Even the hottest summers must come to an end eventually, and everyday life in the cities returns to normal. By September at the latest, cultural life is also back in full swing in the Spanish capital Madrid. We recommend six exhibitions that stand out, including shows at El Apartamento, Yusto/Giner, Albarrán Bourdais, Casado Santapau, Max Estrella and Sabrina Amrani.
Brenda Cabrera at El Apartamento
Reciprocity and respect for nature inform Cuban artist Brenda Cabrera’s artistic practice rather than the contemporary dynamics of extraction and appropriation. “La pesca” is her first solo exhibition at El Apartamento in Madrid. The show brings together a selection of recent paintings and invites the public to delve into the artist’s unique imagination. It is the result of her explorations into the nature of the human soul and the power structures that civilisation has constructed to shape it.
El Apartamento, Calle de la Puebla #4, local bajo derecha. CP 28004, Madrid.
Por cortesía del artista y la Galería Yusto/Giner.
Adam Parker Smith at Galería Yusto/Giner
Under the title “Never been to heaven” he shows a sculptural position that places the Greco – Roman tradition in direct dialogue with contemporary technology. His Blocks of Carrara marble, the marble of Michelangelo and Bernini, pass through 3D scanning and robotic milling before reaching the hands of craftsmen working in a tradition six centuries old. The exhibition draws on Parker Smith’s Crush series, in which he scans canonical Greco – Roman sculptures in three dimensions, digitally compresses them into compact forms, and has them hand – carved from raw Carrara marble. The marble is drawn from the same quarries that have supplied Western sculpture for over two thousand years.
Galería Yusto/Giner, C. del Barquillo, 25, Centro, 28004 Madrid
Simón Vega at Albarrán Bourdais
At Albarrán Bourdais we can see works of an artist that develops a non-linear historical narrative in which past and future, the primitive and the advanced, the indigenous and the foreign converge. The exhibition “Tiempos Cíclicos / Futuros Pasados” by Salvadoran artist Simón Vega features a group of newly created works inspired by the towering figures of Maya rulers and the massive hybrid zoomorphic sculptures found in the ancient city of Quiriguá, in present-day Guatemala. The show intertwines the monumental pre-Hispanic monoliths of Mesoamerica with contemporary forms of commemoration and propaganda.
Albarrán Bourdais Madrid C. Barquillo, 13 28004 Madrid
Léo Fourdrinier at Galería Casado Santapau.
Léo Fourdrinier employs anachronism as a creative technique, seamlessly blending the past and future, the archaic and the technological, the natural and the artificial within the same space and time. This juxtaposition generates hybrid forms that challenge conventional categories and pave the way for narratives reminiscent of fiction, surrealism, and speculative thought. Léo Fourdrinier’s practice is situated at the intersection of sculpture, installation, archaeology, science, and mythology. By assembling found materials, industrial objects, organic forms, and modeled elements, the artist constructs a visual language where diverse times, references, and systems of knowledge interact and transform one another.
Casado Santapau Gallery, Piamonte 10, 28004 Madrid, Spain.
Diana Fonseca at Max Estrella
The philosophical concept of ‚entelequia‘, meaning “having the end already within oneself,” refers to the fundamental force that drives life, self-discovery, and the deliberate pursuit of an inherent purpose. Drawing from this philosophical premise, Cuban artist Diana Fonseca conceptualizes her artistic practice as its own entelequia. Her creative process stems from personal emotions and experiences, often reflecting a collective or generational sensibility. As time progresses, new questions, desires, nostalgias, dreams, and needs emerge, shaping the artistic practice of this Caribbean creator.
Max Estrella, Santo Tomé 6, patio 28004 Madrid
Joël Andrianomearisoa at Sabrina Amrani
“I Have No Regret For The Past And This Is Not The End Of The World” at Sabrina Amrani Gallery is at once sad and laconic, humorous, poetic and apathetic. The exhibition brings together a selection of works created between 1996 and 2026, tracing thirty years of the artist’s creative output. Joël Andrianomearisoa employs various means of expression, language and drawing, paper and textiles, sculptural objects and architectural interventions, to construct an emotional landscape. The exhibition has a melancholic feel without being nostalgic; the artist succeeds in translating intimate traumas into feelings that can be collectively experienced, thereby generating a tension of defiant optimism.
Sabrina Amrani, Sallaberry, 50 28019 Madrid, Spain
