CITY TERRITORY: PARALLEL PROGRAM ART MADRID'25

ESPACIO TECTÓNICA

The city, as Henri Lefebvre argued, is not only a physical space but also a social product, a network of relations and representations that are constantly reconfigured. Its cracks, folds and vertices are more than mere accidents of the terrain, they are material manifestations of a dialectic between inhabitation and transformation. It is in this vacillation of forms and meanings that Espacio Tectónica was conceived, a place to promote the encounter between art, territory and city.

Maternidad geomética. Jeanne de Petriconi y Guillermo G. Peydró. 2023.

Inside the fair, Espacio Tectónica is configured as a space for reflection and action on our relationship with the urban environment. A space that encourages critical thinking and artistic experimentation, exploring the tensions that shape the contemporary city. Through a programme that includes a video cycle and meetings with professionals, the space invites us to think about how the city not only receives cultural practices, but also generates and transforms them. It is a field where differences and contrasts become a source of reflection and analysis, and where art becomes a tool for understanding the social and philosophical complexities of the world we inhabit. Like tectonic plates in friction, everything that happens in Espacio Tectónica shifts, collides and challenges the visitor to generate a state of questioning about how we inhabit public space.

Circular Inscription. Tezi Gabunia.2016.

VIDEO CYCLE: CARTOGRAPHIES OF PERCEPTION

Under the title Cartographies of Perception, during the week of the fair, Espacio Tectónica will host this section, curated by PROYECTOR's Imagen en Movimiento platform, which presents a selection of international video art works that address issues such as migration, territoriality and the relationship between the peripheries and urban centres from a contemporary and analytical perspective. From the production of semiconductors in Taiwan to the mutation of the landscape in Brazil, video art becomes a critical tool that unravels the interactions between urban space, nature, the climate crisis and contemporary perceptions of the environment.

The works presented address migration, territoriality and the relationship between centres and peripheries, examining the city as a complex organism, at once a labyrinth and a tower of Babel. Through video, the artists reflect on the role of the individual in the transformation of architectural space and the dynamics of feedback between peripheries and urban centres in an interconnected world, inviting the viewer to expand his or her perception of the spaces he or she inhabits.

Guest artists: Ilaria Di Carlo (it), Tezi Gabunia (ge), Juan Carlos Bracho (esp), Magda Gebhardt (bra), Lukas Marxt (aut), lololol (Xia Lin y Sheryl Cheung) (tw) and Yuchi Hsiao (tw).

Wafer Bearer Deep Rain. lololol. Xia Lin y Sheryl Cheung. 2022

INTERVENTION CYCLE: 20 DEGREES

As part of the parallel program, Espacio Tectónica will also host the Cycle of Interventions: 20 Degrees, in which professionals from the sector: artists, researchers, professors, curators, etc. will carry out ephemeral interventions to reflect on the city as a symbolic and political space. Key issues such as migration, the evolution of urban centers and the role of the individual in the transformation and atonement of the city will be explored. Through these actions, bridges will be built between disciplines and diverse perspectives, broadening the understanding of how art feeds back into the urban fabric and how public space is a natural environment for artistic creation.

Guest artists: Susi Vetter (al), Helena Goñi (esp), Paula Lafuente (esp), Olga Mesa (esp), Elena Arroyo (esp), Amaya Hernández (esp), Deneb Martos (esp), Guillermo G. Peydró (esp) & Jeanne de Petriconi (fr), Sergio Muro (esp) y Javier Olivera (esp).

La Pagoda de Fisac II. Amaya Hernández. 2022.

Espacio Tectónica functions as a dynamic node within Art Madrid. Its rhizomatic character allows art not only to inscribe itself in the territory, but also to transform it, infiltrating its meanings and re-signifying it. It is a meeting point and a space for critical thinking that welcomes visitors and invites them to discover new ways of inhabiting and perceiving the urban environment.

ABIERTO INFINITO. LO QUE EL CUERPO RECUERDA. CICLO DE PERFORMANCE 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: OSCURECER UN PAPEL. BY ROCÍO VALDIVIESO

March 5 | 7:00 PM. Galería de Cristal of the Palacio de Cibeles.

Nocturnality. Installation. Rocío Valdivieso..

Oscurecer un papel forms part of a series of actions in which the artist engages in reading through repetition, memorization, and a measured degree of improvisation. Within this framework, a non-linear mode of reading emerges from a written text that is transformed when spoken aloud, assuming a different form in the act of articulation. The texts stem from an ongoing investigation into materiality, space, the relationships between body and matter, writing, the sculptural, and a sustained interest in the exploration of voice and orality.

The material from which Oscurecer un papel is constructed consists of a collection of purchase receipts the artist has been accumulating over time. The printed text they contain, together with the action of bringing them into proximity with a heat source—thereby activating the thermal paper on which they are produced—generates meanings that revolve around the notions of consumption and wear.

Rocío Valdivieso. Latent Aura. Performance documentation.

ABOUT ROCÍO VALDIVIESO

Rocío Valdivieso is an artist, researcher, and cultural manager. She is currently a PhD candidate in Fine Arts at the Complutense University of Madrid. She holds an MA in Research in Artistic Practices from the University of Castilla–La Mancha (UCLM) and a BA in Fine Arts from the National University of Tucumán, Argentina. She was a Fundación Carolina fellow from 2022 to 2023. She currently co-directs Errática. Laboratory of Processes and Critique in Madrid, alongside Romina Casile.

She was part of the PEEPA 2023 Program at the Centro de Residencias Artísticas, Matadero Madrid. She completed the 2021/22 Artists Program at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, Buenos Aires, and in 2020 participated in the Intensive Curatorial Program of Proyecto PAC at Galería Gachi Prieto, Buenos Aires. She received the Visual Arts Promotion Award at the 4th Visual Arts Week of the Ente Cultural de Tucumán. She was awarded an AUGM scholarship for an exchange residency at UNESP, São Paulo, Brazil. She also participated in the International Residency Program La Ira de Dios and in the Acéfala Galería Residency for Argentine artists.