Postcard from Madrid

By Luiza Teixeira de Freitas and Claudia Segura

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Dahn Vō, 'Banish the Faceless / Reward your Grace', 2015–16, exhibition view, Palacio de Cristal, Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid. Courtesy: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía; photograph: Joaquín Cortés / Román Lores

Coinciding with the 35th ARCO art fair in Madrid, a rundown of the city’s highlights

In the last week of February, Madrid celebrated the 35th anniversary of its art fair ARCO with a range of art exhibitions, events, book launches, talks and parties. Definitely noteworthy was the series of site-specific solo presentations, ‘Año 35. Madrid’, that curator Javier Hontoria organized in some of the city’s most iconic civic spaces. These include Rogelio López Cuenca’s ‘Accessories’ at the National Museum of Anthropology, which comprises headless mannequins interspersed among the vitrines – they are dressed in different outfits (such as maids, waiters, soldiers, construction workers), in a reference to Madrid’s ongoing struggle with social changes and problems. Works by Khalil Rabah exploring the tension between reality and fiction, globalization and his Arabic heritage are displayed at Casa Árabe, including his nomadic institution the Palestinian Museum of Natural History and Humankind. Brazilian artist Adriano Amaral responded to the powerful architectural elements of Tabacalera Estudios – old showers, sinks and damp rooms – to explore materials and their capacity for meaning to shift with form and function.

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Maria Loboda, ‘The Ngombo’, 2016, digital impression on Hahnemühle cotton paper, 76 × 61 cm. Courtesy: the artist and Maisterravalbuena gallery, Madrid; photograph: Roberto Ruiz

Not far from Tabacalera Estudios is the Calle del Doctor Fourquet, a street full of commercial galleries. Maria Loboda’s exhibition at Maisterravalbuena, ‘DOMESTIC AFFAIRSAND DEATH’, explores the intertwining of relationships and the domestic sphere. Different groups of works explore the private, the public – and death. The show included a series of photographs, ‘The Ngombo’ (2016), which depict objects that have spilled from anonymous women’s open bags: car keys, make-up mirrors, painkillers and other personal items, all mixed in with chicken bones and feathers. The title translates as ‘shaking up the divination basket’ in the language of the Chokwe people of Central Africa and reflects the idea that our bags carry not only our personal objects but also all our secrets. Other works included a bottle of good wine, representing celebration – but filled with 27 sleeping pills.

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Jorge Méndez Blake, Other Literature, 2015, Ediciones MP (Manufacturados en Papel)

The week also celebrated various new artist books. Jorge Méndez Blake, a Mexican artist who explores ideas around literature and writing, had a signing for Other Literature, which he published with the young Mexican publisher Ediciones MP. Mateo López’s XYZ was launched at the home of the collector Juan Varez – each edition includes a unique paper sculpture by the artist – and Colombian artist José António Suarez Londono, best known for his obsessively detailed drawings that illustrate imaginative stories, launched Pages from a Drawing Book.

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Hito Steyerl, ‘Duty-Free Art’, 2015–16, installation view, Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid. Courtesy: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía; photograph: Joaquín Cortés / Román Lores

To view all 13 works in Hito Steyerl’s exhibition ‘Duty Free Art’ at Museo Reina Sofía, would take at least six hours. Steyerl is analyzing how we both live and view art today; according to her, rather than creating a critical mass we’ve simply become passive consumers. Her work speaks about communication, the dissemination of information and the potential of images to narrate ideas. In conveying all of this, the exhibition was successful; it reflects the frenetic and often virtual character of much contemporary life.

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Dahn Vō, ‘Banish the Faceless / Reward your Grace’, 2015–16, exhibition view, Palacio de Cristal, Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid. Courtesy: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía; photograph: Joaquín Cortés / Román Lores

The highlights of the week, however, are in Reina Sofía’s off-site venues, Palacio de Cristal and Palacio Velazquez, in El Retiro, Madrid’s largest park. For his show in the Palacio de Cristal, ‘Banish the Faceless / Reward your Grace’ (the title is taken from Nico’s song ‘Afraid’, 1970), Dahn Vō’s has placed various objects throughout the impressive glass building, creating several intertwining stories. These include a photograph from the first spacewalk, a 19th century ivory Christ, an empty milk carton, a farewell letter written by a French missionary in Vietnam before being executed – that was transcribed by Vō’s father’s Phung Vo, who can’t speak French – and a number of mammoth fossils. Impressively blending into the landscape of the park that can be seen through the glass structure, these fossils, which are suspended from the ceiling, recall both tree branches and 19th century museum display, when skeletons were often hung from the ceilings. The weight of history that Vō explores seems lighter in such an environment; as if time has been paralyzed in space.

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Andrzej Wróblewski, Execution Against a Wall, 1949, oil on canvas, 119 × 85 cm. Courtesy: Muzeum Wojska Polskiego, Warsaw

Palacio Velazquez is host to Polish artist Andrzej Wróblewski’s solo show, ‘Recto/Verso’. Despite the artist’s premature death at the age of 29, Wróblewski is a key figure for the Eastern European art of the 1950s. His prolific body of work is characterized by his double-sided paintings, which are often exhibited one side at a time. This display (which also includes his sculptures) affords a rare opportunity to see both sides of his paintings at once. Double-sidedness was at the heart of the artist’s work – an experiment that challenged and embodies many of the basic tenets of modern art.

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Mateo López, XYZ, 2015, S/W Ediciones

Despite the long shadow of tremendous financial, political and social crises, Madrid’s art and culture scene is vibrant and vital. In fact, there’s so much going on, it’s hard to assimilate everything in only a few days – and still have time for a pit stop at the Prado.

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