Glenda León creates a space where art, sound, and dance engage in dialogue in the face of the erosion of traditional systems of belief, through symbols that allow us to rethink the meaning of the contemporary from a ritual perspective.

ARCOmadrid 2026 appears to reinforce its position in the global art market by consolidating a distinctive identity in contrast to the major internationalized art fairs, with Latin America as its anchor. Its capacity to generate cultural and market narratives from this positioning has been key to understanding its current role and evaluating the potential risks of its model.

Contemporary Art Now in Madrid focuses on contemporary painting and highlights the value of Latin American art through the FOCO LATAM program. The proposals by regional artists presented at the fair reveal a diverse panorama, featuring material explorations, cultural memory, and contemporary imaginaries.

We propose an overview of Latin American art presented at ARCO through ten proposals that illustrate and outline current tendencies, where critical and experimental perspectives, nature, materiality and organic processes shape different languages through which to address key themes.

We explored the visions and practices of eleven Latin American galleries to gauge the pulse of the region’s art and its status at ARCO, with proposals that, without ignoring the commercial side, affirm tradition, experimentation, and diversity of languages as a common hallmark.

The curated program at ARCOmadrid once again provides a prominent space for Latin American galleries and artists at the fair. With José Esparza Chong Cuy leading the new edition, the program exudes a diversity of approaches and realities, raising questions while simultaneously serving as a key opportunity for visibility.

The curators present in their program at ARCOmadrid 2026 the exploration of the future as an open question. From theatrical play, where the dialogue between works and artists raises doubt and critique without certainties, the curators invite to “keep the eyes open” regarding what is to come.

Valeria Maculan presents an installation that turns the exhibition space into a stage shared with the audience. The work uses large, foldable textile figures to create a theatrical environment that evokes archetypes, myth, and ritual.

Giana De Dier presents an exhibition in Madrid that proposes a visual reflection on memory. Through archival imagery, appropriation, and the technique of collage, the Panamanian artist reconstructs the affective memory of El Terraplén in response to its recent transformation.

From the curatorship of the Foco LATAM program at CAN Art Fair Madrid, Christian Viveros-Fauné approaches surrealism as a tool for reading global uncertainty, while advocating for painting and Latin American artistic practices as spaces of resistance and the creation of new imaginaries.

The Complutense Art Center explores the work of Quisqueya Henríquez, a practice rich both technically and conceptually, which employs social critique, creolization, and multidisciplinary semantics as analytical tools for the discourse of the Caribbean.

La vida se mueve delves into Pablo Reinoso’s most recognizable artistic practice: the transformation of everyday objects into sculptural works that explore existential fragility in dialogue with space and surrealism.

Máscara y compás underscores the importance of Maruja Mallo’s Latin American exile as a key stage in her artistic renewal, during which her avant-garde language expanded through the integration of the cultural and symbolic realities of Latin America.

Spanish art galleries are protesting with a temporary closure against a tax policy that places them at a competitive disadvantage compared to their European counterparts. The sector is calling for the application of a reduced VAT rate to ensure commercial competitiveness and to continue strengthening and reinvesting in the cultural ecosystem.

The three artists will bring their unique Latin American perspectives to reflect on the global themes addressed by the cycle: feminism, historical memory and power relations.

La Tercera Nave brings together the practices of Linarejos Moreno and Vanessa Enríquez in a dialogue centered on the material and symbolic remnants of memory. Through the concepts of textiles and weaving, both artists address fragmentation from industrial and technological perspectives.

Let’s Play. Juguemos en la colección, a BIENALSUR project, engages with the permanent collection of the Museo Nacional de Artes Decorativas through the conceptual lens of play, featuring the work of ten artists, mostly from Latin America, including Marta Minujín, Glenda León, and Silvia Rivas.

The installation is constructed using the artist's usual practices, where sand, pigments, and translucent curtains come together with cosmology and contemporary languages.

Andrea Canepa intervenes in the Palacio de Cristal at the Museo Reina Sofía with Fardo, an installation consisting of a large tarp inspired by pre-Columbian funerary bundles that transforms the building into a symbolic body, inviting reflection on what is visible and displayed, as well as on preservation and transformation.

The exhibition brings together a decade of technical and poetic experimentation that transcends the traditional boundaries of photography and places visual experience at the center of reflection. 

The exhibition traces different moments and formal strategies in her practice, marked by a critical reflection on violence, denial, and the tensions that permeate the female experience in contemporary society.

The Centro de Creación Contemporánea de Andalucía (C3A) in Córdoba is presenting Me duelen los ojos de mirar sin verte, the first solo exhibition in Spain by Ana Segovia (Mexico City, Mexico, 1991), on view until January. Curated by Jimena Blázquez Abascal, the show features thirteen oil paintings on canvas and one work on wood, all created expressly for the occasion.

Un visionado a tres voces (A three-voiced screening frames) is the conversation between three video art collections that draw from the languages and dynamics of different Southern contexts. The selections prepared for the occasion by the Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo Museum (CA2M Museum) in Móstoles —which hosts the initiative—, MAC Panamá and BIENALSUR, carried out through MUNTREF in Buenos Aires, also aim to establish synergies among the institutions.

The Valencian Centre del Carme presents South Body, a broad selection of recent performance documentation by Carlos Martiel (Havana, Cuba, 1989). Through photographs and videos, the exhibition explores the relationship between racism and xenophobia and the way the body becomes the materialization of exclusion. This corporeal object, or objectified body, is employed by the artist as a medium to express cries of resistance and to propose critical reflections on power structures and their influence on the construction of contemporary society.