It is impossible to be nearer, physically and symbolically. Portuguese artists and professionals can consider Art Madrid "their fair". On this occasion, the Art Lounge and Arte Periférica galleries, both from Lisbon, and Paulo Nunes Arte Contemporânea, from Vila Franca de Xira, participate in the General Program of the fair. The Nuno Sacramento gallery is part of ONE PROJECT program.

João Santos

Sin título, 2017

Plexiphoto

100 x 70cm

Art Lounge, under the direction of Sofía Tenreiro Da Cruz, intends to disseminate the work of international artists recognized for the quality of their work. Convinced of the importance of cultural exchange, the gallery tries to show in Portugal foreign artists still little known in the country and, in a second phase, aims to promote the internationalization of contemporary national plastic arts. The Art Lounge proposal for Art Madrid'18 is multiple: Uiso Alemany, Carmen Calvo, Fabio Camarotta, Fernando Coelho, Vinita Dasgupta, Daniel Merlin, Brice Munier, João Noutel and Florian Raiss.

Carmen Calvo, “Alegría es uno de sus adornos más vulgares”, técnica mixta, collage y fotografía.

The work of Carmen Calvo always deserves a break. National Prize of Plastic Arts 2013, Calvo is a reference in the contemporary conceptualization of the fragment. Her work has an essence of finding and reminiscence and materials such as cement, marble, glass, clay, plaster and a long etcetera are part of her compositions that have been renewed over the decades in an evolution that led her to represent Spain in the Pavilion of the Venice Biennial of 1997 with Joan Brossa. Next to her, the colorful and almost childlike forms of Brice Mounier, the materic portraits of Daniel Merlin or the social art of Vinita Dasgupta that wants the viewer feels and participates in her images, in the process of discovery, the synthesis of personal feelings, the color that inspires her and the technique used.

Isabelle Faria

Purity-Finally time had come IV, 2017

Oil on canvas

80 x 80cm

Isabelle Faria

Purity-Finally time had come VI, 2017

Oil on canvas

40 x 40cm

Also in Lisbon, Arte Periférica has been promoting international contemporary art in the city for 25 years. Directed by Anabela Antunes and Pedro Reigadas also bet on an ambitious collective formed by the artists Isabel Sabino, Isabelle Faria, Jessica Burrinha, Moses Duarte and Sylvie Lei.

We highlight here the contrast between the work of the French Isabelle Faria, graduated in Fine Arts, Painting, Drawing and Video at the Central School Saint Martins in London in 2003 and focused in a style of drawing and painting very expressive, fast, almost gestural and full of acid humor to represent the tormented part of the human being: his vices, his fears, his sins... In contrast with the work of the Asian abstract painter Sylvie Lei who, with an almost ethereal palette and inspired by the effects of neon light and the screens produce paintings that deal with the problematic nature of virtual reality in the contemporary social context and its way of changing our space-time.

Mário Macilau

Sem Título, 2017

Mixed media on canvas

80 x 120cm

The Galería Paulo Nunes Arte Contemporânea, located in the historic center of Vila Franca de Xira, returns to Art Madrid. Founded in December 2010, its main objective is the dissemination of consolidated and emerging artists, national and international, in all disciplines. Not only do they organize their own exhibitions and take their artists to fairs all over the world, but they also give advice to collectors. One of its bets is to close alliances with other international galleries to promote their artists looking for an exchange between the creators and their works. Rui Dias Monteiro, Mário Macilau, Gilvan Nunes, Ana Pais Oliveira and Manuel Patinha are the creators chosen by them to premiere at the Madrid Art Week.

The work of the African Mário Macilau, documentary photographer who also experiments with painting, aims to make visible the social conditions in his country and the African continent. He began in the world of photography in 2003, but it was not until 2007 when he devoted himself professionally and has already participated in international exhibitions such as the Biennial of African Photography of Bamako 2011, the BESTphoto 2011 of Portugal, the VI Edition of the Chobi Mela Photo Festival of Bangladesh 2011, the Photospring of Beijing 2011 or the Lakes Photo I and II edition. In addition, he is a member of the committee of artists and curators of the photography festival organized by the Goethe Institute in Africa. We also highlight the work of Rui Dias Monteiro, photographer and poet who mixes these disciplines creating images with great conceptual content, graphic ideas that he intervenes with pure painting on photographic paper to create unique pieces.

The Nuno Sacramento Gallery, based in Aveiro (Portugal), participates in the ONE PROJECT program with a solo-show by Bernardo Media, but we will talk about this in detail later.

The cultural agenda gradually recovers after the health-crisis halt and art lovers are eager to enjoy the rich cultural offer that the different spaces and museums throughout our geography have to offer. In addition, one must remember that these centres have made an enormous effort to adapt to the demands that the new situation imposes and have created abundant online-accessible content to overcome confinement. We bring you a selection of content that can be visited both in person and through the web. There is no excuse for not enjoying contemporary art again.

Olafur Eliasson, “En la vida real (In real life)”, 2019

The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao continues with its exhibition dedicated to Olafur Eliasson and offers numerous resources to understand not only the exhibition but also the work of the centre in the assembly and installation process. The website allows us to expand content with interviews with the artist, the download of the audio guide and the vision of the curator Lucía Aguirre, who offers us different video-pills on the pieces in the exhibition.

"Olafur Eliasson: in real life" brings together a part of this artist's work since 1990 through sculptures, photographs, paintings and installations that play with reflections and colours. Likewise, the integration of elements such as moss, water, ice, fog... put the visitor in a situation that confuses the senses and tries to challenge the way we perceive our environment and move in it.

Regina de Miguel, “Isla Decepción”, 2017

The Botín Centre in Santander hosts the exhibition "Collecting processes: 25 years of Itineraries" which brings together the work of 25 of the 210 scholarship recipients who, to date, have enjoyed the Botín Foundation Plastic Arts Scholarship, started in 1993. With the works Lara Almárcegui, Basma Alsharif, Leonor Antunes, Javier Arce, Erick Beltrán, David Bestué, Bleda and Rosa, Nuno Cera, Patricia Dauder, Patricia Esquivias, Karlos Gil, Carlos Irijalba, Adrià Julià, Juan López, Rogelio López Cuenca, Renata Lucas, Mateo Maté, Jorge Méndez Blake, Regina de Miguel, Leticia Ramos, Fernando Sánchez Castillo, Teresa Solar Abboud, Leonor Serrano Rivas, Jorge Yeregui, David Zink-Yi, the exhibition is a good example of up-to-date and young contemporary art contributed by artists with very diverse profiles.

Clemente Bernad. Series “Ante el umbral”, Madrid, 2020

The Reina Sofía Museum wanted to create a visual chronicle of what the confinement and the tragic numbers of infected and deceased have meant for the lives of many of us: a tale of pain, nostalgia and uncertainty made by the photographer Clemente Bernad. This exhibition, curated by Jorge Moreno Andrés, is entitled “Before the threshold”, a title that expresses the strange sensation that occurs when faced with something new and unknown, something that we cannot control or avoid, and that we all must go through. The alteration imposed on our lives unexpectedly is reflected in the streets, transformed into places of solitude and abandonment where life has been paralysed.

Mario Merz / No title, Triplo Igloo, 1984 MAXXI Collection

At the IVAM, the exhibition "What is our home?" brings together works from the IVAM collection and the MAXXI centre in Rome to propose a reflection on the space we inhabit seen from a personal and social perspective. It is about investigating the value that these spaces have as a home or refuge, as well as part of a city or community.

The exhibition, curated by José Miguel G. Cortés, also wants to delve into the feeling of those who feel like foreigners anywhere, because they do not identify with the habits or customs of the society, they do not fit into these social patterns, and home becomes the only shelter space that can adapt to their identity needs.

Martha Rosler, frame from “Backyard Economy I-II”, 1974 © Courtesy of Martha Rosler, 2020

Es Baluard Museu is committed to video creation and performance and hosts the monographic exhibition “Martha Rosler. How do we get there from here?” dedicated to this New York artist who pioneered the use of video as a mechanism for social and political analysis. This exhibition includes various works, from video to photography and several publications, which synthesise her main lines of discourse. Her concern for public policies and the social equality of women has led her to actively participate in numerous social movements in La Havana, New York, Mexico DC or Barcelona, and these experiences are present in one way or another in her work.

With the curatorship of Inma Prieto, a selection has been made within the abundant production of this artist, which presents one of the most coherent careers in towards-the-new-Millenium contemporary art.

Image from file, via meiac.es/turbulence/archive/acceso.html

The MEIAC - Museo Extremeño e Iberoamericano de Arte Contemporáneo, host the works of the prestigious international digital art archive "Turbulence", a platform dedicated to network and hybrid art. In view of the inevitable closure of this institution, the MEIAC has offered to host all this valuable content collected since 1996. The uploading of the file also served as an opportunity to restore numerous pieces and convert formats so that files that had become obsolete remain readable by new systems. A huge job of conservation and updating that can be enjoyed online today. The archive is made up of hundreds of digital works from around the world that can now be visited remotely.