The Palace of Gaviria has opened this week an exhibition that brings together 180 works by some of the most iconic artists of the 20th century. It is a small part of the private collection of Arturo Schwarz, who donated more than 700 pieces to the Museum of Israel.

The history of this collection is intimately connected to the life of its owner. Schwarz specialised in works of Dadaism and Surrealism, artistic movements in which he became a close friend with some of its greatest exponents, such as Duchamp, Man Ray or Breton. This obstinacy for Surrealism began in the mid-40s, after reading the "Manifesto" by André Breton, which led him also to join the movement. Later, in 1945, he met Marcel Duchamp, with whom he had a relationship since then. In his own words, he was fascinated by being in contact with artists who were "extremely free and intellectually honest".

Man Ray, “The Rayograph”, 1921-28.

He worked as a writer, curator and gallery owner, but he is best known as a collector. This passion for twentieth-century art, and particularly for these two isms, has guided his eagerness to gather representative works of those who were his friends, to the point to treasure a set of pieces that travelled several times around the world.

Man Ray, “'El observatorio del tiempo. Los amantes”, 1932-34.

Most of this collection was donated to the Museum of Israel to form the "The Vera and Arturo Schwarz Collection of Dada and Surrealist Art". The process began in 1972 with the transfer of 30 replicas of Duchamp's readymades, followed by the extensive Dada and Surrealism library in 1991. Finally, in 1998, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the museum, the rest of the legacy was completed to become a permanent fund in the museum.

René Magritte, “The Castle of the Pyrenees”, 1959.

Under the claim of Duchamp, Magritte and Dalí, the Palace of Gaviria brings together a selection of the most emblematic works of these isms of the last century, which are joined by Ernst, Tanguy, Man Ray, Picabia, Calder, Schwitters, Höch, Blumenfeld, Janco, among others. These artistic movements were a response of the creators to the convulsive times lived in old Europe devastated by the warlike conflicts and the lack of social integration. The rereading of the tangible, the dream interpretation, the scape to a different reality were ideas that fed the creative impulse of these artists, true architects of the critical thinking of the 20th century.

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: EL PESO DE LA CIUDAD LO LLEVO CONMIGO. BY AGUSTINA PALAZZO

March 9 | 17:00h. Galería de Cristal of the Palacio de Cibeles.

El peso de la ciudad lo lleco conmigo. Agustina Palazzo. Peformance documentacion. 2025.

The current urban landscape represents an environment saturated with symbols of modernity and technological “progress.” The television and radio antennas, which hover over rooftops, embody much more than their technical function. They emerge as markers of change, connecting generations to a global world, transforming urban life into a web of communication and entertainment.

This modification of the urban landscape has direct implications for the contemporary body, a body defined and altered through technology and its relationship with the environment. As Laura Barros Condés says in Habitar(se), “Technology has become an intrinsic part of individuals, largely through the body.”

Space itself is an organism that intervenes in the body. We experience an environment through the body, and inevitably, this relationship influences our way of connecting physically and psychologically, as well as the process of constructing identity. The body is defined and altered through its relationship with the environment.

The antennas, these inanimate objects that hover over the urban landscape, represent a powerful metaphor for an era saturated by technological mediation. Their abundant presence points to the paradox of connectivity that, while promising to unite us, fragments our attention and collective experience. As unnoticed monuments, they invite us to reflect on how technology redefines cities and our relationship with them.

El peso de la ciudad lo llevo conmigo seeks to make visible contemporary oppression—how industrialization, urbanization, and digitalization condition the construction of identity, stripping individuals of a vital connection and leaving an existential void in a body that inhabits the saturation of the urban landscape.

Radiorator II. Performance documentation. 2025. Agustina Palazzo.

ABOUT AGUSTINA PALAZZO

Agustina Palazzo (Córdoba, Argentina, 1992) is a multidisciplinary artist from Córdoba, Argentina. Based in Barcelona, her practice spans art, education, and cultural management within the context of the digital world and new technologies. Her work oscillates between the critical and the poetic, using emerging themes and technologies as creative tools in performance, sound design, and installation. Her artistic research is nourished by the relationship between communication, human behavior, and new technologies, creating experiences that question the boundaries of human behavior and the digital realm. She has participated in solo and group exhibitions, festivals, and residencies across Latin America and Europe. Some of her notable engagements include IMMERSIVA at Espronceda, Institute of Art and Culture (ES), Tsonami Sound Art (CHILE), Rake Community, art and research platform (UK), SONAR + D (ES), LLUM (ES), Teorema (ES), 220 Contemporary Culture (AR), Millesuoni (IT), Espai 19 (ES), among others.

Agustina Palazzo's work focuses on human behavior, desires, and misunderstandings, exploring the contradictions of the contemporary crowd caught between technological refinement and moral erosion in fragmented attention spans. It swings between the critical and the poetic, inspired by science fiction, utopia, and dystopia, but with an emotional sensitivity anchored in the present. Her practice moves across performance, installation, video, sound, and archive, using technology not only as a tool but as a symbol of a social and political condition.

Taking advantage of its poetic dimension, she blends digital and analog techniques with everyday objects, stretching their meanings. Sound and radio are recurring elements in her quest, but her language is expansive, crossing through the visual, performative, and sonic. Experimentation, process, and critical reflection are the core of her practice, inviting the viewer to question their relationship with the digital and the real.