{"id":1961219,"date":"2026-05-28T18:53:25","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T15:53:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1961219"},"modified":"2026-05-28T18:53:25","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T15:53:25","slug":"sxsw-londons-art-program-spotlights-spains-underrated-art-scene","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1961219","title":{"rendered":"SXSW London’s Art Program Spotlights Spain’s ‘Underrated’ Art Scene"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\tSouth by Southwest (SXSW) London returns for its second edition next week, taking over more than 20 venues clustered around the Trueman Brewery in Shoreditch. Known for its mix of technology, business, and music, and its focus on navigating global uncertainty, this year\u2019s festival will also spotlight five visual artists exploring how technology is reshaping the creative industries.<\/p>\n
\n\tAfter launching in Austin, Texas, in 1987 as a music industry conference and festival, SXSW has grown into a massive global event. While still centered in Austin, London became its first European edition last year.<\/p>\n
\n\tTitled \u201cSpain in Transmission: New Digital Work,\u201d the art program at the London event is curated by Patrick Moore, the former director of the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. Five artists are involved: Enrique Agudo, Filip Custic, Jes\u00fas Moratiel, and Marina N\u00fa\u00f1ez \u2014 all from Spain \u2014 while American artist Molly Gochman is bringing her\u00a0Dispersed Geographies<\/em>\u00a0installation from the streets of New York to London. Each has created work that interrogates themes of identity, borders, humanity, and memory.<\/p>\n
\n\tMoore, who is based in Madrid, told ARTnews<\/em> that he wanted to spotlight Spain\u2019s \u201cunderrecognized\u201d contemporary art scene.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of vitality in Spain\u2019s art world that people outside the country still don\u2019t really know about,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s even an entirely new gallery district that\u2019s emerged in Madrid that most people internationally would never have heard about. I selected the artists because they are engaging with technology, digital culture, and contemporary ideas in really sophisticated ways, while also drawing inspiration from Spanish history.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tMoore explained that each of the works is connected by a shared sense that digital systems are now part of how culture itself is formed and experienced. \u201cSpain in Transmission: New Digital Work\u201d is curated to complement the broader tech focus of SXSW London, which runs June 1\u20136, but also to offer a different framing for discussions around A.I., systems thinking, and how people relate to technological environments.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThis program is about creating unexpected connections between technology, contemporary art, and cultural history,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
\n\tTake Agudo\u2019s work, for example.\u00a0You Are Beautiful<\/em>\u00a0is a four-channel installation that creates what he described as a \u201cnon-figurative self-portrait\u201d from fragments of 3-D animation, real-time processing, and years of personal images and videos drawn from everyday digital life \u2014 the type of images that sit forgotten on iPhones and in cloud storage. Through \u201cprocedural systems,\u201d the footage is manipulated until the images begin to blur, fragment, and merge together.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI started thinking that these endless archives of photos and videos might actually represent who we are more accurately than a figurative portrait,\u201d Agudo, who was born and raised in Madrid, told ARTnews<\/em>. \u201cThe act of distorting these digital documents maybe says more about my identity than just showing a picture of myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe work extends into a Jacquard tapestry \u2014 a heavily textured, loom-woven textile featuring intricate, raised patterns rather than a printed design \u2014 after the computational process is translated into textile form. Agudo explained that it is not presented as a contrast between old and new media, but as another way of holding the same image logic, one that slows it down and makes it tangible. \u201cThe move between systems reflects a broader concern in the program: how digital processes are increasingly inseparable from physical and material experience,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\n\tCustic is debuting a new four-channel work exploring the natural world through digital tools, including A.I., for which he is best known. It positions the human form within a digital landscape while asking the recurring question, \u201cDo you like being human?\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tMoratiel\u2019s\u00a0Synesthesia<\/em>\u00a0uses cutting-edge technology and embedded playlists to turn portraiture into an immersive, emotionally charged experience that pulls viewers into states both seductive and unsettling. N\u00fa\u00f1ez\u2019s\u00a0Inmersi\u00f3n<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Quietas<\/em>, meanwhile, explore fluid, hybrid identities through intricate images that emerge, mutate, and dissolve between architecture, nature, and the human form.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThese works are not about using technology for technology\u2019s sake \u2014 they\u2019re about artists using these tools to say something meaningful,\u201d Moore said.<\/p>\n
\n\tGochman\u2019s\u00a0Dispersed Geographies<\/em>\u00a0interrogates the theme of borders and was originally conceived for the Ukrainian Museum in New York, where it appeared as a 180-foot sculpture tracing the Ukraine\u2013Russia border, constructed from discarded construction materials and countertop fragments mixed into a pale gray cement. \u201cI studied images of bombed-out cities,\u201d she told ARTnews,<\/em> \u201cand you always have this white dust that kind of collects over things.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe SXSW London iteration expands on a subtler intervention she has been installing in New York\u2019s sidewalks over the past 12 months in the form of thick white vinyl strips. They resemble warped pedestrian crossing lines but are shaped like geopolitical borders. \u201cI wanted these vinyls to be quiet opportunities for wonder and questioning,\u201d she said. \u201cPeople walking New York\u2019s streets know the work, but they don\u2019t know it\u2019s attached to my practice.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe works have appeared around the Ukrainian Museum in Manhattan, near Pioneer Works in Red Hook, and elsewhere in Brooklyn. Some have been peeled up by building superintendents or mistaken for graffiti, while others have remained in place for months, leaving \u201cghost\u201d outlines when removed. \u201cIt depends which buildings have diligent supers and which don\u2019t,\u201d Gochman joked.<\/p>\n
\n\tAt SXSW London, the installation will be significantly larger, spanning walls and incorporating three different borders. Unlike the anonymous New York interventions, the festival version will include signage and contextual information. \u201cThis is my opportunity to come out and explain what these have been,\u201d she said. \u201cTo take this thing that I was just doing on my own\u2026 and create something much larger, using it to bring the community together. It will be really powerful.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tGochman hopes festivalgoers in London respond to the work in different ways. \u201cI hope kids see them as a way to play,\u201d she said, comparing the strips to the cracks children step over on pavements. At the same time, she wants the installation to provoke conversations around borders, conflict, and collective responsibility. \u201cI want Ukrainians to feel seen and heard,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe artist also reflected on the wider context of SXSW\u2019s combination of art and technology programming. Referencing debates around A.I. and warfare, she argued that technological development must be grounded in care rather than profit. Drawing connections to her ongoing bronze series \u201cMonuments to Motherhood,\u201d she said: \u201cThe most essential act that we do as humans is care. If we can remind ourselves to push for A.I. to look at humans the way a mother looks at her children, then I think we are in a better place.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tFor Moore, that crossover between disciplines is ultimately what SXSW London\u2019s art program is designed to encourage.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThere\u2019s one experience of saying, \u2018Oh, I love this artist, I\u2019m going to go see the show in a gallery or museum,’\u201d he said. \u201cBut it\u2019s another thing to be somebody from the technology world who thought, \u2018I really don\u2019t have any interest in visual art,\u2019 and then discover that this actually is part of their world.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/YouAreBeautiful_South_Bleed_EnriqueAgudo.png?w=1024″] South by Southwest (SXSW) London returns for its second edition next week, taking over more than 20 venues clustered around the Trueman Brewery in Shoreditch. Known for its mix of technology, business, and music, and its focus on navigating global uncertainty, this year\u2019s festival will also spotlight five visual artists exploring how […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-1961219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1961219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1961219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1961219\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1961219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1961219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1961219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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