Detail of the intervention by artist Eva Fàbregas
Matadero Madrid, a contemporary creation center in the Area of Culture, Tourism and Sports, is bringing back the ‘Abierto x Obras’ program with a cycle of site-specific exhibitions that will be inaugurated by artist Eva Fàbregas on April 10th at Nave 0 of Matadero Madrid. For this intervention, the Catalan artist will unfold her sculptures inside the refrigeration chamber of the former municipal slaughterhouse. Her creations, soft pieces molded by the air, will emerge from the cracks and wounds of the space, accentuating scars and highlighting the existing tension between life and death.
In this proposal curated by Aimar Arriola and Luisa Espino, who are currently in charge of the program at Matadero Madrid, Eva Fàbregas will create an ecosystem of wrinkled membranes that will exude the fractures of the building. The pieces play with tension and relaxation, manipulating synthetic fabrics and playing with the drying times of latex and other plastic materials. These wrinkled membranes, marked by a conscious monochrome, will highlight the fractures of the building by proliferating in the crevices of the architecture, making visible both the scars of the space and those of the artworks themselves.
The pieces created by Eva Fàbregas specifically for ‘Abierto x Obras’ are part of her ongoing series Exudates, a title that refers to the fluids that exude from living organisms in response to injury or inflammation. While exudation is part of the healing process, an improper amount or composition can affect recovery. Fàbregas’s sculptures proliferate within the space, altering it while introducing a symbolic element for its regeneration.
Eva Fàbregas, an internationally renowned artist
In her sculptural and installation practice, Eva Fàbregas (Barcelona, 1988) often works with soft and malleable materials, focusing on the physical and sensory dimension of forms. Among her recent exhibitions are Exudates, MAC Mataró, MANIFESTA 15 (2024); Intención Poética, MACBA, Barcelona (2024); When forms come alive, Hayward Gallery, London (2024); Devouring Lovers, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2023); Enredos, Centro Botín, Santander (2023); The London Open, Whitechapel Gallery, London (2022); Growths, Lyon Biennale (2022); Vessels, Bombon Projects, Barcelona (2022); La próxima mutación, Fundació La Caixa, Barcelona (2021); Skin-like. Kunsthal, Ghent (2021); Touch Me Not, The Ryder, Madrid (2021); and Un Momento Atemporal, Tabacalera, Madrid (2020), among others.
Reactivation of ‘Abierto x Obras’
In its previous stage, between 2007 and 2018, the ‘Abierto x Obras’ program offered unique interventions to the Madrid public by artists such as Daniel Canogar, Jannis Kounnellis, Román Signer, Carlos Garaicoa, Fernando Sánchez Castillo, Jordi Colomer, Los Carpinteros, Cristina Lucas, Cabello/Carceller, Elena Alonso, and Teresa Solar, among others.
In this new stage, ‘Abierto x Obras’ maintains its essence, inviting artists to create a new piece specifically conceived for a certain space, exploring the relationship between art and the spaces that host it, in a clear commitment to promoting contemporary artistic practices that seek an interrelation with their place of development.
As part of this essence, Nave 0 of Matadero Madrid will once again be the chosen location to host these interventions. This space, which was the refrigeration chamber of the former municipal slaughterhouse, with its over 800 m2, its open structure dotted with arches and columns, and its original hydraulic floor, retains on its walls and ceilings the traces of a fire that occurred in the 1990s. These are the architectural clues of the setting that the two artists returning to the Madrid cultural scene with ‘Abierto x Obras’ will intervene: Eva Fàbregas from Barcelona in the spring, and Cristina Mejías from Jerez in the fall.
Cristina Mejías takes over in October
The second exhibition of the cycle will be by artist Cristina Mejías (Jerez de la Frontera, 1986) curated by Soledad Gutiérrez, both based in Madrid. In her intervention, Mejías focuses on the materiality of knowledge construction. For this, the artist invokes a fragile and mutable ecosystem with water as the protagonist, companion, and guide through an installation that will traverse the architecture of the building.
Cristina Mejías’s work remains attentive to oral tradition, listening, and storytelling, using sculpture, installation, and video as her main tools. She has exhibited individually in international institutions such as the Museo Patio Herreriano (Valladolid), RoyalMount (Montreal, Canada), Vinya dels artistes (Lleida), Centro de Arte Párraga (Murcia), Teatro La Capilla with Víctor Colmenero Mir (CDMX, MX), Museo Provincial de Cádiz, Museo Provincial de Jaén, Blueproject Foundation (Barcelona), and the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo del Zulia (Maracaibo, VZ). Her work will also be featured in an upcoming solo show at C3A (Córdoba).
