Opening Madrid Gallery Weekend 2026: painting and vindication

This morning, after its presentation at the Reina Sofía Museum, the seventeenth edition of Apertura Madrid Gallery Weekend began, the event that, from September 10 to 13, will mark the beginning of the new exhibition year in the capital’s galleries. Organized by the Arte Madrid association, currently made up of sixty centers and chaired by Pablo Flórez, head of Ehrhardt Flórez, this project aims to make visible the role of these galleries in the artistic ecosystem and invite the public to discover new artists or the lesser-known production of established authors.

In the launch of Apertura 2026, reference has once again been made to the disadvantage of these spaces in the international market derived from the non-application of a reduced VAT that brings their working conditions closer to those of nearby European countries and they have also demanded changes in the patronage law, the coordination of administrations for a viable internationalization of Spanish art and compliance with good practices in the sector; In short, and in the words of Flórez, a legal and fiscal framework that allows us to approach our work in a fair and competitive manner.

SIXTY EXHIBITIONS: PAINTING AND ITS CHILDREN

One of the most anticipated pictorial exhibitions of Apertura is starring Juana González at ARMA Gallery, of whom we will soon see another exhibition at CentroCentro (since October). Using classical, baroque or neo-expressionist references, this author addresses the irrational and mystery in her canvases that, in her words, help not constrict the gaze. Nor is the eye ever caught in those of Nico Munuera: in the most recent ones, in Pedro Cera, he remembers the invisible force of time by modeling stones and layers of pigment on the canvas.

David Diao, for his part, draws on family memories: Aresti Cervera – Marta Cervera’s new name after her merger with Fahrenheit – exhibits paintings in which she tries to reconstruct her house and its history after the expropriation of the house by the Chinese communist regime to install the headquarters of a newspaper.

And Simon Callery, in Rafael Pérez Hernando, has chosen to bring together his compositions of perforated and perforated surfaces, the so-called Blue and Black Puncture Paintingsforming a tandem in the gallery with Susana Solano, whose works draw on aesthetics typical of sub-Saharan Africa.

Fernando Pradilla has also opted for painting, who programs José Ramón Amondarain for the first time; Opera Gallery, with Anselm Reyle; Guillermo de Osma, inhabited by the particular surrealism of Óscar Domínguez; Maisterravalbuena, with a selection of works, also on paper, by Miguel Ángel Campano; Moisés Pérez de Albéniz, who repeats with a color magician, Elvira Amor; T20 and F2, which share a project around the estrangement of Julia Santa Olalla; Fernández-Braso, where Elena Goñi exhibits her views on the artistic ecosystem; or Silvestre, which includes works by Vicente Blanco inspired by the flight of starlings. Likewise, Carmen Laffón will not completely say goodbye to us when she finishes her presentation at the Thyssen: Leandro Navarro returns her to us in “Nuda Veritas”; and affectivity, based on the observation of everyday life, also stars at the start of the season in Río & Meñaka, with Julia Llerena.

Cayón has brought together two essential figures of the 20th century who matured in the United States, José Guerrero and Esteban Vicente; while, in Daniel Cuevas, Daniel Verbis makes painting fast and Nieves Fernández anticipates the twentieth anniversary of the death of Alberto Datas.

Diana Fonseca’s choice, in Max Estrella, has more to do with emotional collage: she collects objects that act as connection channels with her inner world. Sabrina Amrani has decided to review the career of Joël Andrianomearisoa and La Caja Negra has chosen the latest engravings by Richard Serra, those from the series Hitchcock.

Speaking of sculpture, Sandra Val will demonstrate at Espacio Valverde that ceramics include artisanal precision and references to industrial progress, play and seriousness. Nature is, however, the greatest source of inspiration for Juan Asensio, who claims to offer in Elvira González his most diverse exhibition in shapes, colors, materials and textures.

The links between matter, gesture and form interest José Cháfer, in Álvaro Alcázar; and the rotations of the cosmos, to Mar Solís, now at Galería Freijo.

Halfway between sculpture and installation are the interventions that David Bestué deploys in his first solo exhibition at Ehrhardt Flórez, seeking to create tensions between grisaille and pure colors, what is worn (crushed paper and fabrics, slag, bone ash or sawdust) and what has not been mixed (petals or bougainvillea). Their association will provoke reflection or evoke the force of the arbitrary.

Furthermore, Léo Fourdrinier, the young French artist who is debuting the course at Casado Santapau, links sculpture with science and archaeology: we must read his forms as signs immersed in a greater whole. And the sculptures of Simón Vega in Albarrán Bourdais – he is a companion in this room of Carlos Amorales – relate the vast pre-Hispanic monoliths of Mesoamerica with current manifestations of commemoration and propaganda.

“Marrón Barroco”, the premiere at Travesía Cuatro by La Chola Poblete, will combine painting, sculpture and photography to vindicate indigenous cultures and the excesses of the Baroque in Latin America; There we will also contemplate Vivian Suter’s paintings hanging in the open.

And he escaped labels, in life, Miguel Benlloch. Rafa Barber curates “Still” in The Ryder Project, a more intimate approach to the Sevillian’s forays into performance, poetry, queer and feminist activism, and cultural production, always linking desire and dissidence. Between furniture and painting, in an exhibition called “MIX”, Elena Blasco walks in Espacio Mínimo.

Agnieszka Kurant, Hito Steyerl and Haegue Yang, in Prats Nogueras Blanchard, did not want to talk to us about disciplines either, but rather about authorship and its dissolution. “Feral Agency” refers to creative forces that do not only affect individual artists. And for those, increasingly, interested in textile art, “Text means fabric” awaits at Alzueta Gallery, with creations by Dolors Oromí, María Tinaut, Isabel Servera, Inés Sistiaga, Lucía Vergara, Laura Zuccaro, Maru Quiñonero and Josep Grau Garriga.

Speaking of texts, “Verás”, in Memoria, is the result of an idea that Raúl Zurita imagined for more than twenty years: writing a poem with light on cliffs in the north of Chile, his country. In his first solo exhibition in Spain, the records of that intervention – carried out together with the Chilean collective Delight Lab – by the filmmaker Felipe Ríos and the photographer Gonzalo Donoso, are shown together with Juan Castillo’s first posthumous exhibition.

For her part, Irene de Andrés continues to base herself on research: her proposal in Juan Silió is derived from the analysis of the architecture and history of the Ciudad Residencial Tiempo Libre of Marbella and the Colonia de Férias Um Lugar ao Sol de Caparica. And José de la Mano will make history of his own journey to brand new headquarters on Alameda Street: he reviews pieces of his recovered ones and the list is not short. Note: Agustín Ibarrola, Manuel Calvo, Manolo Gil, Ángel Duarte, José María de Labra, Tomás García Asensio, Pedro García-Ramos, LUGÁN, Lola Bosshard, Aurèlia Muñoz, Maribel Nazco, Inés Medina and Roberto González Fernández.

The other great collective in Apertura will be brought by Adora Calvo: she has summoned, around love and death, Jordi Aligué, Edward Andrews, Mercedes Bautista, Lidia Benavides, Cecilia Gala, Ana M. Gallinal, Carla Fajardo, Pep Fajardo, Fernando González-Criado Leyra, Ana Musma and Ramón López de Benito.

Unusually, Blanca Berlin does not start the course with photographs, but with sculptures emerging from plans, those by María Oriza. But it does bet on the image, and on the one born from the reimagination of the archives, Camera Oscura, with the Mexican Cristóbal Ascencio.

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