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HYBRID 2020, Madrid's Coolest Emerging Art Fair

HYBRID, an emerging art fair set in the rooms of a Madrid hotel, comes as a breath of fresh air amid an Art Week predominantly defined by the same old.

The experience of going through rooms-turned-galleries is fun and intimate, mainly because the event is nicely curated but also because the artists are there. Artworks are good and affordable, and the show is gender balanced, sharply contrasting with ARCO, the main Art Week event, where only 32% of artists were women.
 
There are 35 young galleries, collectives and art/artist-run spaces from 10 countries exhibiting in the hotel rooms, while the communal areas are allocated to independent artists for site-specific installations.  
 
I loved the new media art by Brianna Lowe and Jenn E. Norton at two Canadian artist-run spaces: Ed Video from Guelph, Ontario, and V tape from Toronto.
 
Brianna Lowe's exhibit includes videos with exciting 3D representations and video game sceneries, while Jenn E Norton presents at the V Tape room an augmented reality and 3D-animated project that has been selected as Hybrid 2020 Best Exhibition. Norton's animated project features plant compositions when symbols displayed on the wall are viewed through an electronic device. The theme itself is as interesting as the medium. It is about the communication methods of plants and fungi that operate outside human perception. 
 
Left Brianna Lowe, Compressing Balls (2020), Ed Video Guelph Canada | Jenn E Norton, Not Present on the Year (2020), V tape Toronto

 

Some artworks nicely interact with the setting, such as Exodus in a Sink a site-specific work around a handbasin by Perfettipietro from artist-run Spazio Display Parma. Or the collage on a bed with works by Lucia VeronesiMarco Salvetti and Lorenzo di Lucido from Yellow, another artist-run space and invited by Hybrid as Special Project.

 Left Exodus in a Sink (2020), Perfettipietro, Spazio Display Parma | Works by Lucia Veronesi, Marco Salvetti, Lorenzo di Lucido, Yellow Milan
 
There is a performance on the visual paradox of masculinity by Ricardo Mena at the Cobertura Photo room, a Seville-based photography school/gallery, being recorded by artist María Pla. 
 
Ricardo Mena, Acullá Performance & María Pla, Doble Expo (2019),  Cobertura Photo Sevilla
 
The Susana Pardo gallery displays photography by Manuel Granados on the subject of waste pollution. In his series Árbol para un paisaje Granados explores the exchange between humans and nature with unusual waste bouquets. 
 

Árbol para un paisaje (2020), Manuel Granados, Galería Susana Pardo Barcelona


Aguas del gran sol (2005-20), Raúl Hidalgo, Galería Lamosa Cuenca | Paletas, Paco Vallejo, Raum E116 Berlin

Very interesting the work presented by Fotolateras, a collective of two, Lola Barcia and Marinela Forcadell, who travels the world with unusual pinhole cameras (light-proof boxes with a hole). They make their own cameras with coffee and biscuit cans, and use the different can shapes as specific lens types. When they travel, they carry up to 40 cans and improvise a darkroom in their hotel bathroom. The outcome are unique, slightly-distorted black and white pictures.

  
Pinhole photograph of London, Fotolateras Valencia


Home-made pinhole cameras, hotel room lab and biscuit can for landscape pictures showed by Lola Barcia, Fotolateras Valencia

Handmade banner by Joyce Overheul at the Lauwer Galleryand carbonized objects by Rani Sasson at the Almacén Gallery


Nevertheless She Persisted (2019), Joyce Overheul, Lauwer Gallery Den Haag | Rani Sasson, Almacén Gallery & Cultural Centre Tel Aviv





  

About
HYBRID Art Fair | Petit Palace Santa Bárbara Hotel, Plaza Santa Bárbara 10, Madrid | 28 February - 1 March 2020

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JUSTMAD 2020

Featured Artists
Anbel
Brianna Lowe
Fotolateras
Jenn E Norton
Joyce Overheul
Lucia Veronesi, Marco Salvetti and Lorenzo di Lucido
Manuel Granados
Maria Pla
Paco Vallejo
Perfettipietro
Rani Sasson
Ricardo Mena
Raul Hidalgo

Photos 
by PS. Cover picture, Colour is Pretty by Anbel

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