As every year, the Selection Committee of Art Madrid is in charge of assessing the applications of the galleries interested in participating in the general program of the fair. The team consists of renowned professionals in the contemporary art sector with a variety of profiles that reflects the diversity of the current cultural fabric. From curators, to critics, to representatives of the galleries, the purpose is to analyse the content of the proposals and select those that offer, for the whole fair, the most innovative, solvent and highest artistic quality in a process that takes into account, not only the career of the galleries and their professional performance, but also the coherence of the exhibition program for the fair, the career of the artists presented, or their consideration into the national and international creative panorama.

Image of Art Madrid'19, by Imanol Villota

The permanent work of Art Madrid has made it possible to improve its exhibition proposal in recent years. As Alfonso de la Torre noted with respect to the previous edition, the fair is characterised "by a notorious rigour of the selection of galleries and proposals (...). Innovative proposals and rigour, without excluding emotion, why not, have proved to be the support of the ideas of a renewed ART MADRID ".

In 2020 Art Madrid once again will count on the always accurate criteria of Ángel Samblancat, Alfonso de la Torre, Carlos Delgado Mayordomo and Javier López. Aurora Vigil-Escalera and Fernando Gómez de la Cuesta join this year the Committee.

Aurora Vigil-Escalera is the director of the homonymous gallery located in Gijón and has a very extensive career as a professional initiated within the family, because her father had founded and directed the Van Dyck gallery in which she began her career as a partner in 1984. This permanent connection with contemporary art has led the work of Aurora Vigil-Escalera, focused mainly on painting, sculpture and photography, who not only maintains regular programming in her space of Gijón, but has also focused on projecting work of its artists beyond our borders. This provides her with an exhaustive knowledge of contemporary reality in the global context and an accurate criterion to identify trends and support young talents from the beginning of their career.

Fernando Gómez de la Cuesta joins the Art Madrid project as curator of the One Project section, and will also contribute his experience and knowledge in the selection process for 2020. Fernando is an independent curator and critic with a long career. He has developed his professional profile in different contexts linked to contemporary art, both in the institutional field and the art market, and has extensive experience in working with artists. The direction of the PalmaPhoto photography festival, and the curating of CRIdA (residence of artists of the City Council of Palma), the I Festival of Contemporary Art of Saltillo-Mexico, and the MARTE Contemporary Art Fair are among his latest experiences. It also outstands his work as a teacher, speaker and coordinator of several training programs, workshops, conferences and seminars, mainly linked to universities, museums and contemporary art centres.

Alfonso de la Torre is a theoretician and art critic, specialising in contemporary Spanish art. He has curated numerous exhibitions, in addition to published essays and poetry and taught courses in centres such as the Reina Sofía Museum, the Teruel Museum, the University of the Andes, the University of Córdoba, the University of Granada, the University of Castilla-La Mancha or the Université de La Sorbonne. In his extensive experience, he has been the author of reasoned catalogues of artists such as Millares, the group "El Paso", Manuel Rivera and Palazuelo. From 2005 he curates an annual program of artistic interventions in the public space ("Ámbito Cultural-El Corte Inglés") during ARCOmadrid, with the collaboration of the regional government and the city hall of Madrid. He has coordinated one of the most complete studies on the birth and evolution of the art market in Spain from the postwar period to the present ("La España del Siglo XXI" (Sistema Foundation). In addition to directing the collection of photographic essays "El ojo que ves"(University of Córdoba-La Fábrica), he is Vice-president of the Pilar Citoler Foundation and responsible for the conservation of her Collection.

Carlos Delgado Mayordomo is a curator of contemporary art, as well as a critic and professor. His vertiginous career has developed mainly in the field of institutional curatorship in Spain and Latin America, where he has worked with numerous museums and cultural centres. He is currently art critic at ABC Cultural, professor of the Master in Art Market of the Nebrija University and responsible for exhibitions of the Department of Culture of the City of Las Rozas of Madrid. He has coordinated exhibition projects at the Fundación Fondo Internacional de las Artes / FIArt, the Cidade da Cultura Foundation of Santiago de Compostela, Tabacalera Promoción del Arte, DA2 Salamanca Art Centre and the Tomás y Valiente Art Centre, among many others. Also, his work as a critic and theoretician has led to numerous research articles in specialised journals and publications in collective books. Between 2014 and 2018 he joined as a curator of the One Project section of Art Madrid, and since then he has been part of the Selection Committee of the fair.

Ángel Samblancat has an extensive career devoted entirely to contemporary art. Besides his work at the head of the Editorial and Gallery of Art Polígrafa Obra Gráfica of Barcelona for more than forty years, he was also assistant to the director of the Joan Prats Gallery (Barcelona) since its foundation. The experience of Ángel in technical and selection committees is extensive. He was member of the Jury for the Graphic Work Triennial of Grenchen (Switzerland) and was part of the selection committees of international fairs of high prestige such as Art Chicago (Illinois), Art Miami (Florida), Art Los Angeles (California), ARCO (Madrid), Art Cologne (Germany), Art Basel (Switzerland), ArtBo-Bogotá (Colombia) and Art Basel / Miami Beach (Florida). He has also developed as a critic and consultant in large art collections.

Javier López Vélez is the director of 3 Punts Art Gallery, based in Barcelona. He is an expert in Technical Drawing of Projects and has studied Sociology. Throughout his career, he has worked as an independent curator in several institutional exhibitions in Barcelona, Hospitalet and Andorra. Under his direction, the gallery maintains a complete program of exhibitions that includes between seven and eight individual shows a year, with a clear evolution towards the new artistic languages. In addition, the Gallery 3 Punts has made a strong commitment to gain international presence and help consolidate the career of national artists beyond our borders through participation in fairs such as Kunstrai Amsterdam, Context Miami, Context Art New York or Art Stage Singapore, among many others, a work to which they have been faithful for more than two decades.

The pictorial work of Sergio Rocafort (Valencia, 1995) is articulated as a field of questioning rather than a system of closed visual statements. His paintings do not seek to close off meaning, but rather to activate an open perceptual experience, in which the viewer participates in a critical exercise of reconsidering the ways of seeing, interpreting, and conceiving painting in the present. The image thus presents itself as an unstable territory, where perception constantly oscillates between the visible and the imagined, and meaning is constructed in a provisional and shared manner.

One of the structural axes of his work is the tension between scale and intimacy. The format functions as a relational device, alternating physical immersion with concentrated attention, generating an expository rhythm that prompts the viewer to move around, approach, and withdraw. This spatial dynamic engages with a painting situated on the threshold between figuration and abstraction, sustaining a reflection on painting as both window and physical object, while emphasizing its material and spatial condition.

Rocafort’s creative process is also grounded in a dialectic between intuition and control. Far from a romantic notion of chance, the unexpected is understood as guided pictorial thinking, in which every decision—even those that appear accidental—responds to a critical awareness of the act of painting and a progressive refinement of the means of expression.

Untitled. 2024. Oil on panel, 30 x 45 cm..

Questioning seems to inhabit your painting. What kind of questions do you want your work to pose to the viewer?

Generally, my intention is for the work to provoke more questions than answers. Ultimately, I believe my work refers to shared spaces that nevertheless remain open to interpretation. I think that this interplay of questions—questions that arise for me as an artist in the studio—is interesting when it is later transferred to the viewer in the exhibition space. These questions usually concern the way we look, the way we interpret, and the way we conceive painting. It is a constant game between what we see and what we imagine.

Untitled. 2025. Oil on linen. 32.5 × 22.5 cm.

Your works seem to constantly stretch scale, moving from the intimate to the immersive. How do you decide what format each investigation requires?

I believe the main reason I choose one format or another depends on the exhibition installation. Beyond how each individual work functions, I think it is the overall vision that completes the project and gives it coherence and meaning. In many cases, these contrasts arise because a small work encourages an intimate approach, while a large work can have a stronger impact. Ultimately, this play of tensions causes the viewer to move closer, step back, and generates an interesting dialogue within the exhibition space itself.

In my case, I tend to work quite a lot with large formats because of the impact they produce. I believe there is a kind of translation that takes place—one that extends to the tools themselves—and this allows for greater expressiveness and a stronger impact on the viewer.

Untitled. 2015. Graphite on paper. 80 x 65 cm.

Critics often highlight your attention to proportion and detail. How do these concepts operate in a painting that resists figuration?

I do not think my painting resists figuration; rather, it constantly plays at its edges. Most of my references are figurative, but I seek to continually tension the relationship between volume and classical notions of pictorial construction, without losing the idea of the painting as a window—or rather, as an object. This relationship between painting-as-window and painting-as-physical-object is fundamental in my work; both aspects share common ground.

The result would be very different if one of these elements were set aside. But the game is not only formal: it is about generating ambiguity, creating a point at which the viewer must complete the work. I believe this operates both in hyperrealist figuration and in geometric abstraction, which is what I have been working on recently.

Abstraction allows me to detach completely from the image. In fact, I do not work with photographs or a predefined imaginary; instead, I generate my own notion of volume and space without relying on a prior model. Ultimately, even if I do not start from a figurative reference, this freedom coexists with the basic principles of painting. Neo Rauch, for example, does not need a maquette or a photograph, and I believe that same freedom is present in my work without abandoning those fundamental notions of painting.

Untitled. 2025. Oil on linen. 32.5 x 22.5 cm.

In your relationship with black, contrast, and chromatic vibration, how do you decide when a chromatic tension should be restrained or emphasized?

I think something similar happens here to what occurs with formats—it largely depends on the exhibition space. A painting can be small yet possess great chromatic force and a high level of contrast; even if it alludes to intimacy, it can generate a strong visual impact. In a larger format, the opposite may occur: low contrast or subtle nuances may function better. Everything depends on the relationship established between the works in the exhibition space and on how we want to bring the viewer closer or push them back in order to generate visual tension. In my work, synthesis, clarity, and the depth offered by color and material have always been present. I increasingly try to limit my resources so that the work functions with the bare minimum. Lately, for example, I have been drawing a great deal and working almost entirely with monochromatic ranges, because within that simplicity I believe many nuances can be explored and revealed—transparencies, density, contrast. This is, in essence, the chromatic game in my work.

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

I have always thought that I leave a great deal of room for error and chance, but lately I believe less in that version of the creative process. I think there is always a reflection and a guiding hand behind these “accidents.” I do try to allow unforeseen things to happen, but what emerges I would call intuition rather than chance, and I try to embrace it and guide it. This is, essentially, my way of understanding painting.

As for how I manage the timing of my projects, toward the end of this year I have a solo exhibition planned at Shiras Gallery, which will be a good moment to consolidate the works I have been developing and their visual impact. Recently, I have also been focusing on Art Madrid, which is approaching, and I am seeking for the exhibited works to have a cohesion, coherence, and clarity that some earlier works lacked. This time, the luminosity and saturation present in parts of my work shine more than ever, and I trust that the gallery will achieve a very successful exhibition installation at the fair.