Contour Art Gallery, DDR Art Gallery, Granada Gallery, About Art, Flux Zone, RV Cultura e Arte and Víctor Lope Arte Contemporáneo

Colour becomes the main theme of the new One Project program. It is the guiding thread that unites the artworks in different conceptual and formal dialogues. Lucid narratives in which you can lose yourself entering a beginning that takes us to another new beginning and in which reality is camouflaged, transcended or subverted.

Once again Art Madrid presents the One Project program, conceived to support and promote young artists whose careers are in an initial or intermediate state. The project takes place in a curated proposal within the fair in which the works of the creators are presented in a solo show format while maintaining a unitary vision.

Alejandra Atarés

Jardin con fondo rosa, 2018

Oil and acrylic on linen

150 x 150cm

This year, one of the great updates of the program is the incorporation of Nerea Ubieto, art critic and curator who presents a new proposal led only by female artists. This choice, as stated by Ubieto, is based “on the eagerness to level an unstable balance in which female participation in art fairs is still today unfair”. Under the title "Ficciones, máscaras y paisajes: el color como telón de fondo", 7 artists feature specific proposals for the fair in which the international presence stands out and specifically, highlighting Latin American participation.

As the curator explains, the works invite us to build our own universes, because "through creation, we can get rid of the burdens that slow down the development of society, dissolve stereotypes, invent new ones, own what we want to change and, effectively, transform it. No limits are worth having, just more or less believable masks; only colour with a more or less positive charge”.

Rūta Vadlugaitė

A Place for Bird Nests, 2015

Oil on canvas

73.7 x 101.5cm

Rūta Vadlugaitė

Hepatica, 2017

Oil on canvas

80 x 60cm

The worlds of Rūta Vadlugaitė, an artist represented by the Lithuanian Contour Art Gallery (Vilnius), are characterized by huge colour spots within a reduced palette. Her works are characterized by being compositions of resounding and minimal shapes because colour dominates everything. With a clear tendency towards blue tones, Vadlugaitė’s landscapes describe spaces that have a lot of abstraction, autobiography, intuition and rigour as Ubieto points out, defining them as "catapults of multiple psychological ideas" in which the artist’s states of mind are reflected as metaphors.

Virginia Rivas

Jugando al escondite, 2016

Acrylic, graphite and bodybuilder tape on canvas

20 x 20cm

Virginia Rivas

Oh, la mía pena, 2016

Acrylic, graphite and bodybuilder tape on canvas

40 x 40cm

A deep interest in the large colour spots mark the paintings of the most abstract and gestural Virginia Rivas, artist who is represented by the online gallery DDR Art Gallery (Madrid). Rivas' emotional abstraction is characterized by expanded stories, by small revelations about experiences or personal thoughts that interrupt her compositions. Altogether, her paintings are like traces of interior worlds now exteriorized and exposed in a beautiful "letting go" manner. As the curator points out, Rivas invites us to travel through perhaps more intimate places, but possible even in the framework of a fair.

Mara Caffarone

Sin título, 2018

Pastel óleo sobre papel

70 x 50cm

Mara Caffarone

Selfie portrait, 2015

Aerosol sobre polietileno

150 x 60cm

Also, Mara Caffarone’s work moves between the abstract and the gestural brushstroke, to which a marked sensory character is included. Represented by the Argentine Granada Gallery (Comuna), her work reflects on "the limits of perception and the need to identify what we observe”, explains Ubieto. From purely painting, Caffarone quickly jumps to the incorporation of extra-pictorial materials -especially plastics and air spray-, to video or installation. In fact, the proposal that will be presented at Art Madrid will include video, installation and painting in an artistic experience that will go far beyond the traditional and contemplative exhibition ways.

Nuria Mora

Sin título, 2018

Acrylic on paper

110 x 75cm

Nuria Mora

Sin título (Placas tectónicas I), 2018

Acrylic on paper

181.5 x 146cm

On the other hand, "the playful factor and the indomitable flexibility of the paintings" by Nuria Mora come to overflow any support, "as if the geometrized pigment were born from the bottom of the walls and collapsed by its cracks generating epidermal and cumulative layers", the curator explains. Represented by About Art Gallery (Lugo), Mora is one of the most outstanding artists of the so-called Post-Graffiti movement who, some time ago, has transferred her seductive organic and geometric shapes from the wall to the paper. However, as it could not be otherwise, these colourful shapes will again be insurgent and will exceed the limits of the imposed exhibition space boundaries.

Sofía Echeverri

Juegos prohibidos III, 2014

Acrílico y óleo sobre lienzo

120 x 160cm

Sofía Echeverri

Trampland con olas, 2015

Acrylic on canvas

180 x 220cm

Sofia Echeverri , who exhibits her works with the Flux Zone gallery (Mexico City), has a very particular way of expressing her stories. Echeverri begins with narratives in black and white, with a figurative and geometric tendency, which are updated and transcended through the introduction of the contrast of vivid colours such as magenta, green and blue. In general, behind this formal strategy, there is a conceptual criticism: "the colour contrast questions what we lose for what we prefer to keep says the artist". Art Madrid presents a selection of three of its most outstanding series: "Juegos prohibidos", "Trampland" and "Pedir la lluvia", series in which seduction, mystery and discomfort -even the sinister side, as Freud would say- compose stories that serve Echeverri to divide the reality.

Manuela Eichner

Bruja, 2018

Collage on wood

60 x 45cm

Also, the subversive masks of Manuela Eichner are presented at One Project program. They are creations with which the artist reinterprets female prototypes and myths using collage as a fundamental technique in order to alter their meanings. Represented by the Brazilian gallery RV Cultura e Arte (Salvador), Eichner will introduce us to Art Madrid in a unique tropical jungle in which a catalogue of perturbations of the traditional female role is described. It is a visual rewriting work of with which it creates new paradigms, proposes new iconographies, where the provocation brings together icons of the mythological tradition with pornographic stereotypes and vegetable motives to reflect on "the domestication of the wild". Plants and women as main characters because, as Ubieto says, in both cases one can speak about "tamed bodies, subdued, reduced to mere decoration".

Alejandra Atarés

Japonesa con palmeras nevadas, 2017

Oil and acrylic on linen

114 x 146cm

Alejandra Atarés also shares these claims who, represented by the gallery Víctor Lope Arte Contemporáneo (Barcelona), closes the One Project proposal with two of her main lines of work. On the one hand, she invites us to star in other people's lives looking through the colourful representation of women who turn their backs to us: they usually hide their face, absorbed by blurred horizons. On the other, also from her characteristic figurative shapes and full of colour motifs, she takes us to dreamlike landscapes in which "she breaks the rules of perspective and real space introducing us to fictitious paradises in which the inside and the outside are confused”. As the curator concurs, “colour expands, contaminates the environment and connects the seven proposals in a wave of freshness and vigour”.

Ignacio Iñigo. Me recogió el viento sobre un arbol catalán. Piel de pintura roja sobre rama del Collserola. 45 x 22 x 20 cm. 2024

March transforms Madrid into a true hub of the art market, with fairs such as Art Madrid—an event we at Devesa have the privilege of supporting—characterized by a closer connection to private collecting and the Spanish art scene. In that context, it is no coincidence that a familiar question resurfaces whenever art ceases to be merely a passion and begins to occupy a stable place within a family’s or group’s wealth architecture: does it make sense to channel the acquisition, stewardship, and rotation of a collection through non-profit vehicles—foundations or associations—and, if so, what are the legal and tax boundaries of such a model?

The short answer is yes, it can be an appropriate structure—but only if one clearly understands what is truly being established: not a “wrapper” for tax optimization, but an entity oriented toward purposes of general interest (cultural, educational, heritage conservation and dissemination, among others), subject to governance, oversight, and asset-allocation rules that make the reversion of contributed assets to founders or trustees, in practice, extremely difficult. For precisely that reason, when the objective is the intergenerational continuity of a collection without fragmentation through inheritance, a foundation (or an association declared to be of public benefit) can be a highly effective solution. The collection “exits” the personal estate and becomes part of a dedicated patrimony allocated to a cultural purpose, with a vocation for permanence.

Mario Valdés. Simetría dicroica. 4 Ying. 2026. Vidrio. Proceso dicroico sobre base de luz. 20 × 30 × 22 cm. 2026

From a technical standpoint, if the aim is to access the special tax regime established under Law 49/2002, the first step is selecting the appropriate vehicle. The law recognizes as non-profit entities, among others, foundations and associations declared to be of public benefit, provided they meet the requirements set out in Article 3 (pursuit of purposes of general interest, allocation of income, generally unpaid governing positions subject to certain nuances, and—crucially—the mandatory allocation of assets upon dissolution). In the art context, this requires careful drafting of the bylaws: the cultural mission must be genuine rather than rhetorical, and activities must be grounded in demonstrable policies concerning acquisitions, conservation, research, cataloguing, loans, exhibitions, publications, or support for artists.

From the perspective of Wealth Tax (and, where applicable, the Temporary Solidarity Tax on Large Fortunes), the principal mechanism is straightforward: assets that are no longer personally owned do not form part of the taxable base. The Temporary Solidarity Tax operates as a complementary state tax to Wealth Tax for net assets exceeding €3,000,000, with its own specific mechanics. Accordingly, the contribution (by way of donation) of a collection to a foundation reduces, from the following tax accrual date, the contributor’s exposure to these taxes—provided the transfer is effective and ownership genuinely passes to the entity.

Lúcia David. Orange descentralized control. Caja de mdf, papel, hilos, pegamento. 50 x 50 x 10 cm. 2025.

That said, Wealth Tax itself contains a particularly relevant nuance for collectors: certain works of art and antiques may qualify for exemption where their value does not exceed specified thresholds by category. In addition, exemption may apply to works placed on permanent deposit for a minimum period of three years with museums or non-profit cultural institutions for public exhibition, for as long as the deposit remains in force. An artist’s own works are likewise exempt while they remain part of the artist’s estate. This deposit alternative may prove attractive where the collector wishes to retain ownership while mitigating tax exposure and reinforcing the social function of the collection without definitively relinquishing it. In other words, before “foundationalizing” a collection, it is advisable to assess whether category-based exemptions or the deposit mechanism already address a significant portion of the issue.

Succession planning is likely the most compelling—and at the same time most delicate—argument. References to “preserving an inheritance without taxation” require precision: a foundation is not a device for transferring assets to heirs while avoiding Inheritance and Gift Tax, because the collection ceases to be inheritable in the traditional sense.

Daniel Sueiras. "The shining". Mixta sobre papel pegado a tabla. 40 x 30 cm.2025.

What it achieves is something different: it prevents the collection from being fragmented among heirs upon the collector’s death or from having to be liquidated to satisfy tax liabilities or distribution requirements. Instead, the collection remains within a legal entity of indefinite duration, governed by a Board of Trustees and oriented toward cultural purposes. The family may retain influence through the composition of the Board, governance protocols, and professional artistic management, but always within clear limits: trustees cannot be the principal beneficiaries of the entity’s activities or enjoy preferential conditions. In the event of dissolution, the assets must be allocated in their entirety to other entities eligible for patronage incentives or to public bodies pursuing purposes of general interest. This “lock”—which ultimately guarantees that the assets are devoted to the public interest—explains why contributed property is difficult to reverse and, in economic terms, exits the family’s patrimonial sphere.

Where the regime under Law 49/2002 offers particularly significant advantages for the natural cycle of collecting—selling in order to reinvest—is in Corporate Income Tax at the entity level. The law exempts, among others, income derived from donations; income from movable and immovable property (dividends, interest, royalties, rental income); and, notably, income arising from the acquisition or transfer, under any legal title, of assets or rights. In a foundation that rotates works to enhance the curatorial coherence of the collection, finance restoration, or acquire pieces more aligned with its mission, capital gains generated upon sale will generally fall within the scope of the exemption under the special regime. The Corporate Income Tax base will therefore be limited to non-exempt economic activities, taxed at a rate of 10% on that base.

Carmen Mansilla. La pintora. Óleo y lápiz sobre lino. 80 x 80 x 4 cm.2026.

This advantage, however, is not a blank check. Law 49/2002 requires that at least 70% of certain income and revenues be allocated, directly or indirectly, to purposes of general interest within a period that generally extends up to four years following the close of the financial year. Moreover, the entity must avoid engaging in economic activities unrelated to its statutory purpose, subject to operational limits that require careful monitoring of the proportion of income derived from non-exempt activities. Translated into art-market terms: selling works in order to reinvest and sustain cultural programs is consistent with the regime; transforming the entity into a disguised dealership or a vehicle for systematic trading is not.

When properly structured, therefore, a foundation (or an association declared to be of public benefit) provides a legally coherent response to three classic challenges of patrimonial collecting: (i) recurring exposure to Wealth Tax and the Temporary Solidarity Tax on Large Fortunes, (ii) succession discontinuity and the risk of fragmentation, and (iii) tax and governance friction when rotating works to improve and professionalize a collection. In exchange, two trade-offs must be accepted: first, the collection becomes irrevocably dedicated to a cultural purpose that must be substantiated and actively managed; second, the contributed assets cease to be “recoverable” in family terms, as the legal framework safeguards their allocation and, with it, the social credibility of patronage.

Perhaps that is the essential message in fair season: the art market thrives on passion, but it is consolidated through institutions. When collecting is conceived with a long-term perspective, non-profit structures do more than organize tax exposure—they provide structure to purpose, governance, and legacy. And in an ecosystem such as Madrid’s in March, where creation, investment, and public culture coexist, that combination—properly designed and executed—may represent the most sophisticated way to transform a private collection into shared heritage without sacrificing professionalism, managerial control, or the capacity for evolution.