Looking back, eighteen years is a vast and fleeting period. A time in which Art Madrid has been building its path as a reference event for the visual arts and the market in Spain and Europe. The appointment every February, in Casa de Campo or Palacio de Cristal de Cibeles, has been adding to its history, a repertoire of galleries and artists that during these years have evolved along with the event.

Pause: A pandemic, uncertainty, and the reunion with the "unmentionable party" of art have also been part of the life of the fair.

Art Madrid has demonstrated its commitment to contemporary art, its managers, and its leading makers in each edition. That is why every year, hand in hand with its advisory committee, the quality of the exhibition proposals and the desire for the fair to become a commitment to the future, speaks of the rigor in the selection of galleries and the quality of the works. That can be appreciated at the appointment.

In 2023 Art Madrid comes of age. A stadium in which it begins to be aware of the impact produced by his presence in Madrid's art week. And a moment to reflect on the path that remains to be traveled. Its mission: to continue being a disruptive and daring scene. Its bet: is to strengthen its role as a living showcase for contemporary art produced inside and outside the peninsula.

Remy Samuz, ‘Liberté’, 2018

In this journey that reaches its eighteenth edition, thirty-six galleries will attend the event to show the recent works of the more than one hundred and sixty artists who share space in the glass gallery. It is worth noting the presence of manifestations, such as painting, sculpture, photography, and drawing, always protagonists in the projects with which the galleries endorse their trajectory and that of the creators they represent. However, the performance and the installation will have a notable presence within the Curating Program, which for the third time, comes from the curator and art critic Natalia Alonso Arduengo. And that focuses on Identity as a category of analysis and starting point for questioning and aesthetic production. The narrative of this edition will also be accompanied by the Interview Program directed by the theoretician and curator Alfonso de la Torre, an erudite window that opens to the public to promote an approach to the eight most outstanding artists of ArtMadrid'23.

The return to the eighteenth sun of our house is a reason to celebrate. And we will do it again with the Acquisition Awards, the Collectors Program, and the consistently accurate advice from our Art Advisor Ana Suárez Gisbert. Thus, we invite collectors and the general public to look with the eyes of desire at the works the galleries will display in their spaces—an unrepeatable opportunity to enter the deep world of collecting.

This year's contemporary art event returns renewed, betting on new gallery models, inaugurating reception platforms so that young voices find their place in the current scenario, and interested in bringing new audiences closer to the project. Aware of the role that Art Madrid plays as an event that is due to the galleries and deals with finding a market niche for young and mid-term creators, we insist on the need to build unprejudiced visibility spaces and call attention to the urgency to professionalize artistic practices within the national and international circuit. It seems like a great responsibility. It is. And to bring Art Madrid's commitment to fruition, we have always surrounded ourselves with professionals and institutions that have accompanied us on this journey. They have all been building the itinerary today as a preamble to give thanks and celebrate our coming of age: An "unmentionable party" that has only just begun.

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.