Joan Semmel Is Doing Her Best Work at 93

Nonagenarian painter Joan Semmel is experiencing a significant career renaissance, marked by a major survey exhibition at the Jewish Museum and a concurrent solo show at Alexander Gray Associates. At 93, Semmel continues to work from her Soho studio, where she has lived for over fifty years, producing unflinching figurative paintings that explore the female body, aging, and the gaze. The article traces her trajectory from her early education at Cooper Union and a formative period in Madrid to her pivotal role in feminist art history.

Collecting in Madrid: 50 Ways to Build the Contemporary

COLECCIONAR EN MADRID: 50 FORMAS DE CONSTRUIR LO CONTEMPORÁNEO

The exhibition 'Madrid Colecciona. 50 colecciones de arte contemporáneo' opened at CentroCentro, showcasing a hundred works from fifty private collections in Madrid. It shifts focus from the artwork and artist to the often-opaque figure of the collector, allowing each collector to present two pieces: one of personal significance and one recent acquisition, accompanied by their own explanatory texts.

Elevating High Fashion. Issey Miyake and Ensamble Studio Together at Fuorisalone 2026

Valorizzare l’alta sartoria. Issey Miyake e Ensamble Studio insieme al Fuorisalone 2026

Satoshi Kondo, a director at the Miyake Design Studio, has partnered with the Madrid-based architecture firm Ensamble Studio to explore the creative potential of the Paper Log, a byproduct of Issey Miyake's signature pleating process. The collaboration will culminate in an exhibition titled 'The Paper Log: Shell and Core' during the 2026 Fuorisalone in Milan, featuring prototype furniture and sculptural forms made from the compressed paper rolls and unfolded pleated paper.

Picasso’s Guernica is the ultimate emblem of the horrors of war. It has no place in Spain's partisan squabbles | María Ramírez

A political dispute has erupted in Spain over the potential temporary relocation of Pablo Picasso's iconic anti-war painting *Guernica*. The president of the Basque Country, Imanol Pradales, has formally requested the work be moved from Madrid's Reina Sofía museum to the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao for several months in 2027, framing it as a form of "reparation" for the Basque people. The Spanish government has rejected the request on conservation grounds, while conservative politicians have used the proposal to attack Basque nationalism.

'David Macho, Juan Narowé' at Alzueta Gallery, Madrid, Spain on 7 May–8 Jun 2026

The Alzueta Gallery in Madrid will present a two-person exhibition featuring artists David Macho and Juan Narowé from May 7 to June 8, 2026. The show highlights the work of these two contemporary artists, bringing their practices to a significant gallery platform in the Spanish capital.

The Future of Museums Is a Dance Floor

Museums and art institutions are increasingly incorporating nightlife and rave culture into their programming, treating the dance floor as a site of cultural and political significance. Exhibitions like Steve McQueen's 2024 Dia Beacon show, the 2018 'Elements of Vogue' in Madrid, the Swiss National Museum's 2025 'Techno' exhibition, and the author's own 2025 curatorial project 'Rave into the Future: Art in Motion' at the Asian Art Museum demonstrate this institutional turn.

Teresa Vall Palou's chromatic experimentation seduces the south of Madrid

The Tomás y Valiente Art Center (CEART) in Fuenlabrada is hosting a major exhibition of Catalan artist Teresa Vall Palou titled "Chromatic Atmospheres." Featuring over sixty large-format works produced over the last decade, the show highlights Vall Palou’s experimentation with color, form, and "conscious unconsciousness" through expansive canvases and diluted glazes. Despite a sixty-year career largely spent in "opacity," this exhibition marks a significant moment of public recognition for the artist, whose abstract style draws comparisons to Pollock and Rothko.