ArtMadrid ‘19 more international than ever

Art Madrid celebrates its 14th edition from February 27 to March 3, 2019, in the Crystal Gallery of CentroCentro Cibeles (c/ Montalbán,1), with the participation of more than 40 national and international galleries that will show the works of nearly 200 artists, both emerging and consolidated creators.. With an outstanding foreign presence, which this year reaches 40% and reaffirms the confidence placed in the fair by the international context, 26 national and 16 foreign exhibitors from 13 countries, from Spain to Germany, France, Portugal, Lithuania, Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Mexico, Peru, South Africa or Taiwan, and including the participating of 10 first-time participating galleries, have been selected for this edition.

In this edition, as the Selection Committee assures, the proposals are highlighted because of the increasing quality, the more rigorous selection, the growing international character and the ability to reveal the new possibilities in the world of creation. Also, they are articulating wholly contemporary and well-connected discourses, drawing something of the map of our time, in contemporary art.

In the GENERAL PROGRAM, a large number of national galleries participate again, such as Madrid’s Kreisler, Marita Segovia, Alberto Cornejo BAT, Fucking Art Gallery, Hispánica Contemporánea (also based in Mexico City), Jorge Alcolea and Montesquieu. From Asturias the galleries directed by Aurora Vigil-Escalera (Gijón), Bea Villamarín (Gijón) and Arancha Osoro (Oviedo) are returning participants too, while from Galicia, Luisa Pita (Santiago de Compostela) and Moret Art (A Coruña) also return to the fair.

From the northern part of the Peninsula, Galería Espiral (Noja, Cantabria), Rodrigo Juarranz (Aranda de Duero, Burgos) and MH Art Gallery (Bilbao), as well as the newly participating Kur Art Gallery (Guipúzcoa), are joining us this year. From Valencia, the new proposals of Alba Cabrera Gallery and Shiras Gallery are presented, as well as those of the galleries that are coming from Barcelona: 3 Punts, Miquel Alzueta and Zielinsky. Also, the Galería Cornión (Gijón) and Víctor Lope Arte Contemporáneo (Barcelona), which is also present in the One Project programme, are being premiered at the Crystal Gallery.

Among the galleries from abroad participating at the General Program, the Portuguese representation is highlighted with Art Lounge (Lisbon), Paulo Nunes-Arte Contemporânea (Vila Franca de Xira) and the newly incorporation of the São Mamede Gallery (Lisbon/Porto). Also participating for the first time are the French Galerie Barrou Planquart (Paris), the North American Lola & Unicorn (New York), the South African Oda Gallery (Franschhoek) and the Peruvian art collective O-Art Project (Lima). The renewed selections of the German Schmalfuss (Berlin) and Robert Drees (Hannover), the French Norty Mécénat (Carrières-Sur-Seine), the Taiwanese Yiri Arts (Taipei) and the Cuban Collage Habana (Havana) have return this edition as well.

One more year, Art Madrid also features the ONE PROJECT program. The project, designed to support and promote young artists whose careers are in an initial or intermediate state, takes place in a collective exhibition as well as in a solo show format. This year, one of the great updates of the program is the incorporation of Nerea Ubieto, art critic and curator who presents a new proposal led only by female artists. This choice, as stated by Ubieto, is based “on the eagerness to level an unstable balance in which female participation in art fairs is still today unfair”.

Another context singularly represented this year is regarding Africa, with authors from different origins of the continent. Although the Norty Mécénat Gallery brings us closer to the French-African scene, the Oda Gallery’s proposal introduces us to the South African tendencies through works by Samson Mnisi or Benon Lutaaya. Some countries especially represented through their artists are Germany, Portugal, France, and the United States. New visions of the French scene can be seen in the Barrou Planquart Gallery’s booth, which highlights the appropriations, both those of the encapsulated objects, the so-called Big Bangs, with which François Bel makes us reflect on materialism and individualism, like those made by the designer Stéphane Gautier, more related to a critical reflection of the propaganda on children’s imagination. The sculptures of the Germans Jörg Bach, Thomas Röthel and Willi Siber, as well as the brilliant pieces in steel by the Swiss Carlo Borer or the paintings of the Brazilian Cristina Canal, stand out in the Schmalfuss Gallery’s booth. Also, the fantasies made in rubber and paper by South Korean artist Sun-Rae Kim, the mysterious paintings by Spanish painter Pepa Salas and the abstractions of German sculptors Jürgen Jansen and Michael Laube can be seen at the Robert Dress Gallery’s booth.