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.