Art Madrid'23 – WHEN VIDEO ART BECOMES A GREAT CELEBRATION

With 12 years of experience, PROYECTOR has established itself as a reference festival in our country dedicated entirely to video-creation, a discipline that continues to win followers and attracts many contemporary creators inside and outside our borders. Video is, in fact, one of the most widespread means of expression in our days. The power of the image in movement is undeniable, and the public demands new artistic languages that are in tune with their habits of cultural consumption. Contemporary art has surrendered to the attraction of this complex and dynamic technique, although it still strives to carve a niche among the traditional disciplines in the most consolidated exhibition circuits. For this reason, PROYECTOR was born, to give voice to so many authors who have found in video-art an ideal channel to hold their creative projects.

PROYECTOR aspires to offer a real vision of the international cultural fabric and the most recent contemporary trends around this speciality, with an ambitious program of activities held in different parts of the capital. Since it was first launched, this initiative has also wanted to be known abroad, and every year, the participation of international authors increases. From Japan to Argentina, passing through Israel, Austria, Brazil or the United States, to name just a few of them, the representation of foreign creators reveals the enormous interest that exists in the sphere of contemporary production in this discipline, which this way becomes a formal vehicle of an expressive language shared worldwide.





The next edition will take place from September 11th to 22nd, 2019 in a packed schedule of events that will bring together more than 50 artists in 14 different venues in Madrid. As every year, the program will host the invited artists along with those selected in the call for projects opened a few months ago and in which more than 400 artists from around 20 countries participated. The result is a rich panorama of the most up-to-date video-creation that opens its doors to the whole world, in the path traced by PROYECTOR since its beginnings: to bring art closer to the general public and pay attention to its experimental and committed nature around which the most critical and reflexive artistic discourses are currently built up.

Març Rabal, “Les eines i els dies” (frame)

In addition to the usual talks, projection cycles and workshops, the 12th edition of PROYECTOR will also host several site-specific projects created for the festival thanks to the program of artistic residences carried out in collaboration with Conde Duque, The Instant Foundation, Medialab Prado and Extension AVAM. Another novelty is the participation of the INELCOM Collection, which will open its doors to publicise its impressive funds dedicated to video-creation and technological art, as well as the "endorsements" where renowned international professionals will curate the artistic proposals coming from Europe and Asia. Also, we must highlight the award that the collector Teresa Sapey has granted to Març Rabal, to be delivered during the festival, and whose video-installation work will be on show in September.

Julieta Caputo y Ariel Uzal, “Un derrumble posible” (frame)

PROYECTOR 2019 promises to surprise everybody with its novelties. We look forward to the arrival of this essential event that for 12 days will conquer major spaces of the city, such as CA2M Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, INELCOM Collection, Conde Duque, Cruce, El Instante Fundación, AVAM Extension, Cervantes Institute, Medialab Prado, Quinta del Sordo, Room Alcalá 31, Room Equis, Room The Eagle, Secuencia de Inútiles and Plaza Pública.

 

In the year 2020 in the heart of Barcelona a wandering gallery was born, the same one that in February 2021 would debut at Art Madrid with an exhibition proposal focused on contemporary portraits; with this subject matter it would manage to create a powerful dialogue between artwork and audience and make the seal Inéditad remain in the history of the event that contained it.

Jean Carlos Puerto. Protección. Oil and copper leaf on wood. 60 x 48. 2021. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Since that first time and until today, the wandering gallery has managed to build projects on otherness, has repositioned in the spotlight the discourses on the LGTBIQ+ collective, has consolidated a group of artists who share its principles of resilience and empathy and the best thing is that it continues to bet from the professionalism and commitment to give voice to the difference.

Claudio Petit-Laurent.. El Joven de la Perla. Oil on wood. 30 x 30 cm. 2023. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Inéditad Gallery, thanks to its founder Luis López, its collaborators and the infinite possibilities manifested in the works of the artists it represents, is a gallery that has demonstrated its capacity and courage to stimulate the sensibility of the public through art and seduce a generation that moves between the glass window and the analogical story. Inéditad is a nomadic gallery that has gathered around it a community of artists and has moved the context with exhibition projects that think about LGTBIQ+ art without prejudices.

Pepa Salas Vilar. Las marcas del arcoiris. Oil on canvas. 40 x 50 cm. 2022. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Pride and Prejudice was inaugurated. An exhibition that brings together the works of sixteen artists: Abel Carrillo, Alex Domènech, Carlos Enfedaque, Silvia Flechoso, Jamalajama, Daniel Jaén, Claudio Petit-Laurent, Jean Carlos Puerto, Fernando Romero, Pablo Rodríguez, Pepa Salas Vilar, Jack Smith, Pablo Sola, Bran Sólo, Elia Tomás and Utürüo. Painting, illustration, photography and digital art are the manifestations that bring into dialogue around fifty neatly threaded pieces, in a discursive line that discusses such a latent phenomenon as discrimination. To achieve this, the artists invited to the exhibition question themselves whether: Does discrimination exist within the LGTBIQ+ collective?

Pride and Prejudice Official Poster. Image courtesy of the gallery.

With approaches on and from the body, the proposal invites to celebrate diversity, proposes to question and self-question the prejudices and attitudes of society against the collective. Pride and Prejudice is a space for dialogue about the constructs imposed on us by society. It is also an oasis in which to deconstruct with tolerance and respect the subjectivities that sometimes prevent us from approaching the production of the participating artists, simply because "the beautiful" does not fit in an androgynous body. The subjugation of stereotypes are pressed with determination to find the beauty of diversity in other palpable facets of reality.

Pablo Sola. All men are dogs. Photography. 2014. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Throughout these three years Inéditad has stimulated the vindictive projection towards bad practices, has questioned estates around the LGTBIQ+ body and the most admirable thing, is that these capacities have resurfaced around the dialogue and the visual narrative of the stories that are told from the visual: Artworks that are people, art that is, per se, humanity. Overcome impositions and accept what is different in order to continue fighting against homophobia, biphobia, lesbophobia or transphobia and defend the equal rights that all the acronyms of the collective deserve in our community.

That's Pride and Prejudice: One creature, the happiest in the world. And maybe other projects and other people have said it - or felt it - before, but none so fairly.

Silvia Flechoso. Hola, soy maricón. Oil on canvas. 73 x 54 cm. 2023. Image courtesy of the gallery.

From June 8th until June 22nd you can visit Pride and Prejudice. Carrer de Palau núm. 4. Canal Gallery space. Barcelona.