In its seventeen previous editions, the Art Madrid fair has been a stage where Portuguese galleries have met, turning our event into an unmissable appointment to discover and appreciate the news of an essential representation of the Portuguese visual arts production. And lay on the table the interest in these established spaces and their market internationalization inside and outside Portugal. From February 22 to 26 galleries, already familiar with the fair's context, return: Art Lounge Gallery, (Lisbon), Nuno Sacramento Arte Contemporânea, (Ílhavo), Galeria São Mamede, (Lisbon) and Trema Arte Contemporânea, (Lisbon) joins the roast. Twenty artists will land in our capital thanks to these spaces to show their most recent works. Painting, photography, sculpture and drawing prevail in this edition.

Lúcia Davis, “Rubbish”. Trema Arte Contemporáneo ©

The galleries' exhibition proposals stand out for the support and materials experimentation. From poetic-plastic rereadings of everyday objects (Trema Arte Contemporânea); the disruption of photography (Nuno Sacramento Arte Contemporânea); painting and drawing as experiential tools (São Mamede Gallery), and the interrelation between pictorial exercise and the space that contains it (Art Lounge Gallery). These brushstrokes shed light on the interest of each exponent to travel on the right foot in the paths of contemporary visual production in Portugal and its representation at the behest of the market.

Sofia Areal, “Coração e Noite” 2010. Galería São Mamede ©

Special attention deserves Trema Arte Contemporânea, which began its activity with a group of emerging Portuguese artists and nowadays is recognized in the Portuguese gallery circuit as one of the highest-level galleries. It has marked the eclecticism of the most current Portuguese art and other foreign artists with innovative projects for over twenty years. From its list, we want to highlight Carlos Barão, a spontaneous artist who focuses his research on the search for sensations that border on dreaminess within the painting. And the works of Lúcia David, who immerses herself in drawing to raise the roots of an imperfect and daring staging. Galeria São Mamede opened its doors in the sixties, and its interest has always been framed within the Portuguese modernism and contemporary movement. From its list, we highlight the participation of Sofía Areal one of the most important painters of her generation, and Nélio Saltão a self-taught artist with a meaningful career in painting and color experimentation.

João Noutel, “Future”, 2022. Art Lounge Gallery ©

While the series of portraits of Nuno Horta (Mirandela, Bragança, Portugal, 1977) repeats in ArtMadrid with Nuno Sacramento Arte Contemporânea. The great beauty is frozen in the approximations that this artist conjures up of the human figure, totally fanatical about the perfection and deification of the faces. Human physiognomy becomes an updated account of experimentation with fluorescent light and color in an intrinsic search for golden proportions. The treatment of postmodern icons in João Noutel work (Porto, Portugal, 1971) is another of the approaches that Art Lounge Gallery proposes to the painting. The artist works on an interesting pictorial proposal. He recounts the complex mechanisms of the image and its deconstruction or reconversion into an object of desire in the times that welcome us.

The Portuguese visual arts show, with these representations in our fair, the solid contemporary movement breathed into the gallery circuit to which they belong.

nuno Horta, “Dominion”, 2021. Nuno Sacramento Arte Contemporânea ©

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: OFF LINE. JIMENA TERCERO

March 7 | 7:00 p.m. Galería de Cristal of the Palacio de Cibeles.

OFF LINE is a performance piece that reflects on the fragility of the body in the digital age. Our relationship with the outside world is mediated by a screen, which distances us further and further from physical contact and interpersonal relationships. Focusing on creating a digital identity causes the body to distance itself from the physical world and lose its memory.

Hyperconnectivity and fragmented attention lead to a more passive physical existence, characterised by reduced spontaneous movement and less direct sensory interaction. This raises fundamental questions: how is the concept of presence redefined when our relationship with the world relies on technological mediation? What will the experience of the body be like in a future where 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 stored digitally. The fragmentation of physical experience and the primacy of technological representation create a scenario in which, although the body is visible, it is displaced from its original function as an agent of perception and action.

This conceptual framework invites reflection on the impact of digitisation on corporeality, memory and social relationships, and on the vulnerability and inertia experienced by bodies in environments that are increasingly mediated by technology.

ABOUT JIMENA TERCERO

Jimena Tercero (Madrid, 1998) is a multidisciplinary artist whose work explores the boundaries of the female body, identity, and the subconscious. She uses performance, video, and painting to address concepts such as memory, tangibility, and play. Tercero trained in painting with Lola Albín and in analog photography at Cambridge in 2014. She studied audiovisual direction from 2018 to 2020 with renowned figures such as Víctor Erice and the production company El Deseo. She is currently pursuing a Master's degree in Creative Direction at ELISAVA. She completed her performance training at La Juan Gallery. In 2011, she was part of the children's jury at the Isfahan Film Festival in Iran.

Her directed works include Private (2016) and Paranoid (2021), which were exhibited at the Aspa Contemporary Gallery. She has also worked on projects such as Yo, mi, me, conmigo (2023, Teatros del Canal), Inside Voices (2021, Conde Duque with Itziar Okariz), and La última regla (La Juan Gallery). She has directed fashion films for publishers and brands such as Puma, Dior, and Dockers. She has also provided art direction for artists such as Sen Senra and Jorge Drexler. Additionally, she directed the documentary Also Here for ArtforChange–La Caixa. She presented Out of View (Nebula Gallery), EDEN (White Lab Gallery), and Navel Bite (Sinespacio). She participates in residencies such as Medialab with Niño de Elche and Miguel Álvarez Fernández. In 2025, she will be part of the Special Jury of the Asian Film Fest in Barcelona and the International Cultural Museum of Assilah Art Residency in Morocco).