Art Madrid'25 – WINTER ART

With the winter around the corner, we make a brief review of how the artists got inspired by this season for their works. These dates are usually associated inevitably with the end of the year and the abundant parties, but the beginning of winter has traditionally been a time celebrated by many cultures as it gives way to a period of growth of days and a stage of preparation for the upcoming cycle. Even Greek mythology has a story for this phenomenon. Demeter, goddess of life and earth, separated from her daughter Persephone, who had been abducted by Hades and condemned to remain in the underworld, agreed to spend half of the year in her company and the other half on Olympus. Demeter was sad in the months when she was not with Persephone, which correspond to autumn and winter, leaving the earth neglected and withered, as opposed to spring and summer, time spent with her daughter.

Camille Pissarro, “Avenue de l’Opera. Efecto Nieve 1”

From the classicism, winter was approached with naturalistic perspective. This approach goes through the different artistic branches and has also served to feed the nineteenth-century narrative that represents this season in a raw way to underline the social differences that many characters of the literature of the time should pass through. As for the visual arts, authors opted for more realistic expressions, an exercise that often served as pictorial analysis on the depiction of the natural state, the changes of light, the reproduction of textures, volumes... in scenes dominated by snow in the rural environment.

Stepan Kolesnikoff, “On the way to market”, 1942

The winter, present with its hardest, implacable and almighty face, composes a mental image fueled to a great extent by the literature of the late nineteenth century as well as by the recurrent representation of realistic painting that began to pay less attention to elitist themes. The flight of pictorial productions of religious content or portraits by order gave way to a real concern for society, for the situation of the individual in their daily lives and the expression of an authentic and not always docile life that required, among other things, facing the winter in unfavourable circumstances. In this naturalistic trend, one sees the will to change the focus of attention of the aristocracy to the ordinary people, and to elaborate an egalitarian discourse that does not highlight the powerful over the weak but treats all individuals equally.

Jason Paul freerunning in Harbin, China © David Robinson

Our perception of this season has changed in recent decades. The linking of these dates with the grand celebrations make up an inseparable whole in which consumerism has absorbed the beginning of the season and almost goes unnoticed. The current representation of winter connects with snowy prints, red lights and smiles on the face. There is, in all this, a search for the ideal beauty, a compositional artifice that floods all our behaviours in society and reaches, even in a false way, the very strength of nature. Today the winter, after having surpassed in the arts the traditional pictorialism, is represented mainly through photography, a discipline that dares to recreate nature in a more wild and challenging. In fact, documentary photography is a very exploited line in our days, and the result is images of high visual impact.

 

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.