposal classic starting dichotomy that existed between the great official salons and those creators who subverted the state of the question, either from their convoluted participation in them or by generating new alternative devices such as independent or des refusés salons.

Alona Harpaz

Art in America, 2019

Acrilico, spray y colores industriales sobre lienzo

70 x 100cm

In spite of dynamics of the art market to which a contemporary art fair is subject, Art Madrid is committed to have a space for research and reflection to give visibility to artists who are on the way of creation autonomously and personally without responding directly to the majority guidelines. Artists who travel through their own, unusual spaces and who resist being part of the globalisation.

From the visible questioning made by Julio Anaya of classical painting to the investigation of colour and his perception according to the emotional, social and political state that Virginia Rivas performs. Also through the collection and reconstruction that Roberto López creates to make us visible the consumerism and mega-production to which we are exposed without pause for digestion.

RLM

Avatar Cowboy, 2017

Tela sobre fibra de vidrio y resina

150 x 30cm

RLM

Avatar El Elegido, 2016

Tela sobre fibra de vidrio y resina

150 x 30cm

The artists of One Project generate this analogy with the classic halls that now travel from academics and stand on trends that create apparent success guidelines without depth discursive.

Itineraries that run out of the usual and conventional without leaving indifferent as to the work of Andrés Planas where converges primitive art, especially Africans, with sex, with excesses, with taboos, with violence and with death, with religion and against the church, against repressive teaching.

Andrés Planas

Los 12 Apóstoles, 2019

Mixed media

35 x 15cm

The audience can observe a creation-destruction dialogue, with respect but without fear, with irreverence, without formality to give space to resistance. Transgress beauty as the artist Alona Harpaz or transit in magical spaces between nature and the human through the sculpture of Nicolás Laiz Placeres.

Alona Harpaz

Betty Blue, 2019

Acrílico y spray sobre lienzo

100 x 80cm

Nicolás Laiz

Política Natural I, 2018

Resina, fibra de vidrio, aridos y pintura doble componente

80 x 30cm

Art is a place of meeting and life, the magic of creation is deposited in a calm look of the environment as Santiago Palenzuela do with his spatula or by focusing on the current way of life between superficiality and imposture, between the psychic and the genuine as Juan Carlos Batista does with his images.

Juan Carlos Batista

Psicopaisaje II, 2015

Impresión digital en papel de algodón

60 x 77cm

Santiago Palenzuela

Ola, 2019

Oil on canvas

200 x 200cm

One Project is a program where there is also space for the fusion between classical art and urban art like the duo PichiAvo creating a new conceptual language handy for a heterogeneous audience.

PichiAvo

Orphical Hymn III to Nike, 2019

Mixed media on canvas

120 x 90cm

 

From July 7 to 9, 2025, the Balsera Palace will host the First Course on Collecting and Contemporary Art, an intensive 15-hour program that will explore the complex and fundamental question of taste in contemporary art. Organized by the Nebrija Institute of Arts and Humanities at Nebrija University and the Avilés City Council, in collaboration with 9915 — Association of Private Collectors of Contemporary Art and the Institute of Contemporary Art, the course offers a unique opportunity for analysis and debate on the dynamics that shape aesthetic and symbolic value in today’s art scene.


First Course on Collecting and Contemporary Art. Avilés, Asturias


The notion of taste, intrinsically tied to aesthetic judgments and power relations, has played a decisive role in the historical prominence of artists and artworks. However, contemporary art—marked by its breaking of conventions, diversity of media and techniques, and critical stance toward traditional canons—raises fundamental questions about the continued relevance of this concept.

This course will explore how the decisions made by key players in the art system—institutions, private collections, galleries, curators, and artists—continually redefine a field of taste shaped by aesthetic, symbolic, cultural, social, and political logics.


"¿But does it exist, and what is the prevailing taste of our time—so seemingly confused, fragmented, indecipherable?" - Omar Calabrese, The Neo-Baroque Era.


The academic program, directed by José Luis Guijarro Alonso, Director of the Master’s in Art Market and Related Business Management at Nebrija University, and Pablo Álvarez de Toledo, Head of the Department of Arts at Nebrija University and the Nebrija Institute of Arts and Humanities, will bring together a distinguished group of national experts—including collectors, critics, curators, gallery owners, and artists—whose contributions will address key issues in shaping aesthetic, symbolic, and market value in today’s art world.


PROGRAM

MONDAY, JULY 7

9:30 AM Registration.

10:00 AM Course Opening Nebrija University Avilés City Council Presented by Rosario López Meras – President of the Association of Contemporary Art Collectors, 9915, and Adrián Piera – President of the ICA, Institute of Contemporary Art.

10:30 AM Course Presentation By José Luis Guijarro Alonso – Art Historian and Anthropologist, Researcher, and Director of the Master’s in Art Market and Related Business Management at Nebrija University.

11:00 AM Coffee Break.

11:30 AM Panel Discussion The Taste of Private Collecting as a Prelude to History. Speakers: Candela Álvarez Soldevilla – Entrepreneur and Collector; Javier Quilis – INELCOM Collection; José Miguel Vegas Valle – Collector. Moderator: Luis Feás – Critic and Curator.

1:00 PM Lunch Break.

3:30 PM Individual Lecture On Good Taste in Contemporary Art. Speaker: Marisol Salanova – Curator and Art Critic, Director of Arteinformado.

4:45 PM Panel Discussion The Influence of Galleries in Shaping Contemporary Taste. Speakers: Elba Benítez – Gallerist; Ricardo Pernas – Gallerist (Arniches 26); Aurora Vigil-Escalera – Gallerist. Moderator: Rafael Martín – Coleccion@casamer.

6:00 PM End of Day.

6:30 PM Activity and Cocktail Visit to the Exhibition Asturian Artists in the Pérez Simón Collection – Avilés.

TUESDAY, JULY 8

10:00 AM Individual Lecture Contemporary (Bad) Taste: Kitsch, Camp, and Tacky. Speaker: Julio Pérez Manzanares – Autonomous University of Madrid.

11:00 AM Coffee Break.

11:30 AM Panel Discussion Institutions and the Formation of Contemporary Taste. Speakers: Virginia López – Artist, Founder of PACA_Proyectos Artísticos Casa Antonino; Julieta de Haro – Artistic Director of CentroCentro; Carlos Urroz – Director of Institutional Relations, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. Moderator: Laura Gutiérrez – Director, School of Art of Oviedo.

1:00 PM Lunch Break.

3:30 PM Panel Discussion Beyond the Eye: The Taste for Ethical, Ecological, Social, or Political Concerns in Contemporary Art. Speakers: Semíramis González – Independent Curator; Eugenio Ampudia – Artist; Claudia Rodríguez-Ponga – Independent Curator. Moderator: Bárbara Mur Borrás – PhD in Fine Arts.

5:00 PM End of Day.

5:30 PM Activity Visit to the Studiolo Exhibition – Candela Álvarez Soldevilla Collection.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 9

9:30 AM Meeting with Asturian Artists Speakers: María Castellanos – Artist; Avelino Sala – Artist; Consuelo Vallina – Artist. Moderator: Pablo Álvarez de Toledo – Nebrija University.

11:00 AM Activity Visit to the Niemeyer Center – Avilés.

Course Closing Ceremony.





This course is designed for art professionals, collectors, researchers, and students seeking an in-depth analysis of the dynamics that shape taste and collecting practices in contemporary art. Adopting a critical and multidisciplinary perspective, it provides a unique opportunity to rigorously examine the aesthetic, symbolic, and structural factors that underpin the legitimization of contemporary art.