ARCO Madrid 2024

The countdown has begun. ARCO Madrid is just around the corner and from Galeria SENDA we are finishing all the details so that this year we can show you in our stand, 9B23, the latest creations of our beloved artists of the house.

For our thirty-first participation in ARCO, one of the most influential fairs on the international scene, we have invited those who are pillars of our identity and history as a gallery, as well as new young and emerging proposals.

Jordi Bernadó – «Last & Lost»

This year we are very happy to show you part of Jordi Bernadó‘s new photographic project, “LAST & LOST“. This series of eight photographs, shown in a solo exhibition at Galeria SENDA and part of a larger project, question the ecological and philosophical challenges of the present, dealing with issues such as sustainability, the relationship between technology and nature, the horizons of our future or the role that democracy will play in the fight against new environmental threats. The photographs in “LAST & LOST” portray lost places, endangered ecosystems, areas rendered unfit for habitation due to pollution, and life forms struggling to survive in practically barren landscapes. The artist becomes, then, a witness and spectator of ecological catastrophes in an ambiguous state between existing and not being able to be; just surviving.

Snowy landscape with a small tree

Jordi Bernadó. Old Tjikko, Mörkret, Sweden (S 6.2)cc (2022)
UV printing on methacrylate, mounted on dibond., 180 x 240 cm

Jaume Plensa

Another of the artists that backbone and shape the personality of our gallery is Jaume Plensa, the famed sculptor from Barcelona with an unparalleled international projection. For this edition of ARCO Madrid, Plensa presents his work based on contradictions: light and darkness, the trace of the past and the opening towards the future, natural contradictions and the creations of man’s hand, the immensity of noise and the most intimate spheres of silence.

Photograph of a bronze head sculpture with four hands covering the eyes and mouth.

Jaume Plensa. Who Are You? VI (2016)
Bronze, 38 x 15 x 15 cm

Anthony Goicolea

In contrast, Anthony Goicolea shows us that art can mean brutality, capturing in his plastic works the different prisms and perspectives of social issues such as gender, culture or traditions. Goicolea pours into his artwork his personal and family history, marked by being born Cuban, being gay and practicing the Catholic religion in the south of the country in the early seventies. These factors forged his awareness of social constructions, such as regional traditions or rituals, and how these elements influence and define our identities. In this edition of ARCO, Goicolea will show works in graphite and on oil, where visitors will be able to find themselves in front of subjects that could well be taken from theatrical performances or novels.

Double painting where, in each one, half of a man's body is represented

Anthony Goicolea. The Magician’s (2023)
Oil on canvas, 127 x 254 cm

Sandra Vásquez de la Horra

Another artist invited to exhibit at our stand at ARCO Madrid is the Chilean Sandra Vásquez de la Horra. Through a multiplicity of techniques ranging from three-dimensional pieces, charcoal, watercolor and wax; Vásquez de la Horra traces bodies that she conceives as geographical entities. These bodies, now territories, are divided into two planes: the physical-terrestrial and the mystical. In the physical aspect, the artist narrates with her work the political charge of the people’s resistance against the Chilean dictatorship. On the other hand, in the mystical aspect, Vásquez de la Horra takes the concept of the seven planes or chakras to dialogue in unison between the universe and the Earth.

Paper art installation representing two heads, one on top of the other

Sandra Vásquez de la Horra. Las Cholitas (2024)
Graphite and watercolor on waxed paper, 106 x 77 cm

Evru Zush

It is also characterized by the creation of unique and fantastic forms, Evru Zush. With a mix of techniques and disciplines, Zush presents his “Naga” series, made up of creatures that seem to come out of a science fiction movie.

Drawings of heads attached to tails, similar to those of fishes

Evru Zush. Serie Naga (2018)
Graphite on paper, 24.7 x 9.7 cm

Elena del Rivero

In addition, we will have the presence of the Valencian Elena del Rivero, an established artist who, from New York, continues to produce her artistic projects. Elena Del Rivero‘s work is divided into two lines: a historical one, exploring the collective pain of loss, and a personal one, focused on the construction of existential pillars.

Picture of eight feathers drawn on paper

Elena del Rivero. Flying Letter #24 (2011-2014)
Drawing, 73 x 54.6 x 21.5 cm

Stephan Balkenhol

Stephan Balkenhol will also participate in ARCO Madrid with his wooden work “Man with pink tie“. Balkenhol has managed over the years to establish himself as an artist who perseveres to reintroduce figurative sculpture in the current contemporary scene. His polychrome works are characterized by the contrast between the splinters and shavings that Balkenhol leaves when he effusively carves the raw material of his creations, wood, and the polished areas of the same.

Wooden sculpture of a man with black jacket, white shirt and pink tie

Stephen Balkenhol. Man with pink tie (2022)
Carved wood, 120 x 95.5 x 11.7 cm

Gonzalo Guzmán

Another artist of monumental carvings that joins ARCO is Madrid-born Gonzalo Guzmán. The artist presents in this edition of ARCO his new sculptural project through which Guzmán has tried to explore the inner self using lucid dreams as tools of inspiration and self-knowledge to create works that challenge our belief system. This is why his sculptures represent the metallic structures that appear in his dreams and explore the possibility of reproducing the sublime of the subconscious in reality.

Stainless steel menhir

Gonzalo Guzmán. Menhir_06 (2023)
Stainless steel, 275 x 100 x 60 cm

Gino Rubert

Committed to seduce the eye with the works he creates in order to invite reflection, Gino Rubert represents experiences and emotions through a fusion of artistic disciplines. With a complex technique that mixes the collage of photographs and everyday materials with acrylic and oil, the artist represents the figure of the new woman and the new man, their functions, dysfunctions, conflicts and rhetoric.

Painting of a woman on a railing in a pink dress with pins attached to the surface of the canvas

Gino Rubert. La Barana (2024)
Mixed/canvas, 55 x 46 cm

Yago Hortal

Yago Hortal maintains a close relationship between the artwork itself and the action painting itself. For Hortal, the canvas is part of a performance in which the artist consciously creates spontaneous color forms in an infinite range, expressing passion and vivacity. The paint seems to come out of the canvas, provoking the desire to want to touch it.

Yellow, pink and navy blue broad brushstrokes on a blue and pink gradient background

Yago Hortal. Z86 (2024)
Painting, 50 x 60 cm

Xavi Bou

Another artist who stands out for his spectacular composition is Xavi Bou. With his well-known series “Ornitographies“, a chronophotography project that reveals the invisible patterns that birds trace in the sky when they fly, Bou creates a balance between art and science and, in turn, builds a series of works loaded with visual poetry that hypnotize viewers.

Black and white photograph of a rock in the middle of the sea with a sky full of birds

Xavi Bou. ORNITOPGRAPHY #275 (2018-2019)
Digital print on Hahnemühle Fine Art Pearl 285 gr/m2, 140 x 200 cm

Peter Halley

Peter Halley will be in our Artist Project space as an artist, with a solo show that connects his past stages with his most recent work. In this exhibition visitors will be able to analyze in detail the artist’s most emblematic piece: “Exploding Cell” (1983). The animation that represents this computer is directly inspired by the Cold War and its ravages.

Photograph of the entrance of an art gallery with paintings on display and a television playing an animation

Peter Halley. Exploding Cell (1983)
Digital Animation

Glenda León

This year we will also be able to enjoy the work of multidisciplinary artist Glenda León, both in our general program and as a guest in the special session entitled “La orilla, la marea, la corriente: un Caribe oceánico“, an exhibition space within ARCO with 23 guest artists that will be curated by Sara Hermann, chief curator of the Centro Cultural Eduardo León Jimenes (Dominican Republic), and Carla Acevedo-Yates, from the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.

Small blue mineral-like piece

Glenda León. Sueño concreto de Miró (2022)
Concrete and acrylic, 20 x 20 x 7 cm

We look forward to seeing you in the corridors of ARCO enjoying the art that will be condensed these days in Madrid and that, of course, we can meet at stand 9B23 of the gallery. If you want to be surprised with a wide and rich gallery proposal in disciplines, you will always have a corner where you can escape from the overwhelming atmosphere that a fair as imposing as ARCO can cause. SENDA will always be a space, the path, where you can find yourself again.

Anthony Goicolea for Loop Festival 2022: “Don’t make a scene”

Galeria SENDA presents Anthony Goicolea – “Don’t Make a Scene” (2020)
LOOP Festival, 8 – 20 November 2022


Galeria SENDA is pleased to present Anthony Goicolea in this years edition of the LOOP Festival from the 8th of November till the 20th of November.

“Don’t Make a Scene” (2020) is a monologue presented in the form of a silent film. The short unfolds as a book of drawings made during the initial six weeks of the Covid-19 quarantine. Each drawing is done on semi-translucent sheets of mylar film. The portraits are character studies presented as actors from a one-act play.
 
Made during a six-week period of forced isolation, Goicolea casts myself as the emcee in the guise of an early 1900’s cabaret host as an allusion to past and present pandemics.

Stills from the original video


Dressed in period stage drag the emcee enters in a black cloak and beaked mask. During the 17 th-century plague, European physicians wore beaked masks, leather gloves, and long coats in an attempt to fend off disease. The mask is removed to reveal pancake make-up and reddened cheeks that were often used to hide early signs of “Consumption” or the “White Plague”. And the pomaded coifure, rouge, lipstick and stage make up has links to paintings made during the pandemic of 1918 as well as referneces to drag and queer communities affected by the on going AIDS pandemic.
 
The musical accompaniment is a slow unfolding waltz whose beat is in sync with the rhythmic turning of the pages. The slow steady beat marches onward toward isolation, tedium, fear and the final hooded figure of death.

ARTIST BIO
Anthony Goicolea is an American born artist of Cuban origin. Known internationally for his photographs, drawings, paintings, sculptural installations, and films, the artist works across mediums creating a self-referential visual language that explores identity, migration and transition, displacement and alienation, as well as assimilation and group dynamics. Goicolea uses the architecture of the human body and constructed landscapes to create worlds predicated on fantasy but based in reality.

About LOOP Barcelona

LOOP Barcelona is a platform dedicated to the study and promotion of the moving image. Founded in 2003, since its creation it offers a specialized audience a curated selection of video-related contents from challenging perspectives. An international community of artists, curators, gallerists, collectors and institution directors, team up to develop projects, which aim at exploring the capacities of video and film in today’s contemporary art discourses.

Studio Visit with Anthony Goicolea

#SendaInTheCity

VOLUME I

‘I normally start my day drawing,’ says Anthony Goicolea at his studio in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. ‘Eventually, one of those drawings will tell a story, then it becomes a painting.’

The New York based artist, first-generation Cuban-American, invited us to his luminous studio a Sunday afternoon in New York City.

Making use of a variety of media, Goicolea explores topics ranging from particular history and identity, through cultural tradition and heritage, to alienation and displacement.

His diverse oeuvre encompasses digitally manipulated self-portraits, landscapes, narrative tableaux executed in a variety of media, including black-and-white and color photography, sculpture & video installations, and multi-layered drawings on Mylar.

@anthonygoicolea x @galeriasenda

As I walk in, I am immediately captivated by the atmosphere of the studio. In the heart of Brooklyn, illuminated by a radiant mid-afternoon sun, we are greeted by some of Goicolea’s most recent pieces displayed around the space. All of them dialogue with one another creating at first an aura of contemplation and after a few minutes, of debate.

Goicolea at the studio, behind him: ‘Vigil, 2021’
The artist showing one of his recent projects

Anthony moves comfortably around the room picking out different paintings and carrying them from one place to another to get a better view. His active and energetic spirit gracefully guides us around the studio, showing us his latest creations and allowing us to enter his most personal creative space.

In ‘Crossing, 2021’, an oil on linen from 2020, four visible figures stand in front of an inflatable boat full of old bicycles, two other figures stand behind merging with the background.

Goicolea holding ‘Vigil, 2021’
The artists points at one of his recent works: ‘Crossing, 2020’

As an unresting curious artist, he’s always looking for innovating challenges. I noticed the great variety of sizes of the canvases and discovered that the dimensions weren’t random. Goicolea builds his own canvases to give life to his paintings, facilitating the process of projecting his drawings onto the fabric in a more personal and approachable way.

Goicolea’s pencil drawings on the wall
In the far back: ‘Portrait of A Franciscan Monk Giving A Confessional Reading to Aldo Londi Circa 1962, 2020’
The artist carrying ‘Fountain, 2021’

In past series, many of the images were devoid of humans. In those works, primitive lean-tos and crudely constructed shanties coexist in an uneasy union with the technological vestiges of an industrialized society. Suggesting a world on the brink of obsolescence, these chilling images further cement the pervasive undercurrent of human alienation—from one another as well as the natural environment—that can be traced throughout the artist’s work.

Odalisque with Kickstand, 2021′

However, it seems like Goicolea has officially entered –or, revisited– a phase in which his own personal history becomes the root of his inspiration by, once again, exploring his roots and family heritage with a different technical perspective.

These poignant, almost cinematic images are characterized by a fervent search for ancestral & social connections to his homeland: Cuba— revealing nostalgia for a past that the artist didn’t experience & a sense of cultural dislocation and estrangement.

‘Vigil, 2021’
Anthony posing for Galeria SENDA during our Studio Visit

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Galeria SENDA at Art Brussels 2022

28.04 – 01.05.22, Tour & Taxis | Booth A50

With great excitement and enthusiasm, this year we are pleased to announce the twentieth participation of Galeria SENDA in the prestigious contemporary art fair Art Brussels, which will take place from April 28th to May 1st, 2022. For this special edition, we have carefully prepared a selection of artists that represent the plastic, sculptural and compositional quality of a small sample of the talent of those who are part of the SENDA family.

In our stand at Art Brussels you will find works by renowned artists exhibited at SENDA such as Jaume Plensa and his conceptual brutality represented in “Who Are You? V”; Peter Halley and his lively use of colors in his large geometric paintings; Yago Hortal and the grandeur of his canvases such as “Z53”; Stephan Balkenhol with his huge sculptural figures; Iran do Espírito Santo and his audacious way of turning contradiction into a tangible thing as with his sculpture “Black Light”; Glenda León with her reinterpretation of the lunar cycle in “Listening to the Moon”; Túlio Pinto and his sculptures created from the fusion of materials; Sandra Vásquez de la Horra with her universe of fantastic figures that invite reflection on incendiary themes of the society in which we live; Gino Rubert with his farewells and reunions charged with symbolism; Xavi Bou and the wonderful chrono-photographic work captured in “Ornithographies“; Anthony Goicolea with his portraits where he explores human identity related to social issues such as migration; Donald Sultan and the reinvention of still lifes with works such as “Winter Mimosa Jan 28”; or the evocative photographs of Jordi Bernadó such as “New York (OS 276. 2)”. All this and much more is what anyone who attends the Art Brussels Week and passes by the stand A50 of Galeria SENDA will be able to find.

This amalgam of artistic projects demonstrates the solid gallery proposal of SENDA, betting on the dissemination of both national and international art. Likewise, the variety of techniques and disciplines is key to understand the idiosyncrasy of our gallery. Without the presence of this generous amount of projects so different from each other, fairs like Art Brussels would not make sense. For all this, if after getting to know the wide range of artists that will accompany SENDA in Brussels, you want to live an immersive experience and immerse yourself in the busy and vivid world of the fairs, you can find us at stand A50, in the Tour & Taxis building of the Belgian capital.

Obra abstracta d'uns peus que obren un portal de colors
Representació de la fase lunar
Pintura abstracta amb pinzellades rosades i ataronjades sobre fons negre

Portal, 2022
Sandra VÁSQUEZ DE LA HORRA
Grafit, watercolour and gouache on wax-plated paper
76 × 56 cm

Escuchando la Luna, 2020
Glenda LEÓN
Cow’s skin and wood
50 × 200 × 10 cm

Z51, 2022
Yago HORTAL
Acrylic in cloth
230 × 190 cm

Imatge d'un estand de fira amb pintures i escultures d'art contemporani

Booth A50 – Galeria SENDA

Galeria SENDA at Art Brussels 2021

03.06 – 06.06.21, Tour & Taxis

Black, white and red abstract polka dot painting

Donald Sultan. Autumn Mimosa (Feb, 2018)
Enamel, latex, graphite and tar on masonite. 122 x 244 cm

From June 3rd to 6th, Galeria SENDA presents a group exhibition at Art Brussels, one of the most renowned contemporary art fairs in Europe and an unmissable event on the international art calendar. Art Brussels is the ideal opportunity to discover the artistic and cultural richness of the art and cultural scene of the European capital, attracting a considerable number of collectors, curators, gallery owners, art professionals and art lovers from all over the world. Each year, the fair welcomes around 25,000 visitors to the emblematic Tour & Taxis building in the heart of the Belgian capital.

Instead of the usual format, this year the Belgian fair will offer a new edition: the Art Brussels week will feature Viewing Rooms, i.e. online exhibitions, from June 2nd to 14th and will also present physical gallery tours from June 3rd to 6th. For those unfamiliar with the term “viewing room,” this is a digital system that allows viewers to explore and examine works of art, either through high-quality images, videos or detailed descriptions. These viewing rooms are often used at art fairs and galleries as a way to show works of art to those who cannot physically attend the place where the works are exhibited. Through the “viewing rooms” visitors can, apart from appreciating the pieces, obtain information about them and the artists and even contact the gallery to make inquiries or purchases. All you need is an Internet connection and a great desire to enter into this extrasensory experience of online visits.

Painting of a racialized person lying on an orange float floating in dark water

Anthony Goicolea. Inflatable Pieta.
Oil on raw linen canvas. 90 x 130 cm

This year, for the physical gallery tour, SENDA invites the public to visit our current exhibition: “Day and night: New paintings and drawings” by Donald Sultan. Sultan is a contemporary painter, sculptor and printmaker known for his large-scale paintings, which explore the dichotomies between beauty and rudeness and realism and abstraction through the construction of a particular imaginary rich in color and form. With the fusion of techniques and materials, Sultan manages to build works that dance between the representation of images directly recognizable in the collective imagination and the purest abstraction. A great example of this mix of concepts is his ability to reinvent a technique as old as still life, using images of lemons, poppies, fruits, flowers and everyday objects, which give a breath of fresh air to the grandeur of his compositions.

The online exhibition continues to present our selected artists in the Viewing Room so that the shows can reach many more people. The artists chosen to represent our gallery in Brussels are Peter Halley, Jaume Plensa, Yago Hortal, Anthony Goicolea, Jordi Bernadó, Oleg Dou, Glenda León, Stephan Balkenhol, Gino Rubert and Evru Zush. The exhibition includes painting, photography, sculpture and drawings to create a constellation of works representing multiple techniques and artistic expressions. The wide variety of artistic proposals for this art week in Brussels aims to extol the most significant attributes of our gallery, advocating a brutal combination that perfectly represents the exquisiteness of the contemporary art that SENDA is committed to exhibit.

Do not miss this unique artistic encounter where works from different corners of the world converge for a few days in Brussels to be appreciated by a wide range of attendees and art lovers, in a unique cultural experience.