Art Madrid Contemporary Art Fair will celebrate its fourteenth edition from 20th to 24th of February 2019. The Galería de Cristal of CentroCentro Cibeles will be for the sixth consecutive year the place of this event that consolidates and reaffirms itself annually as an essential part of the Madrid Art Week.

We turn 14 years of commitment to contemporary art and we have started to work on the next edition, that promises to incorporate very interesting novelties and initiatives. Art Madrid has always been a pioneer in the art market and aimed to respond to the demand of the sector with a strong commitment to digital presence, for that reason, it incorporates an online dissemination and sale platform that will be available to exhibitors before, during and after the Fair. This initiative will help to provide great visibility to galleries and artists, eliminating borders and expanding horizons.

Art Madrid is a benchmark in the Art Week of Madrid, gathering more than 20,000 visitors every February, including professionals, collectors and art lovers. Every year Art Madrid works to expand its visibility beyond our borders, which has attracted a considerable number of foreign galleries that are already faithful to the proposal. In the effort to reinforce the opening of the fair to the foreign art market, in this edition 15 stands will be allocated to international galleries.

We open the application period to participate in the General Program. The fair is destined to national and international galleries specialised in contemporary and emerging art in all disciplines: painting, sculpture, photography, graphic work, video-art, installation, 3D devices… The deadline is June 30th.

With nearly 2800m2 of exhibition space, Art Madrid brings together the most recent creations of long and medium-career artists, as well as young talents and emerging art. The Galería de Cristal of CentroCentro Cibeles is the perfect setting to make the heart of the city a reference point in contemporary art, a space where professionals, collectors and the general public come together, attracted by the nearness, proximity and the freshness of the Fair.

As in the last five editions, Art Madrid'19 will have a guest artist and a parallel activities program focused on a subject that reflects the concerns about contemporary art, such as the relationship between art and technology, to the issues of gender and the approach to education, some of the areas of work in previous editions. Very soon we will give you more details.

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The practice of the collective DIMASLA (Diana + Álvaro) is situated at a fertile intersection between contemporary art, ecological thinking, and a philosophy of experience that shifts the emphasis from production to attention. Faced with the visual and material acceleration of the present, their work does not propose a head-on opposition, but rather a sensitive reconciliation with time, understood as lived duration rather than as a measure. The work thus emerges as an exercise in slowing down, a pedagogy of perception where contemplating and listening become modes of knowledge.

In the work of DIMASLA (Diana + Álvaro), the territory does not function as a framework but rather as an agent. The landscape actively participates in the process, establishing a dialogical relationship reminiscent of certain eco-critical currents, in which subjectivity is decentralized and recognized as part of a broader framework. This openness implies an ethic of exposure, which is defined as the act of exposing oneself to the climate, the elements, and the unpredictable, and this means accepting vulnerability as an epistemological condition.

The materials—fabrics, pigments, and footprints—serve as surfaces for temporary inscriptions and memories, bearing the marks of time. The initial planning is conceived as an open hypothesis, allowing chance and error to act as productive forces. In this way, the artistic practice of DIMASLA (Diana + Álvaro) articulates a poetics of care and being-with, where creating is, above all, a profound way of feeling and understanding nature.

In a historical moment marked by speed and the overproduction of images, your work seems to champion slowness and listening as forms of resistance. Could it be said that your practice proposes a way of relearning time through aesthetic experience?

Diana: Yes, but more than resistance or vindication, I would speak of reconciliation—of love. It may appear slow, but it is deliberation; it is reflection. Filling time with contemplation or listening is a way of feeling. Aesthetic experience leads us along a path of reflection on what lies outside us and what lies within.

The territory does not appear in your work as a backdrop or a setting, but as an interlocutor. How do you negotiate that conversation between the artist’s will and the voice of the place, when the landscape itself participates in the creative process?

Álvaro: For us, the landscape is like a life partner or a close friend, and naturally this intimate relationship extends into our practice. We go to visit it, to be with it, to co-create together. We engage in a dialogue that goes beyond aesthetics—conversations filled with action, contemplation, understanding, and respect.

Ultimately, in a way, the landscape expresses itself through the material. We respect all the questions it poses, while at the same time valuing what unsettles us, what shapes us, and what stimulates us within this relationship.

The Conquest of the Rabbits I & II. 2021. Process.

In your approach, one senses an ethic of exposure: exposing oneself to the environment, to the weather, to others, to the unpredictable. To what extent is this vulnerability also a form of knowledge?

Diana: For us, this vulnerability teaches us a great deal—above all, humility. When we are out there and feel the cold, the rain, or the sun, we become aware of how small and insignificant we are in comparison to the grandeur and power of nature.

So yes, we understand vulnerability as a profound source of knowledge—one that helps us, among many other things, to let go of our ego and to understand that we are only a small part of a far more complex web.

Sometimes mountains cry too. 2021. Limestone rockfall, sun, rain, wind, pine resin on acrylic on natural cotton canvas, exposed on a blanket of esparto grass and limestone for two months.. 195 cm x 130 cm x 3 cm.

Your works often emerge from prolonged processes of exposure to the environment. Could it be said that the material—the fabrics, the pigments, the traces of the environment—acts as a memory that time writes on you as much as you write on it?

Álvaro: This is a topic for a long conversation, sitting on a rock—it would be very stimulating. But if experiences shape people’s inner lives and define who we are in the present moment, then I would say yes, especially in that sense.

Leaving our comfort zone has led us to learn from the perseverance of plants and the geological calm of mountains. Through this process, we have reconciled ourselves with time, with the environment, with nature, with ourselves, and even with our own practice. Just as fabrics hold the memory of a place, we have relearned how to pay attention and how to understand. Ultimately, it is a way of deepening our capacity to feel.

The fox and his tricks. 2022. Detail.

To what extent do you plan your work, and how much space do you leave for the unexpected—or even for mistakes?

Diana: Our planning is limited to an initial hypothesis. We choose the materials, colours, places, and sometimes even the specific location, but we leave as much room as possible for the unexpected to occur. In the end, that is what it is really about: allowing nature to speak and life to unfold. For us, both the unexpected and mistakes are part of the world’s complexity, and within that complexity we find a form of natural beauty.