- La Serrería Belga hosts Metamorphosis: Space and Society in the idealista Collection, an exhibition organised by idealista together with Madrid City Council.
- The exhibition brings together more than 120 works by 58 artists from Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia, drawn from the idealista collection of contemporary art.
- Featured artists include Teresa Margolles, Cristina Lucas, Diana Larrea, Mladen Stilinović, Kiluanji Kia Henda, Olaf Breuning, Ramón Masats, Colita, Liu Bolin and Cecilia Paredes.
- Curated by Elisa Hernando, CEO of ArteGlobaL and advisor to the idealista collection, the exhibition explores territorial tensions, environmental footprints and the boundaries between public and private space.
- The exhibition will be open from 17 December 2025 to 8 March 2026, Tuesday to Sunday, at Espacio Cultural Serrería Belga, located at Calle Alameda, 15, Madrid.
- The exhibition coincides with the 25th anniversary of idealista, a company founded in 2000.
Espacio Cultural Serrería Belga, a centre run by the Department of Culture, Tourism and Sport of Madrid City Council, hosts Metamorphosis: Space and Society in the idealista Collection, an exhibition bringing together more than 120 works by 58 artists from Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia. Through photography and video art, the exhibition offers a critical perspective on contemporary reality and celebrates the 25th anniversary of idealista, a company founded in 2000.
Organised by idealista together with Madrid City Council, the exhibition is curated by Elisa Hernando, CEO of ArteGlobaL and advisor to the idealista collection. The selected works come from the idealista collection of contemporary art, launched 15 years ago, and will be on view at Serrería Belga from 17 December 2025 to 8 March 2026.
The exhibition includes works by artists such as Teresa Margolles (Mexico, 1963), Cristina Lucas (Spain, 1973), Diana Larrea (Spain, 1972), Mladen Stilinović (Serbia, 1947), Kiluanji Kia Henda (Angola, 1979) and Olaf Breuning (Switzerland, 1970), among others. It also features works awarded the idealista Contemporary Art Prize, created in 2018 to recognise the talent of young visual artists.
Metamorphosis explores territorial tensions, environmental footprints and the shifting boundaries between public and private space. The exhibition invites visitors to reconsider how human beings inhabit space, how they relate to others and how they are affected by social and ecological dynamics. The exhibition route unfolds within Serrería Belga, a distinctive early 20th-century industrial building located in the area around Paseo del Arte.
Four sections through which to read the present
The exhibition is structured around four sections that reveal changes in society and contemporary spaces. The first addresses the geographical tensions running through inhabited places: settings where unfulfilled dreams, real estate development and economic impact converge. Artists such as Teresa Margolles, Adrian Melis (Cuba, 1985) and Liu Bolin (China, 1973) reflect on how urban planning, censorship and the transformation of the landscape influence collective memory and ways of inhabiting space.
The second section, Environmental Paradoxes, brings together works that examine the complex relationship between official iconography, advertising and the climate crisis. This section highlights the tension between the utopia of progress and the reality of environmental impact. Works by artists such as Ramón Masats (Spain, 1931–2004), Panos Kokkinias (Greece, 1965) and Cecilia Paredes (Peru, 1950) allow us to analyse how contemporary urban planning shapes collective identity and transforms ecosystems.
Under the title Everyday Spaces, the third section shows how places associated with routine or indifference acquire a symbolic dimension capable of revealing the playful and political aspects of daily life. Through the perspectives of Bárbara Wagner & Benjamín de Burca (Brazil, 1980; Germany, 1975), José María Mellado (Spain, 1966) and Colita —Isabel Steva Hernández— (Spain, 1940–2023), the ordinary becomes extraordinary, bringing to the surface social, emotional and gender-related tensions that challenge the structures of heteropatriarchy.
The final section, Human Archaeology, proposes a perspective that goes beyond passive observation of the surroundings. This section invites visitors to explore the visible and invisible traces that shape inhabited spaces. Artists such as LUCE (Spain, 1989), Yuval Avital (Israel, 1977) and Anastasia Samoylova (United States, 1984) intervene in these territories, appropriate them and transform them through an aesthetic language that combines beauty, form and meaning. In this way, space ceases to be a utilitarian backdrop and becomes a canvas on which history, memory and human tensions are revealed.
Photography and video art in the face of a changing world
Metamorphosis: Space and Society in the idealista Collection asserts the role of photography and video art as critical tools at a time marked by conflict and transformation. According to its curator, Elisa Hernando, “this exhibition invites us to reconsider today’s society as a creative act in which desire, conflict and hope coexist. The artists’ works act as reflections of cultural, economic and emotional dynamics, where art shapes reality and reveals new ways of inhabiting it.”
For Jesús Encinar, founder of idealista, the exhibition offers an opportunity to share a particularly meaningful milestone with users, clients and friends: the company’s first 25 years. “These works share the daily space of those of us who work in idealista’s offices in the three countries where we are present, but we wanted to unveil them so that visitors to the exhibition can enjoy them as much as we do,” he says.
Encinar emphasises that the central theme of the collection is “the debate between space and society, between the urban and the human, between the urban landscape and people”. Over the years, idealista has brought together works that engage in dialogue with one another and that, as he explains, form part of the company’s aspiration to “bring transparency and clarity to our urban environment”. Once the exhibition ends, the works will return to idealista’s offices, while the collection will continue to grow through the idealista Contemporary Art Prize and the acquisition of new works capable of sparking curiosity, reflection and emotion.
Practical information
Metamorphosis: Space and Society in the idealista Collection will be open from 17 December 2025 to 8 March 2026, Tuesday to Sunday, at Espacio Cultural Serrería Belga, located at Calle Alameda, 15, Madrid.
