Intercessions. Performance Cycle X Tara For Women. Parallel Program. Art Madrid'24

INTERCESSIONS. PERFORMANCE CYCLE X TARA FOR WOMEN

In his Poetics of Space, Gaston Bachelard states: "One must be in the present, in the present of the image, in the minute of the image: if there is a philosophy of poetry, this philosophy must be born and reborn with the motif of a dominant verse, in total adherence to an isolated image, and precisely in the ecstasy of the novelty of the image”.

In our present time, a moment of homogenized images, we find a problem that is expressed in the need to listen to the voices that come from otherness. In those other places, it is still possible to find the novelty of the image and the poetry of the image that announces diversity. Everything seems known or familiar if we explore the possibilities of representing a concise idea of the present, of the moment that obliges us to act. From here, contemporary art serves as a pretext to transform society, making use of its goodness as a healing instrument and giving voice to those who turn their vocation into dominant verse, to break into the scenario in which everything happens and takes place, thus making them part of what is happening.

Are we capable of putting ourselves in the place of the other? Do we use our privileged place to intercede for others? How often do we drop our "I" to support the " We"? What does it mean to work for the common good?

All these questions are answered in the exercise of intercession. How people intercede for one another in order to change the course of events, how intercession has the purpose of finding a solution for the improvement of our fellows, how the work and the commitment of those for whom we intercede are brought into a common place.

Thus was born Intercessions, a Performance Cycle X Tara For Women, part of the Parallel Program of Art Madrid'24, featuring artists Estel Boada (Mataró, Barcelona, 1991), Teresa Búa (Muxía, A Coruña, 1991), Sara Domínguez (Málaga, 1993) and Mónica Egido (Salamanca, 1994). The main purpose of the cycle is to bet on projects that reflect our times. The performance in its multiple dramaturgical expressions, especially those that use the body as a vehicle to deconstruct and observe from a critical perspective, the relationship of human beings with their natural environment, are conducive to relate the truth of our time.

Mónica Egido. Still from the FOMO Project. 2024.

Like hands to the body, eyes to the soul, earth to life, and art to society, the powerful metaphor that represents the exercise of interceding for the other turns the stage of the fair into a device capable of activating and communicating the concerns of the invited artists and extending them to the public in a gesture of empathy..

The treatment of human relations makes the carnal habitat a reservoir of affection for the surrounding reality. To intercede for others, to propitiate an intercession with the objective of achieving a benefit for an entity or subject that dynamizes our action, is the leitmotif of this performance cycle, which appropriates one of the most important artistic moments of the year and transforms it into a catapult of projection for the four participating artists.

Estel Boada. Performance of Pfff Historia d'una Fitball. Documentation. 2024.

Intercessions proposes a sharp look at the symbolic relationship between human beings and their context, turning the body into a reservoir of affections that enables intercession and the act of interceding for other entities or subjects. In essence, this initiative seeks to promote reflections that transcend the surface of everyday experience, challenging prejudices and entering into the construction of an artistic legacy forged from experience stripped of conventionalisms.

The selection of artists responds to the need to highlight the relevance of works that, through performance, have a strong impact on the collective conscience regarding the challenges and dangers that threaten our society and the way we relate to others. The human body, considered as a motor and a link with the artistic and natural essence, becomes the epicenter of the conceptual exploration proposed by this program, transcending the ordinary to unravel the complexities of the intercession between the individual and his environment.

During the days of the fair, Intercessions will transform the exhibition space into an activating device powerfully communicating the urgency with which humanity must approach the construction of its future legacy. Just as the hands are to the body, the eyes to the soul, and the earth to life, this cycle of performances affirms that art, in its maximum expression, intercedes for us, and represents the fundamental notion that will guide the participants in their search for the transcendence and meaning of their works. Intercessions is thus established as a manifesto of performance, a critical and transformative instrument forging a provocative and necessary dialogue in the context of Art Madrid'24.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Mónica Egido (Salamanca, 1994) is a visual artist with a background in physiotherapy and specialization in neuroscience of chronic pain and obstetrics. She has excelled in the field of photography, being selected for Futures Photography 2023 and awarded a grant by PhotoEspaña. Her work, exhibited in various spaces in Europe, addresses different issues of neuroscience in relation to health, using art as a mechanism for dissemination, as in her latest project FOMO, where she talks about the impact of permanent anxiety on physical and mental health. Her piece Vacío reflects on the feeling of dissatisfaction and unhappiness that many people of the millennial generation suffer from.

Mónica Egido. Guest artist of Intercessions. Performance Cycle X Tara For Women.

Mónica Egido presents at Art Madrid'24 her performance: VACÍO. From the series FOMO

Vacío is a reflection of the sense of dissatisfaction and constant unhappiness that many people belonging to the millennial generation suffer from.

Mónica Egido. Still from Vacío. FOMO Project. 2024.

Sara Gema Domínguez (Malaga, 1993) is an artist with a background in Fine Arts and a MA in Interdisciplinary Artistic Production and Research. She specializes in action art, exploring the relationship between art and life. The performance Bingo de Artista satirizes and criticizes the processes of artistic professionalization, inviting the public to participate as potential creators in a game that questions chance and artistic recognition.

Sara Gema Domínguez. Guest artist of Intercessions. Performance Cycle X Tara For Women.

Sara Gema Domínguez presents at Art Madrid'24 her performance: BINGO DE ARTISTA

Chance is a constant in our lives, and the context in which an artist is born or develops is essential to determine their position in the market or mere recognition.

Sara Gema Domínguez. Bingo de artista. Documentation. 2024.

Teresa Búa (Muxía, A Coruña, 1991) combines fine arts, fashion design and craftsmanship in her artistic projects. Her work, represented in national and international exhibitions, focuses on self-knowledge, Galician cultural heritage and digital fashion.

Teresa Búa. Guest artist of Intercessions. Performance Cycle X Tara For Women.

Teresa Búa presents at Art Madrid'24 her performance: MATERNIDAD 4. AMAMANTAR

This work invites us to witness the beauty of maternal experience as a source of creativity in the intercession of life and production as interconnected forces in human experience.

Teresa Búa. Maternidad 4. Amamantar. Documentation. 2024.

Estel Boada (Mataró, Barcelona, 1991) is a multifaceted artist who addresses past, present and future issues in an ironic and burlesque way. With a background in Fine Arts, her work includes design, drawing, performance, among others…

Estel Boada. Guest artist of Intercessions. Performance Cycle X Tara For Women.

Estel Boada presents at Art Madrid'24 her performance: STAND, BY ME

Stand, by Me is a performance that wants to address the responsibility and the position of an art fair stand from an ironic and burlesque point of view.

Estel Boada. Stand, By Me. Documentation. 2024.

PERFORMANCES

Wednesday, 6 March / 19:00 h - Mónica Egido - VACÍO

Thursday, 7 March / 19:00 h - Sara Gema Domínguez - BINGO DE ARTISTA

Friday, 8 March / 17:00 h - Teresa Búa - MATERNIDAD 4. AMAMANTAR

Saturday, 9 March / 19:00 h - Estel Boada - STAND, BY ME

The performance cycle Intercessions. X Tara For Women is supported by the Foundation, whose mission is to empower talented women around the world to promote sustainable economic and social development. Its vision is to build a global community without borders, where talented women find the necessary empowerment and access to the essential tools to achieve success in their endeavors and artistic expressions. True to its values, it joins Art Madrid in this edition to contribute to the much-needed work of representing the talent of women artists in the national contemporary art exhibition circuit.

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.

In this sense, the invited artists will construct micro-scenarios in which gestures, postures, and bodily movements function as performative “fronts,” shaping the framework of perception and meaning for the audience. These actions dramatize everyday experience, offering idealized or heightened interpretations of the relationship between body, space, and temporality, while certain elements — invisible effort, internal tensions, contradictions — remain partially concealed, generating deeper layers of meaning and resonance.

In line with Goffman, performance operates within the tension between idealized representation and real effort, between what is visible and what remains silent. The artists manage the information they convey, selecting what is shown and what is concealed, articulating strategies of presence that may reveal or disguise power, vulnerability, resistance, or intimacy. In this context, idealization implies the construction of a performative language capable of foregrounding values, tensions, and relational possibilities, exposing the poetic density of the everyday and, if one wishes, breaking the barrier of opacity that shapes our behavior in “real” daily life.

Although the series focuses on the notions of body ↔ memory ↔ representation ↔ presence, it seeks to expand its horizon, conceiving performance as an act that reveals invisible bonds and tensions traversing bodies, objects, and contexts. Within this network of walls, stands, and corridors, parallels emerge as the Galería de Cristal becomes a mirror of aesthetic experiences: a space beyond the strictly artistic sphere temporarily inhabited by the ephemeral presence of contemporary art, as occurs within the context of the fair.

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.

INVITED ARTISTS

COLECTIVO LA BURRA NEGRA (Málaga, 2024)

La Burra Negra is a nomadic Action Art collective based in Málaga, founded in 2024 following its first residency in Totalán. It 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 creators from diverse backgrounds who met at the Hospital de Artistas of La Juan Gallery.

The collective brings together professionals from jewelry, painting, performing arts, music, dance, cultural mediation, and cultural management. Its activities include an annual residency in Totalán, the production of performative works, cultural mediation, and site-specific interventions. Since its creation, it has participated in the Periscopio Conference at La Térmica, presented A granel at the MVA in Málaga, carried out various actions in Totalán — most recently during its second annual residency — and taken part with its own proposals in Roger Bernat’s performance Desplazamiento del Congreso de los Diputados in Madrid.

Colectivo La Burra Negra presents at Art Madrid’26 its performance: ALTA FACTURA

The project forms part of a performative investigation that questions exhibition frameworks and the hierarchies of value that shape artistic creation. Through textile language and the body as a surface of inscription, the collective examines the tension between process and result, craft and spectacle, focusing on what the cultural system tends to conceal: invested time, wear, fragility, and the manual labor that sustains every work. Within this framework, the fashion runway appears as a symbolic structure condensing brilliance, consumption, and final product, becoming the point of departure for its subversion.

In this context, Alta Factura shifts attention to the seams — both literal and metaphorical — that usually remain in the shadows backstage. Through conceptual textile pieces, the performance exposes the rigor of craft and the artist’s vulnerability, transforming the runway into a critical space where process becomes the protagonist. By making visible the joints, adjustments, and traces of making, the work reclaims the value of the invisible and confronts the viewer with the material and affective conditions that sustain contemporary artistic practice.

ROCÍO VALDIVIESO (Tucumán, Argentina, 1994)

Rocío Valdivieso is an artist, researcher, and cultural manager. She is currently a PhD candidate in Arts at the Complutense University of Madrid and holds a Master’s degree in Research in Artistic Practices from the University of Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM). She earned a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from the National University of Tucumán and was a Fundación Carolina fellow between 2022 and 2023.

She currently coordinates Errática Laboratorio de procesos and Clínica de obra, alongside Romina Casile, in Madrid. She was part of the PEEPA 2023 Program at Matadero Madrid’s Center for Artistic Residencies, mentored by Dora García, Cabello/Carceller, and Isabel Marcos. She completed the 2021/22 Artists Program at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires.

Among her solo exhibitions are El orden de las virtudes (2022), Pintura plegaria (2021), and Teoría de lo involuntario (2019) in Tucumán, Argentina. She has participated in group exhibitions including Aura latente at Espacio Amazonas, the closing event of the PEEPA Program at Matadero Madrid, and Ceder una huella in Cuenca, Spain. Since 2013, she has participated in various educational programs and frequently writes texts accompanying art exhibitions. She is a founding member and former secretary of the board of the Association of Visual Arts Workers of Tucumán (TAViT).

Rocío Valdivieso presents at Art Madrid’26 her performance: OSCURECER UN PAPEL

Oscurecer un papel is part of a series of actions in which reading is constructed through repetition, memorization, and a degree of improvisation. A non-linear reading emerges from a written text that transforms when spoken aloud, shifting its form and meaning in the very act of utterance. The texts stem from research into materiality, space, and the relationships between body and matter, as well as writing, sculpture, and the exploration of voice and orality.

The material used to construct the piece consists of purchase receipts accumulated over time. The printed text on them, together with the act of bringing them close to a heat source — triggering the reaction of thermal paper — generates meanings linked to consumption, record-keeping, and wear.

AMANDA GATTI (Porto Alegre, Brasil, 1996)

Amanda Gatti is an artist and researcher whose practice unfolds across performance, video, photography, and installation. She explores the intersections between body, object, and space, investigating how we occupy — and are occupied by — the spaces that surround us. Drawing from experiences of displacement and observations of domestic and urban environments, her work conceives the body as mediator and archive, transforming found objects, spatial arrangements, and everyday gestures into ephemeral architectures and relational situations.

She completed a Master’s in Scenic Practice and Visual Culture at Museo Reina Sofía/UCLM (Spain, 2023) and holds a degree in Audiovisual Production from PUCRS (Brazil, 2018). Her work has been presented at institutions and contexts such as Museo Reina Sofía, Fundación Antonio Pérez, Galería Nueva, CRUCE, and Teatro Pradillo, as well as in exhibitions and festivals in Brazil, Germany, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. She currently resides in Madrid, with secondary bases in Brazil and the United Kingdom.

Amanda Gatti presents at Art Madrid’26 her performance: TRAYECTORIA

This performance continues the artist’s long-term research with objects found in public space: obsolete fragments, remnants of everyday use, and discarded materials that, once painted blue, acquire renewed visibility and an autonomous sculptural condition. These materials form an archive activated through gesture and displacement.

In Trayectoria, the artist proposes to traverse the fair’s main corridor while dragging a large group of these objects, linked together and tied to her shoelaces. The journey transforms this transit area into an active space in which body and materials generate new forms. The objects function as extensions of the moving body: they tense, divert, slow down, and reconfigure each step. The action explores the coexistence between the durable and the ephemeral, between what has been discarded and what insists on remaining. It approaches transit as the simultaneous activation of the material and immaterial, proposing an encounter between gesture, the sculptural, and all that continues to accompany us even after having been left behind.

JIMENA TERCERO (Madrid, 1998)

Jimena Tercero is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice — developed through video, performance, and painting — investigates the limits of identity in relation to the human body. Her work explores concepts such as memory, tangibility, and play, delving into subconscious pain inscribed in bodily memory.

She trained in painting with Lola Albín and in analog photography in Cambridge (2014). Between 2018 and 2020, she specialized in audiovisual practice, training as a filmmaker alongside figures such as director Víctor Erice and the production company El Deseo. She later completed a Master’s in Creative Direction at ELISAVA and developed her performative practice at La Juan Gallery.

She directed works such as Private (2016) and Paranoid (2021), presented at Galería Aspa Contemporary. She continued this line of inquiry in Yo mi me conmigo (2023), presented at Teatros del Canal; Inside Voices (2021), filmed at Conde Duque with the guidance of Itziar Okariz; and La última regla at La Juan Gallery. In 2026, she premieres the documentary Contando Ovejas, a portrait of two shepherds in Majadahonda reflecting on rural memory and its relationship with territory and time.

Jimena Tercero presents at Art Madrid’26 her performance: OFF LINE

OFF LINE is a performative piece that reflects on how the digital era is transforming the body’s relationship with the world and with others. Interaction is increasingly constructed through screens and interfaces, and identity shifts toward the virtual, subordinating physical experience to digital representation. In this context, the body becomes fragile: it loses density, memory, and active presence, becoming a support for information or image.

Hyperconnectivity and fragmented attention generate an increasingly inert corporeality, characterized by reduced spontaneous movement and diminished direct sensory interaction. This raises fundamental questions: how is presence redefined when our relationship with the world depends on technological mediation? What will happen to bodily experience in a future in which virtuality predominates over the physical?

There is a risk of progressive bodily passivity: bodies that remain still, whose activity is determined by devices, and whose memory is externalized into digital records. The fragmentation of physical experience and the primacy of technological representation create a scenario in which the body, although visible, is displaced from its original function as an agent of perception and action. This conceptual framework invites reflection on how digitalization affects corporeality, memory, and social relations, as well as on the vulnerability and inertia that traverse bodies in increasingly technologized environments.

PERFORMANCES:

Wednesday, March 4 | 7:00 PM — Colectivo La Burra Negra. Performance: Alta Factura

Thursday, March 5 | 7:00 PM — Rocío Valdivieso. Performance: Oscurecer un papel

Friday, March 6 | 7:00 PM — Amanda Gatti. Performance: Trayectoria

Saturday, March 7 | 7:00 PM — Jimena Tercero. Performance: OFF LINE

Art Madrid celebrates its twenty-first edition, consolidating itself as a platform for visibility and dialogue for national and international galleries and artists during Madrid Art Week. In this context, the fair renews its commitment to experimentation and to the inclusion of artistic practices that challenge conventional art market formats. The integration of the Performance Cycle — now in its third edition — reflects this institutional commitment to generating a space that fosters the production of live artistic experiences.

The Galería de Cristal of the Palacio de Cibeles, the fair’s venue, thus becomes an ideal environment in which architecture and the event’s own dynamics enhance the ephemeral and relational character of performance.

With this initiative, Art Madrid reaffirms its role as an active agent in the construction of a plural artistic ecosystem, committed to presence, research, and dialogue as fundamental axes of contemporary art.