Art Madrid'25 – SHAPE AND COLOUR IN ART MADRID

The abstraction is a style emerged in the 19th century that gained strength progressively until reaching a large presence in the art world. Figurative art follows its own evolution, but it does not always achieve that same expressive potential. As abstract art consolidates, the game of creators in the combination of shapes and colours becomes increasingly complex. The power of the stain, the communicative value of the void, the absence, the strokes or the contrasts serve to recreate a universe of thoughts and emotions more difficult to capture through material and tangible elements.

Many times abstraction is achieved with the combination of these two artistic tools: shape and colour, used with intention and consciousness to build a complete narrative. The history of art, however, has offered us examples in which both elements can live separately. Before the Renaissance, the form was the one that prevailed over the colour, which was just a simple complement. The contours, the volumes, acquired a presence of their own, with an autonomous and self-sufficient expressive load in which colour, rather, had no place. It is afterwards when colour begins to acquire relevance by itself. Caravaggio, with its chiaroscuros, will give it the importance it deserves, the figures will no longer be flat, they will highlight the volumes and textures that make their way between a rich and diverse palette.

Caravaggio, "Giuditta e Oloferne", 1597

Although during Realism, form and colour will be comparable, with the impressionists colour and shape no longer exist, only the air - light relation will be real for the painter. This way, the light will be the real subject of the painting. The quality and quantity of it, not the line or the colour, will be what will offer one or another visual configuration of the object. However, Post-impressionism, among other things, supposes a recovery of the importance of drawing and of the concern to capture not only the light but also the expressiveness of things and enlightened people.

Claude Monet, "La Promenade" 1875

Form and colour and their connection to abstract art will be the elements that stand out in the work of the nine artists of the exhibition "Shape and Colour in Art Madrid". Thus, for the sculptor Carlos Evangelista, everything maintains a perfect order. His style is based on geometry, on the purity of simple forms and the multiple possibilities offered by the combinatorial development of simple modular units. Candela Muniozguren, for her part, proposes an intimate communication between her creative developments where minimalist shapes dominate and the multiplicity of chromatic effects. "Senbazuru", alludes to the old Japanese legend in which health is promised to anyone who manages to build a thousand origami cranes. For this, the artist combines the use of a single colour with the abstraction of planes, curves and diagonals that come together to result in a dazzling work that recalls those traditional Japanese folds.

Candela Muniozguren

Acid Bang 02, 2018

Lacquered steel

39 x 16cm

Candela Muniozguren

Territorios Lindantes 1, 2018

Lacquered steel

32 x 25cm

Carlos Evangelista

Encuadrados, 2017

Wood

40 x 40cm

On the other hand, Rafael Barrios plays with shapes altering the laws of geometry, fabled volumes in space. His sculptures rise above themselves defying the rules of space, relieving bodies subject to gravity. "Hondos" or "Mural" are identified by their dynamics, by their lightness, by force and by the magnetism that they print with the purpose of each of them reaching the spirit. And we can not forget, the playful use of the shape and colour that Willi Siber performs or the exploration of pigments used by the Sevillian artist Isabelita Valdecasas in Cosmogonías.

Isabelita Valdecasas

Cosmogonia Deep Blue, 2016

Mixed media on canvas

100 x 100cm

Willi Siber

Tafelobjekt, 2016

Metal, polyurethane and epoxy

116 x 104cm

Rafael Barrios

Hondos, 2016

Lacquered steel

83 x 64cm

The lines, shapes and colours of the language of the artist from Elche Ramón Urbán are born of the abstract and the poetic. It stands out the coexistence between the rotundity of the clean space drawing, of certain coldness, and the intense or soft footprint of the painting that lends warmth and ornament to the elemental form. In "Secret Artifice" the circles melt to confuse, lines that play with verticality, spheres unimaginable for their composition... they make Urbán's play a game of life and tranquillity.

Ramón Urbán

Secreto artificio, 2017

Synthetic enamel and rust on wood

160 x 45cm

As for painting, we have chosen works such as those in the series "Flights II" by Nanda Botella, where light, colour and strength represent the elements of expression for this artist. However, the ethereal colour palette used by the abstract painter Sylvie Lei produces disconcerting paintings that relate to the problematic nature of virtual reality in the contemporary social context.

Nanda Botella

Vuelos II, 2017

Oil, acrylic, linen and methacrylate

162 x 130cm

Sylvie Lei

Dimensional Sequence, 2017

Oil on canvas

70 x 50cm

For his part, the Catalan painter Gerard Fernández Rico turns the line into the true protagonist in "Through the line". A diverse and complex path which the artist approaches in a millimetric way as if he were looking through a microscope. A line that together with the explosion of colour generates a vibrant sensation, a fresh and dynamic air in each of its pieces.

Gerard Fernández Rico

Lila 001, 2018

Mixed media on board

130 x 110cm

Gerard Fernández Rico

Azul 001, 2018

Mixed media on board

129 x 108cm

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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.