Art Madrid'25 – VIDEO ART LOOKING AT THE SEA: THE NETHERLANDS AND PORTUGAL

We finish our review of the screenings cycle that took place during the “Art Madrid-Proyector'20” program with the BUT Film Festival (Netherlands) and the three Portuguese proposals of InShadow, Loop.Lisboa and FUSO - Lisbon Annual Festival of International Video Art.

While FUSO and Loop are exclusively dedicated to video creation and film proposals, InShadow and BUT host more cross-cutting initiatives where different disciplines are worked on or they give way to more experimental and underground works. For Art Madrid, Loop and FUSO came up with a joint proposal around the work of the artist João Cristóvão Leitão.

The InShadow festival presents the best of transdisciplinary artistic creation in the areas of video dance, documentary, performance, exhibitions and installations. Its 11th edition was held at a dozen venues in the city of Lisbon: Marioneta Museum, Teatro do Bairro, Portuguese Cinematheque, Junior Cinematheque, Santa Catarina Space, Mercês Cultural Center, Marvila Library, Appleton Square, FBAUL Cistern, Ler Devagar, Gallery Otoco and Fnac Chiado, with various proposals and unpredictable encounters between cinema, dance and technology.

The artworks selected by InShadow for Art Madrid were: "Complex of shadow", by João Afonso Vaz; "Mujer vacío", by Max Larruy y Berta Blanca T. Ivanow; "Excuse my dust", by Maria Stella Andreacchio, Stefano Croci & Agata Torelli; "Makyō", by Brian Imakura; "The act of breathing", by Hana Yamazaki; "Bubblegum", by Ryan Renshaw; "Walls of limerick", by Arturo Bandinelli; "Alta", by Antti Ahokoivu; "Sculpt the motion", by Devis Venturelli, and "Brute", by Cass Mortimer Eipper.

Frame from "Mujer vacío", by Max Larruy & Berta Blanca T. Ivanow

BUT Film Festival is one of the most alternative projects on the international scene and is exclusively dedicated to B series films, Underground and Trash Films. The organisers announce that during the five days of the festival, there will be an extra dose of films full of violence, absurdity, creativity and pettiness.

They warn that they are looking for visitors who... : • Aren't likely to scream at the sight of blood! • Will be able to admire creativity to absurd extremes! • Like to combine a cozy atmosphere with watching films!

BUT participated in Art Madrid with the following artworks: "Zure Zult" (2016), by Angella Lipskaya; "Birds of a Feather" (2019), by Dann Parry; "L'ours noir" (2016), by Méryl Fortunat-Rossi & Xavier Seron; "Fabulous friendly cooking" (2018), by Nicky Heijmen & Tobias Mathijsen; "Bravure" (2018), by Donato Sansone; "Ringo Rocket Star and his song for Yuri Gagarin" (2019), by Rene Nuijens; "The Scuzzies" (2019), by Jimmy Screamer Clauz.

Frame from "Birds of a Feather" (2019), by Dann Parry

Loops.Lisboa is an annual exhibition presented by Festival Temps d’Images Lisboa and the National Museum of Contemporary Art since 2014, it is a unique showcase exploring the loop as an essential form of the language of film and video art. Starting in 2020, it becomes part of and international network dedicated to the form the Loop. The network includes: Mario Gutiérrez Cru (Festival Proyector, Madrid - Spain); Sandra Lischi (Onda Video, Pisa - Italy); Tom Van Vliet (WWVF, Amsterdam - The Netherlands); Cine Esquema Novo collective (Porto Alegre - Brazil) and Irit Batsry and Alisson Avila Loops.Lisboa/Festival Temps D'Images (Lisbon - Portugal).

FUSO was created in 2009, as the only festival with an ongoing national and international video art program in Lisbon. FUSO showcases in free outdoor projections, at Lisbon’s museum cloisters, video programs that are selected and presented exclusively for the festival by national and international curators. In addition to the proposed programs, each year FUSO also honours one or more artists who are historically and fundamentally important in video art. One of the main aspects of FUSO is the promotion of new national creations through an annual Open Call contest open to Portuguese artists or foreign artists living in Portugal

Fotograma de "Ulysses' Portrait

“Ulysses’ Portrait” by João Cristóvão Leitão (Loops.Lisboa Award, 2015).

The video is part of a trilogy that includes Irineu’s Portrait and Mónica’s Portrait, Jury’s Award and Audience Award, FUSO: Anual de Vídeo Arte Internacional de Lisboa.

"Ulysses’ Portrait" is a giddy journey through time and through literature. A journey where Ulysses is entrapped by the mechanism that is the loop, which operates at a narrative level, at a spatio-temporal level (given the use of a single sequence shot) and at a visual level (by means of the constant reuse of the same imagery material). After all, "Ulysses’ Portrait" is nothing more than an act of questioning human identity when confronting it with the possibility of time’s circularity and with its objective and subjective durations. Ulysses is Ulysses. However, that doesn’t mean that he isn’t, simultaneously, Cervantes, Pierre Menard, Alexander the Great, Caesar, Homer, Tchekhov, Nietzsche, Borges and, undoubtedly, myself as well.

João Cristóvão Leitão earned a Bachelor’s degree in Theatre (Dramaturgy) at the Lisbon Theatre and Film School and a Master’s degree in Multimedia Art at the School of Fine Arts of the University of Lisbon (FBAUL/CGD Academic Merit Award). Currently acquiring a PhD in Fine Arts by the same institution, researching subjects related to the practices of expanded cinema and to the literary and philosophical universes of Jorge Luis Borges. Also obtained training from Guillaume de Oliveira (2013) of the Oskar & Gaspar collective.

As a creator, he develops performance, video art and installation projects, which have been displayed around the world (Austria, Brazil, England, France, Ireland, Italy, Serbia, South Korea, Spain, Peru and Portugal) and have been awarded several times.

 

RAÍCES AFUERA. PERFORMANCE CYCLE X ART MADRID'25

Art Madrid celebrates twenty years of contemporary art from March 5 to 9, 2025, at the Galería de Cristal of the Palacio de Cibeles. During Art Week, it becomes an exhibition platform for national and international galleries and artists. In this edition, with the aim of providing a space for artists working in the realm of performance art, the fair presents Raíces Afuera, a performance cycle that explores notions of belonging and the need for rootedness in a contemporary world marked by fragmentation, displacement, and disconnection. Positioned within the fair as a critical and reflective space, the project challenges the individual’s relationship with their environment, community, and sense of identity.

PERFORMANCE: LAS FRONTERAS SIEMPRE TIENEN DOS LADOS. BY ELÉONORE OZANNE

March 6 | 19:00h. Galería de Cristal of the Palacio de Cibeles.


The real true tourist experience. Johanna Failer & Eléonore Ozanne. Performance Documentation.


You leave the house, and someone holds the door for you: "Oh, sorry—thank you." You’re walking down the street, and someone comes toward you: "Uh, sorry—thank you." If I’m late, if I can’t find something, if I don’t sit in my usual spot, if I ask for help, or if I don’t know what to say… "Sorry—thank you."

How many times have we said these two words? To whom? And why? Why does your mouth not sound the same as mine?


Day In, Day Out. Eléonore Ozanne. Performance Documentation.


Las fronteras siempre tienen dos lados invites us into the author's mind to discuss boundaries. Large boundaries that frighten. Tiny boundaries that are forgotten, and all those in between, with which we must negotiate, build, or tear down.

Las fronteras siempre tienen dos lados is a work that encourages reflection on the invisible borders that shape our daily lives. Through the words "sorry" and "thank you", the author sets up a dialogue about how, in our everyday interactions, we are constantly faced with limits and distances—both physical and emotional. Every time we use these words, we are acknowledging a separation, whether it’s letting someone pass or asking for help in moments of discomfort. The work highlights how these small phrases, often repeated without much thought, serve as a way to negotiate our relationships with the world and those around us.

In this context, the boundaries explored in the work are not just geographical, but also social and personal. The barriers that separate us from others may be subtle, but they significantly affect our daily lives. Through these gestures, we are constantly building, breaking down, or accepting the limits that define our relationship with others. Las fronteras siempre tienen dos lados challenges us to question how we perceive these boundaries and how words that seem simple actually reflect the complex dynamics of our existence.


The real true tourist experience. Johanna Failer y Eléonore Ozanne. Performance Documentation.


ABOUT ELÉONORE OZANNE

Eléonore Ozanne (Corbeil-Essonnes, France, 1990) is an artist and researcher working between France and Spain. She is a doctoral candidate in Fine Arts at UPV/EHU and Université de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour. Her work focuses on the relationship between the body and borders in everyday spaces. Through displacement, the multidisciplinary artist draws the concept of borders as physical limits or invisible walls that are crossed daily. She uses her body as the central axis of her work, exploring through actions, the movement through, across, or into predetermined spaces or times.

She has been awarded numerous residencies in Spain, Mexico, and Europe, including NauEstruch and CECDA in Veracruz. She has collaborated with artists such as Pilar Albarracín and is a member of the research teams Gizartea and Alter, where she actively participates in exploring ways to understand precariousness and displacement in the era of globalization. Her work has been exhibited at international festivals and venues, such as Matadero Madrid and Cidade da Cultura de Galicia. Additionally, she has published texts on art and precariousness in publishers like Dykinson and the University of the Basque Country.



With the support of