Since the seventies, Madrid’s spaces for visual arts have brought cultural activities to the capital and its citizens on a regular basis. Despite the local context being heavily influenced by public cultural institutions, independent spaces have enriched the cultural scene of the city with autonomy and diversity. Today around forty of such centres are open to the public in Madrid, hosting exhibitions, conferences, workshops, artistic residencies, catering services, and a wide range of other events, fostering a lasting relationship with its visitors.

Everything Else emerged when CentroCentro invited four of these spaces to work as a curatorial collective with the aim of shedding light on hybrid organisations. This close-up presents twenty very different spaces. Their approaches are what art historian and educator Manuel Bartolomé Cossío called “everything else”, in reference to the union of knowledge and experiences of a non-academic nature essential to a person’s education.

If art and culture can be understood as an expansive field of knowledge, nourished by a myriad of diverse elements, spaces for contemporary culture offer us “everything” we cannot get from public or commercial institutions. Experimental artistic proposals that take risks and are born from intuition; places for shared learning, where the focus is on the process rather than the results; non-hierarchical working models, with horizontal, inclusive teams that promote equality and solidarity; engaged cultural practices that respond to the problems of the context in which they are created, that promote hospitality and the fostering of long-lasting relationships and, above all, that are able to sustainan affective like-minded community around their activity.

The public programme delivered alongside the exhibition will include around thirty activities, such as workshops, screenings, live performances and music shows, all linked to the processes of creation and research at each of the spaces taking part. 
The complete programme will be published online shortly.

Participants:
Alimentación 30, Aparador Monteleón, CAR-Centro de Acercamiento a lo Rural, Casa Banchel, Espacio Afro, Espacio de Todo, #Ey!Studio, FelipaManuela, Institute for Postnatural Studies, Centro Cultural de Experimentación y Documentación Artística La Parcería (CCEDA), La Juan Gallery, marcablanca, Museo La Neomudéjar, Nadie Nunca Nada No, Omnívoros, Planta Alta, Proa, Salón, Storm And Drunk, Zapadores Ciudad del Arte

A project curated by:
Amelie Aranguren (CAR-Centro de Acercamiento a lo rural)
Andrea Pacheco González (FelipaManuela)
Flavia Introzzi (Planta Alta)
Ramón Mateos (Nadie Nunca Nada No)

Exhibition design: Ramón Mateos
Graphic design: Clara Sancho

"After the two editions of Panorama Madrid in which we perused the world of Madrid’s contemporary art galleries, CentroCentro is now set on examining independent spaces that are veritable hives of artistic creativity, so that the public can continue to explore and uncover our city’s cultural fabric by discovering, enjoying and visiting them.

The project is an attempt to answer two questions: What relationship is there between what is generated in an independent space and its subsequent projection within the institutional sphere, and how should these spaces be presented within an institution?

We have invited four curators who run active independent spaces here in Madrid: Amelie Aranguren (CAR-Centre for Approaching the Rural), Andrea Pacheco González (FelipaManuela), Flavia Introzzi (Planta Alta) and Ramón Mateos (Nadie Nunca Nada No). They in turn have invited another 16 spaces to show us just how diverse the current panorama really is.

This is really quite an ambitious project, so much so that the people who run these independent spaces were quite taken aback by our proposal, used as they are, given the nature of the spaces in question, to working on the fringes of “officialdom”. Both they and CentroCentro have really put ourselves to the test to convey to our visitors the spirit of the experimental from the walls of our august halls.

After more than a year spent working on how to knock this into shape, doing our utmost to avoid all the constraints that institutions can exert on the alternative scene, we are now able to take the wraps off this display of creative energy that offers and creates culture through up-close experiences that demonstrate just how much we need these spaces.

All of us own culture, and we all nurture it. ENJOY!"

Giulietta Z. Speranza
Artistic Director of CentroCentro