Featured Events in Madrid in December, 2024(December Updated)

In January 1986, in the basement of a block of flats in the Madrid neighbourhood of Chamberí, Maite Arratibel, Celia García Bravo, Nacho Pérez de la Paz and Pedro Roldán founded an alternative art space christened, ironically, Galería Nacional. At the same time, in January of that same year, Manuel Saiz launched the Postal Service for Multiple Exhibitions and Propaganda, a postal art initiative presented as “an unorthodox magazine, in which the pages and articles are received one by one and separately, a gallery that in each delivery will show a work to the viewer’s home and not the other way around.” According to the editorial note, simply and plainly, “a wedge of artistic opposition.” A radical collaborative project that, months later, would merge with the critical spirit of the partners and friends of the Galería Nacional, where Manuel Saiz arrived guided by Julio Jara, a colleague in exhibitions at the Villalar gallery and an early collaborator in both projects. It was from this meeting, and together with the contributions of other artists and theorists such as Javier Colis, José Díaz Cuyás, Celia Martín, Pamen Pereira or Alberto Vidarte, when they decided to unite both independent initiatives in a common project: GENE, a gallery of collective production that publishes multiples in postcard format.

When you come to Madrid, Tablao, which performs flamenco dance, is undoubtedly a place that tourists don’t want to miss at night. Tabalo refers to an art form in which flamenco and dance are performed in the unique atmosphere of a restaurant. Dancers once moved from the streets to theaters, but later moved to perform in restaurants due to high taxes and other economic reasons. Guests who visited the restaurant were able to enjoy wonderful performances while enjoying delicious food. The restaurant's business was extremely prosperous, and this "master among the people" performance form was finally stabilized and named Tablao.

Torres Bermejas is a very famous restaurant in Madrid, where famous Spanish flamenco artists often perform. The restaurant also offers very authentic Spanish cuisine and wine.

Isabel Muñoz, one of the greatest photographers of our time, visits MNA again after "Women of the Congo" (2017). Now he presents his latest major project that gives us insight into the profound anthropological values ​​of the formation of Neolithic societies through his impressive photographs of four archaeological sites in Anatolia: Göbekli Tepe, Karahan Tepe, Nevalichori and Seburç. In recent years, the excavations of these "sanctuaries" have not ceased to surprise us, the discoveries of which are changing our knowledge of societies in transition between nomadism and sedentarism: their chronology, their organization and way of life, their megalithic architecture, their artistic expressions and their concept of the "sacred". This exhibition kicks off a special program for the 150th anniversary of the National Museum of Anthropology (1875-2025), thus evoking the very first stages of its life, in which it was also a prehistoric museum. In fact, the project now links the MNA with three major museums dedicated to the dawn of man: the Pera Museum in Istanbul and the Museum of Civilization in Ankara, where it began, and the National Museum of Altamira, where it will stop next spring. The Altamira Museum was then the destination of most of the MNA's prehistoric collection, since part of the objects, mainly stone tools collected throughout the 19th century in different archaeological "sites", came from Cantabria. In this way, the exhibition, while opening a phase of renovation of the museum, also closes a kind of "magic circle". The powerful images created by Isabel Muñoz are meant to look back to the distant past, but they challenge us from the most palpitating contemporaneity and connect us to questions that are still very valid. Humanity has travelled a path since then, are we really fundamentally different from the people who created and used those sacred spaces 9,000 years ago? Have we not forgotten the fundamental things that these people knew and felt about our relationship with the universe? Is it possible to rediscover those fundamental identities that have been lost by establishing a connection with the invisible dimension of these creations mediated by Isabel Muñoz? There is only one way to examine it...

A lost Caravaggio painting that was almost mistakenly sold at auction for a bargain price has gone on display at the Prado Museum in Madrid, Spain, after being rescued and restored. “Ecce Homo,” which was painted by the Italian master around 1606-09, will feature in a special one-piece exhibition from Tuesday, according to a statement from the museum.

Throughout her career, the painter Soledad Sevilla (Valencia, 1944) has developed a rigorous language based on the purity of line and color and on the construction of forms based on geometric modules. This exhibition, curated by Isabel Tejeda, chronologically retraces the artist's career, from her first steps at the Computing Center of the University of Madrid to her current work, through more than a hundred works, some of which were made especially for the exhibition. The retrospective focuses on the artist's statement that she has been painting the same picture all her life, linking her early works from the 1960s to her latest series, such as White Horizon or Waiting for Semper, in which she pays tribute to her recommender and friend Eusebio Semper.

This exhibition explores the concept of the grotesque, a core of aesthetic thought capable of offering new perspectives on reality. Developed by the writer Ramón María del Valle-Inclán (1866-1936) as a tool of critical questioning in response to the backwardness and moral despair that plagued Spain in the first half of the 20th century, the grotesque confronts the country’s social, political and cultural constraints, insisting on the distance of the gaze and a range of aesthetic strategies to deform with maximum efficiency. Unlike other cultural representations of the grotesque that emerged in Europe, in which horrific distortions embodied the absurdity of life during that period, the grotesque proposed a new aesthetic that needed to be dedicated to the renewal of social structures. Through extensive documentation and various works of art, this exhibition explores the main themes and strategies that express the grotesque, emphasizing that it is an aesthetic proposal that survived Valle-Inclán’s time and thought. The exhibition is divided into eight main sections. It begins with the Antes del esperpento of the last decades of the 19th century, which displayed a selection of satirical news, drawings and popular optical devices of the time, which were forerunners of anamorphosis.

On display in Room 16B of the Villanueva Building until 16 February 2025 and benefiting from the collaboration of the Comunidad de Madrid, this exhibition features more than 30 works including paintings executed by Rubens himself, works by his assistants and others resulting from different degrees of collaboration between them. Through the figure of Peter Paul Rubens, one of the most prolific and successful painters of the Early Modern age, the exhibition aims to reveal how European artists produced their paintings in workshops, making use of numerous collaborators.

This thematic route offers an approach to the Museum’s permanent collection through a selection of works on display. Devised by Eduardo Barba Gómez, gardener and researcher into art and botany, it reveals how the latter subject plays a significant role in the stories. The diversity and richness of the Museo del Prado’s collections allow for this new interpretative approach, with a focus on more than 40 botanical species through a selection of 26 paintings by artists of the significance of Patinir, Fra Angelico, Titian, Velázquez, Rubens and Zurbarán. The route is complemented by a publication and an audio guide in Spanish and English.

Curated by French thinker Georges Didi-Huberman, the exhibition “In the moved air…” articulates a political anthropology of emotion in poetic terms, outlining ways of breathing and resistance that confront the persuasive culture of capitalism that has permeated everything. Its title, taken from Federico García Lorca’s Romancero gitano, appeals to overflowing emotion that is not restricted to a single subject, where Lorca’s idea of ​​the “duende” comes into play. In this way, emotion is understood here as a movement that is transmitted to the community through a singular body and that is capable of leading to a “commotion,” that is, a concatenation of emotions that affects a group, an environment, a relationship.

The exhibition Opera to a Black Venus, dedicated to the multidisciplinary artist Grada Kilomba (Lisbon, 1968), brings together a selection of installation works that is the most complete presentation of her work to date in Spain. Trained in clinical psychology and psychoanalysis at the Instituto Superior de Psicologia Aplicada (ISPA) in Lisbon, she worked at the Júlio de Matos Hospital with survivors of the war in Angola and Mozambique before completing her PhD in Philosophy at the Freie Universität in Berlin. Strongly influenced by the work of the revolutionary philosopher, writer and psychiatrist Frantz Fanon, Kilomba began to research and write about memory, trauma, race and gender to question the connections between power, knowledge and violence. With this solid academic foundation in clinical psychoanalysis and philosophy, as well as a long career as a researcher, the artist later expanded her interests on these issues through different formats, including performance, stage reading, video, photography and large-format sculptural and sound installations. Through these, the artist analyses the dominant systems of knowledge production and proposes a process of unlearning regarding Western epistemology with the intention of challenging the linearity of the historiography that in some way perpetuates the colonial economy.

Juvenalia will focus on areas such as theater, video games, robotics, traditional games, creative area, dining space, sports, magic, music and much more Juvenalia will focus on areas such as theater, video games, robotics, traditional games, creative area, dining space, sports, magic, music and much more. Information Source: IFEMA | expotobi

GamerGy event display products like The professionals working in the field of Gaming, Hospitality & Entertainment industries will be the main participant of this event etc GamerGy event display products like The professionals working in the field of Gaming, Hospitality & Entertainment industries will be the main participant of this event etc. Information Source: IFEMA | expotobi

“Art that connects” is a joint initiative between the Museo Nacional del Prado and Telefónica that commemorates the company’s centenary and encourages people to connect through culture. This project will allow museums throughout Spain to temporarily exhibit some of the masterpieces of painting that form part of the memory and common heritage of the Spanish people.

Calling all classic car enthusiasts! The prestigious Retromobile Madrid 2024 event is revving up for an unforgettable experience in the heart of Spain. From November 29th to December 1st, the IFEMA - Feria de Madrid will transform into a haven for vintage vehicle admirers and collectors alike. This much-anticipated event promises to showcase a dazzling array of timeless automobiles that have left their tread marks on history's pavement. Attendees will have the chance to marvel at beautifully preserved machines, immerse themselves in the rich culture of car collecting, and perhaps even find that elusive piece for their own collection. With each passing year, Retromobile Madrid has grown exponentially, solidifying its place as a cornerstone on the classic car calendar. The 2024 edition is set to be the most impressive yet, with a lineup that will have heads turning and cameras clicking non-stop. So mark the calendars and gear up for an event that's sure to be the talk of the town. Retromobile Madrid 2024 is where the past meets the present, and where every car tells a story.