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. PERFORMANCE CYCLE 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: ALTA FACTURA. BY COLECTIVO LA BURRA NEGRA

March 4 | 7:00 PM. Galería de Cristal of the Palacio de Cibeles.

"Discipline for Power.” Performance by La Burra Negra for Displacement of the Congress of Deputies by Roger Bernat. 2025.

Alta Factura subverts the conventional structure of the fashion runway to foreground the often-invisible processes that underpin artistic production. Through a series of conceptual textile works, the performance draws attention to the discipline of craft and the artist’s vulnerability, ultimately revealing those seams typically consigned to the margins, behind the scenes.

Colectivo La Burra Negra.

ABOUT EL COLECTIVO LA BURRA NEGRA

La Burra Negra is a nomadic performance art collective based in Málaga, founded in 2024 following its first residency in Totalán. The group is self-managed by Ascensión Soto Fernández, Gabriela Feldman de la Rocha, Sasha Camila Falcke, Sara Gema Domínguez Castillo, Sofía Barco Sánchez, and Regina Lagos González—six artists from diverse backgrounds and trajectories who met at the Hospital de Artistas at La Juan Gallery.

The collective brings together practitioners working across jewelry, painting, the performing arts, music, dance, cultural mediation, and arts management. Its activities include an annual residency in Totalán, the production of performative works, cultural mediation initiatives, and site-responsive interventions.

Since its inception, the collective has participated in the Periscopio series at La Térmica; presented A granel at the MVA in Málaga; carried out a number of actions in Totalán—the most recent during its second annual residency—and contributed its own proposals to the performance Displacement of the Congress of Deputies by Roger Bernat in Madrid.

At the core of La Burra Negra lies a commitment to collective creation and the exchange of knowledge. United in their effort to experiment with and disseminate performance art, the group explores the invisible dimensions of artistic labor—its temporalities, efforts, and relational dynamics, which so often remain unseen—as a form of critical affirmation.

Their practice emerges from dialogue and shared reflection, in the pursuit of decentralized spaces where art can be experienced and its processes made visible. Each residency and each action becomes an attempt to inhabit creation collectively, challenging conditions of precarity while fostering networks of care and collaboration that sustain both their own practice and that of those around them.