Artist Carlos Aires Transforms Matadero Madrid's Nave 0 with the Site-Specific Installation Dance, Dance, Otherwise We Are Lost

• The installation invites visitors to step onto a suspended dancefloor poised between celebration and ruin.
• Euphoria and unease merge in an installation where dancing and an unsettling soundscape take center stage.
• The artistic practice of Carlos Aires (Ronda, 1974) explores the intersections of power, economy, violence, desire, and memory.
• The Abierto x Obras programme invites contemporary artists to investigate the relationship between art and its host spaces through newly created exhibitions.

Matadero Madrid, a center for contemporary creation under the Department of Culture, Tourism, and Sport of the Madrid City Council, continues its Abierto x Obras programme with the exhibition Dance, Dance, Otherwise We Are Lost (Bailad, bailad, malditos) by multidisciplinary artist Carlos Aires (Ronda, 1974). For this intervention, Aires takes Nave 0—the former cold-storage room of the municipal slaughterhouse—and the lingering traces of a past fire as his starting point. The visible scars of the space and the memory of its violence serve as the foundation for an installation that alters our perception of its architecture.

Curated by José Luis Romo, artistic director of Matadero Madrid, Carlos Aires invites viewers to enter a dancefloor set within an architectural structure that appears suspended at an uncertain moment, poised between what still holds together and what might collapse.

Ruin and euphoria coexist within an installation driven by dance and an unsettling soundscape. As visitors venture deeper inside, the familiar begins to feel strange, and unseen presences seem to accompany them without ever fully revealing themselves. Dance, Dance, Otherwise We Are Lost marks the artist's first solo exhibition in a public institution in Madrid.

Dancing as a Form of Resistance

The exhibition's title references Sydney Pollack's 1969 film They Shoot Horses, Don't They? Set during the American Great Depression, the film depicts couples forced to dance in grueling marathon contests to escape destitution. The human body is pushed to its absolute limits in a competition where continuing to dance means continuing to survive. Thus, dance emerges simultaneously as celebration, resistance, exhaustion, and an urgent necessity to keep going.

Titled Danzad, danzad, malditos in Spain, Aires previously used this cultural nod in an exhibition over twenty years ago. This reference connects to the enduring importance that cinema, music, and popular culture have held throughout Carlos Aires’ career, serving as lenses through which he examines issues related to power, economy, violence, desire, and memory.

Euphoria Versus Unease

The imagery running through the installation places visitors in a state of tension between euphoria and unease, celebration and threat. Aires addresses a present where images and events overlap at a speed that barely allows us to process them, while daily life simply marches on. The extraordinary and the banal, celebration and catastrophe, can occupy the exact same time and gaze.

As the experience unfolds, the visitor's relationship with the space and what they think they see grows increasingly uncertain. Even military technologies designed to enable night vision encounter their own limits here. Sound consequently assumes a fundamental presence: voices, traces, and invisible presences accompany the viewer without ever fully materializing. Something seems to be right beside them, even if the eye cannot quite locate it.

Ruin and celebration occupy the same space: a kind of subterranean discotheque, an after-hours club beneath a structure whose collapse is not yet visible, but deeply felt.

About the Artist: Carlos Aires

Carlos Aires (Ronda, Málaga, 1974) is a multidisciplinary artist who lives and works in Madrid. His artistic practice explores the relationships between power, economy, violence, desire, and memory, articulating a critical reflection on the mechanisms that shape contemporary society. Music forms a fundamental pillar of his research, utilized as a cultural archive, political language, and critical device.

He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Granada and completed postgraduate studies at the Fontys Academie (Netherlands), the HISK (Belgium), and Columbus State University (United States).

His work has been exhibited in international biennials and institutions such as the Bucharest International Biennial (Romania), the Thessaloniki Biennale (Greece), S.M.A.K. (Belgium), MACAM (Portugal), the Belvedere Museum (Austria), and the Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil (Mexico), among others. His pieces are held in public collections including MACBA, CA2M, ARTIUM, Banco de España, BPS22 (Belgium), Les Abattoirs – FRAC (France), and MAK (Austria). He has been awarded the Generaciones Caja Madrid Prize, the Young Belgian Art Prize, and a Fulbright Scholarship.

The Revival of Abierto x Obras

During its previous era between 2007 and 2018, the Abierto x Obras programme offered Madrid audiences unique site-specific interventions by artists such as Daniel Canogar, Jannis Kounellis, Román Signer, Eugenio Ampudia, Carlos Garaicoa, Fernando Sánchez Castillo, Jordi Colomer, Los Carpinteros, Cristina Lucas, Cabello/Carceller, Elena Alonso, and Teresa Solar, among others.

In its new chapter, launched in April 2025, Abierto x Obras maintains its mission to invite contemporary artists to produce works conceived specifically for Nave 0, exploring the possibilities that arise from the dialogue between creation and space. In this spirit, Nave 0 has previously hosted interventions by artists Greta Alfaro, Eva Fábregas, Mónica Mays, and Cristina Mejías. Notably, Mejías was recently awarded the prestigious Ojo Crítico 2026 Prize in the visual arts category for her installation created under this very programme.