Art Madrid'25 – PIGMENT GALLERY: FROM THE MOST MODERN FIGURATION TO THE PUREST ABSTRACTION

The Barcelona gallery Pigment Gallery is participating for the first time in Art Madrid with a selection of works ranging from the most modern figuration to the purest abstraction. Pigment participates in the fair with five local artists and one Italian artist based in Barcelona. They are: Aurelio San Pedro, Marta Fàbregas, Adalina Coromines, Rosa Galindo, Rosanna Casano and Alberto Udaeta.

The multidisciplinary artist Aurelio San Pedro (Barcelona, 1983), uses different media and techniques both traditional and digital to express himself. In Art Madrid, Aurelio San Pedro will present works belonging to his series "Libros" which he tells a story about the concept of time by using as signs of his compositions book songs, pages, covers and cut-out words, structuring them within a surface which he achieves the final sculptural piece. In this way, the artist creates his own symbology and artistic imagery.

Each book he uses does not contain just a story, it is full of experiences and memories of the author himself or of the characters in the story told, and in many cases of the artist himself. The artist plays with time, conveying his experiences through fragments of books with variable times, using repetition, gathering and order to symbolize the concept of the archive.

Aurelio San Pedro

Aquellas historias le cambiaron, 2000

Técnica mixta con papel de libro

100 x 100cm

Marta Fàbregas

Colonitzada nº55, 2019

Fotografía antigua, mix media sobre papel de acuarela sobre tela

130 x 100cm

The concept of time is also used in the work of Marta Fàbregas (Barcelona, 1974). In her series "Colonizadas" she rescues photographs of 19th century women from different social and working environments who have been subdued simply because they are women. All of them, in one way or another, were colonised by society, which took away their identity, their future, their desires and their dreams. Marta Fàbregas gives visibility to women who never had it.

Fàbregas uses photography as the basis of her work, but she alters it through the technique of transphotography by combining photographs from digital archives with precious fabrics, using collage techniques, inks, gums, which she manages to create textured surfaces. These fabrics are attached to the image by means of digital retouching, complemented by collages and transphotography.

Adalina Coromines

Grècia, 2019

Mixed media

183 x 153cm

Adalina Coromines (Barcelona, 1963) by means of different techniques in which natural pigments, earth, sand and ecological materials in general are found, creates a suggestive work, where the sensation of the passage of time is transmitted by the appearance of the piece already aged, being the textures and the patinas the elements that contribute those effects of illusory wear that the artist manages to transmit, and that coexist in her inner world. The big formats of her works help the viewer to enter into the deepest mysticism of the artist.

Coromines intervenes the materials used in her art work, texturing them with different tools, some of them coming from her own inventiveness, and she manages to create bas-reliefs that give depth to his work, in which large horizontal wooden boards are superimposed on metal ones. A beauty achieved through modesty and simplicity.

Rosa Galindo

lagon 3, 2019

Tecnica mixta sobre plexigas

150 x 150cm

The dream images of the artist Rosa Galindo (Barcelona, 1962) transport us to an imaginary territory of delicate organic forms that she achieves by playing with different research processes, mainly with the technique of reverse Plexiglas painting. This plastic material allows to obtain transparencies and opacities in which the color vibrates of a special form in its gestural brushstrokes, managing with it to create a fictitious atmosphere where it manifests his philosophy on the place of the world in which the humanity must be located.

His works lead us to a world of meditation and personal reflection through the weightless sensation that the organic forms superimposed on his colorful backgrounds arouse.

Rosanna Casano

Atrio, 2019

Oil on paper

47 x 46cm

Rosanna Casano (Marsala, Italy, 1968), settled in 1989 in Barcelona, the city where she forged her artistic career. In Casano's work geometric forms, symmetry and patterns predominate, some of her pieces remind us of architectural structures ordered with simple forms, others start from more organic forms that tend to be figurative.

“In my work, different ways of composing coexist that are complementary. There is a tendency to order by means of construction and form, structuring a space, geometry creates a place where I think I am what I feel. And there is a tendency to leave the matter that I express, open or uniform, organic or mineral matter, where perhaps I think I feel what I am.”

Alberto Udaeta

Yunque de la memoria, 2014

Grey iron

15 x 31cm

Alberto Udaeta

Anvil of water 722, 2014

Grey iron

18 x 50.5cm

The wrought iron sculptures by Alberto Udaeta (Barcelona, 1947) are based on experience and history. Using traditional techniques, some of which are typical of craftsmanship, the artist creates delicate structures based on assembled geometric elements that fit together. Udaeta seeks the splendour of forms through matter.

The artist condenses in his trajectory his formation and experience as an industrial engineer and his more profound investigation in the field of iron sculpture, experimenting with cast iron in the workshop he set up in Barcelona in 1982 in a former cork factory. ”The metals, fumes and gases that clutter workshops and foundries have partially spoiled my sense of smell, which is why I remember with nostalgia the smells I perceived as a child, when I returned to my great-grandmother's farm in the car. Fabulous smells of earth, water, freshly mown grass and also of horses, stones and snakes. But above them all there is still the bright, sharp, metallic smell of the edge of the dalle, very similar to that of my iron sculptures".

 

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.