Your guide for what to see of the 52 participating galleries in this year’s Apertura Madrid Gallery Weekend
Each year, as the slow pace of summer comes to an end, a new art season begins to effervesce. Such is the ebb and flow of life in the artworld. In Madrid, that kicked off last weekend with Apertura Madrid Gallery Weekend. The 15th edition boasts 52 participating galleries whose exhibitions span solo and group shows presenting established and lesser-known artists from around the world. If the number of exhibitions seems a little daunting, and deciding where to start feels overwhelming, ArtReview has you covered with its own suggested tour of exhibitions to whet your palate.
Over at The Ryder Projects, Suzanne Treister’s eclectic and colourful art practice offers an optimistic and humorous reimagining of institutional powers via depictions of alternative realities and control mechanisms. Combining fictional narratives and new media, Treister dissects the intricacies of societal structures, presenting works that span a timeline of over three decades. Her projects – ranging from the fictional gaming visuals of Fictional Videogame Stills (1991–92) to Technoshamanic Systems: New Cosmological Models for Survival (2020–), a series of colourful diagrams that imagine ‘technovisionary non-colonialist plans towards… survival on Earth’ – challenge conventional narratives and stimulate dialogue around governance and technology.
Through her heavily diagrammatic works – they often take the form of mindmaps, alchemical drawings, antique maps and even tarot cards – Treister reconfigures how institutions might be perceived and understood in the future, suggesting that they can be reshaped through creative participation and imaginative discourse. Series like HEXEN 2.0 (2009–11) explore histories of scientific research ‘behind government programmes of mass control’, while HFT The Gardener intertwines financial and psychoactive narratives to question societal priorities. Treister’s art acts as a catalyst for reflection, encouraging viewers to engage critically with the dynamics of power and explore transformative possibilities in both personal and collective contexts.