As every year, Art Madrid organizes activities focused on contemporary art that take place throughout the month of February and with which the fair invites the public to participate in a much more active way. In this edition, the program is focused on contemporary video art, especially concerning the most recent Spanish media creation.

The wide range of activities, organized by Art Madrid and curated by the PROYECTOR Festival, includes ranging from professional workshops, conversations with artists, lectures, master classes to curated screening programs; as well as is maintained with the collaboration of Obra Social "La Caixa" and the Community of Madrid, through its spaces CaixaForum Madrid and Sala Alcalá 31 respectively. In addition, the program has the support of Cervezas La Virgen, One Shot Hotels and the Culture and Sports Area of Madrid City Council. With this program, Art Madrid becomes a platform for new trends in video and media art, inviting everyone to participate in the most recent contemporary art movements.

Although it is more than 60 years old, video art is understood as an artistic expression, presently it is still a discipline, not too very well-known and important in the most frequent cultural circuits. However, we are facing an expanding, growing moment of these forms of creation, in fact, video creation is one of the increasingly recurrent languages among contemporary authors. The program welcomes new projects that belong to this discipline as well as its knowledge and value, qualities that over time are reflected in the ephemeral character of this type of works and the circumstances surrounding its collection.

"Sweet dreams are made of this" (2016) frame by Carlos Aires.

The activities are presented under the curatorship of Mario Gutiérrez Cru, director of the ground-breaking PROYECTOR festival, a must-see event that takes place in Madrid consisting of audio-visual creation and its multiple elements that have worked hand to hand with hundreds of artists, gallerists, collectors and cultural institutions for more than ten years. The Program is planned into two large segments, each one organized in one of the two locations: CaixaForum Madrid and the Sala Alcalá 31 Auditorium.

On the one hand, the "58 formas de mirar el cuerpo" workshop will take place at CaixaForum throughout Monday 11 and Thursday 14 of February, a unique opportunity of understanding not only new media arts but also their relationship with performing arts by the hand of the renowned creators Elena Córdoba and David Benito. Reflecting specifically on the different ways of understanding and performing dance practices, is a workshop aimed at investigating the experimental, expressive and semiotic possibilities of body language and its relationship with space.

"EverdayMasks" (2017) frame by Paula Lafuente.

On the other hand, the Sala Alcalá 31 Auditorium will host, from Thursday, February 21 to Saturday, February 23, conversations surrounding video art and media art screening sessions. The first conversation will bring together specialists such as Teresa Sapey, Eva Ruiz, Marta Pérez Ibáñez, Idoia Hormaza de Prada and Enrich Abogados in a talk aimed at creating discussion and a thinking forum. Open to all, in this activity the participation of the architect and designer Teresa Sapey is worth reminding, who will not only explain what factors may motivate buying video art but will also accompany us in an exclusive screening session about her media collection; an avant-garde collection that will provide the following artworks:

Candice Breitz with Becoming Cameron (2003), edición 2/3

Hussein Chalayan with Afterwords (2000), edición 3/5

Julian Opie with Sara Undressing (2004), edición 2/4

Marina Abramovic with Nude with Skeleton (2002-2005), edición 4/5

Eugenio Ampudia with Fuego Frío 2 (2004), edición 5/6

"Heteronímia" (2017) frame by Márcia Beatriz Granero.

The other appointments, on Friday the 22nd and Saturday the 23rd, include a conversation with the artists Eugenio Ampudia, Mateo Maté, Carlos Aires, Democracia, Cristina Garrido and Rubén Martín de Lucas who will present their media artworks in a dialogue with the public moderated by the artist and researcher Daniel Villegas, offering a unique opportunity to get to know directly their creative processes. Other highlight is the master class by Rogelio López Cuenca, one of the most outstanding national creators in the media art field. Also, the program includes two screening sessions curated by PROYECTOR: under the titles "Del cuerpo presente al cuerpo performativo" and "Ciudades" will present suggestive media works by about thirty international artists.

With this broad Parallel Program, Arte Madrid is fully committed to the most recent video art forms and narratives, which are as varied as they are complex and enriching. Thus, the fair contributes to the promotion and knowledge of the growth video art creation that, without doubt, connected especially with our current form of communication.

All the activities in detail in the Activities section

The circle as critical device and the marker as contemporary catalyst

POSCA, the Japanese brand of water-based paint markers, has established itself since the 1980s as a central instrument within contemporary artistic practices associated with urban art, illustration, graphic design, and interdisciplinary experimentation. Its opaque, highly pigmented, fast-drying formula—compatible with surfaces as diverse as paper, wood, metal, glass, and textiles—has enabled a technical expansion that extends beyond the traditional studio, engaging public space, objects, and installation practices alike.

In this context, POSCA operates as more than a working tool; it functions as a material infrastructure for contemporary creation. It is a technical device that enables immediacy of gesture without sacrificing chromatic density or formal precision. Its versatility has contributed to the democratization of languages historically associated with painting, fostering a more horizontal circulation between professional and amateur practices.

This expanded dimension of the medium finds a particularly compelling conceptual framework in The Rolling Collection, a traveling exhibition curated by ADDA Gallery. The project proposes a collective investigation of the circular format, understood not merely as a formal container but as a symbolic structure and a field of spatial tension.

Historically, the circle has operated as a figure of totality, continuity, and return. Within the framework of The Rolling Collection, the circular format shifts away from its classical symbolic charge toward an experimental dimension, becoming a support that challenges the hegemonic rectangular frontality of the Western pictorial tradition. The absence of angles demands a reconsideration of composition, balance, and directional flow.

Rather than functioning as a simple formal constraint, this condition generates a specific economy of visual decisions. The curved edge intensifies the relationship between center and periphery, dissolves internal hierarchies, and activates both centrifugal and centripetal dynamics. The resulting body of work interrogates the very processes through which images are constructed.

Following its 2025 tour through Barcelona, Ibiza, Paris, London, and Tokyo, a selection of the exhibition is presented at Art Madrid, reinforcing its international scope and its adaptability to diverse cultural contexts. The proposal for Art Madrid’26 brings together artists whose practices unfold at the intersection of urban art, contemporary illustration, and hybrid methodologies: Honet, Yu Maeda, Nicolas Villamizar, Fafi, Yoshi, and Cachetejack.

While their visual languages vary—ranging from graphic and narrative approaches to chromatic explorations charged with gestural intensity—the curatorial framework establishes a shared axis: a free, experimental, and distinctly color-driven attitude. In this sense, color functions as a conceptual structure that articulates the works while simultaneously connecting them to the specific materiality of POSCA.

The marker’s inherent chromatic vibrancy engages in dialogue with the formal assertiveness of the circle, generating surfaces in which saturation and contrast take center stage. The tool thus becomes embedded within the exhibition discourse, operating as a coherent extension of the participating artists’ aesthetic vocabularies.

One of the project’s most significant dimensions is the active incorporation of the public. Within the exhibition space—activated by POSCA during Art Madrid’26—visitors will be invited to intervene on circular supports installed on the wall using POSCA markers, thereby symbolically integrating themselves into The Rolling Collection during its presentation in Madrid.

This strategy introduces a relational dimension that destabilizes the notion of the closed artwork. Authorship becomes decentralized, and the exhibition space transforms into a dynamic surface for the accumulation of gestures. From a theoretical standpoint, the project may be understood as aligning with participatory practices that, without compromising formal coherence, open the artistic dispositif to contingency and multiplicity.

The selection of POSCA as the instrument for this collective intervention is deliberate. Its ease of use, line control, and compatibility with multiple surfaces ensure an accessible experience without diminishing the visual potency of the outcome. In this way, the marker operates as a mediator between professional practice and spontaneous experimentation, dissolving technical hierarchies.

The title itself, The Rolling Collection, suggests a collection in motion—unfixed to a single space or definitive configuration. Its itinerant nature, combined with the incorporation of local interventions, transforms the project into an organism in continuous evolution. Within this framework, POSCA positions itself as a material catalyst for a transnational creative community. Long associated with urban scenes and emerging practices, the brand reinforces its identity as an ally of open, experimental, and collaborative processes.

POSCA x The Rolling Collection should not be understood merely as a collaboration between a company and a curatorial initiative; rather, it constitutes a strategic convergence of tool, discourse, and community. The project proposes a reflection on format, the global circulation of contemporary art, and the expansion of authorship, while POSCA provides the technical infrastructure that makes both individual works and collective experience possible.