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The exhibition showcases 120 works from idealista’s contemporary art collection, featuring 58 artists such as Teresa Margolles, Cristina Lucas, Diana Larrea, Mladen Stilinovic, Kiluanji Kia Henda, and Olaf Breuning.
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The exhibition is organized by idealista in collaboration with the Madrid City Council and curated by Elisa Hernando, CEO of ArteGlobaL and advisor to the idealista collection.
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The works explore territorial tensions, environmental footprints, and the shifting boundaries between public and private. They can be visited until March 8th at Serrería Belga.
- The exhibition will be open from December 17, 2025, to March 8, 2026 (Tuesday to Sunday) at Serrería Belga, C/ Alameda, 15. Madrid.
The Serrería Belga Cultural Space, a center managed by the Madrid City Council's Department of Culture, Tourism, and Sport, hosts Metamorphosis: space and society in the idealista collection, an exhibition featuring over 120 pieces by 58 artists from Europe, America, Africa, and Asia. These works critically document contemporary reality through photography and video art, celebrating idealista's 25th anniversary, a company founded in 2000.
The selected works belong to the idealista collection, which began 15 years ago and includes works by fundamental artists that will be on display at Serrería Belga, such as Teresa Margolles (Mexico, 1963), Cristina Lucas (Spain, 1973), Diana Larrea (Spain, 1972), Mladen Stilinovic (Serbia, 1947), Kiluanji Kia Henda (Angola, 1979), and Olaf Breuning (Switzerland, 1970), among others.
The exhibition, open from December 17 to March 8, 2026, explores territorial tensions, environmental footprints, and the shifting boundaries between public and private, areas where the human spirit seeks to assert itself and transform its environment. Additionally, the winning works of the idealista Contemporary Art Award, established in 2018 to recognize the talent of young visual artists, will be exhibited.
Co-organized with idealista, the exhibition at Serrería Belga, a unique early 20th-century industrial building located in the Art Walk area, invites visitors to reconsider how humans inhabit space, how they relate to one another, and how social and ecological dynamics affect them.
Exceptional artists reflecting times of uncertainty
Across four thematic sections, the exhibition highlights changes in current society and spaces. The first selection of works addresses the geographical tensions that traverse inhabited places: scenarios where unfulfilled dreams, real estate development, and economic impact converge. Artists such as Teresa Margolles (Mexico, 1963), Adrian Melis (Cuba, 1985), and Liu Bolin (China, 1973) reflect on how urban planning, censorship, or landscape transformation influence collective memory and ways of inhabiting.
In the section Environmental Paradoxes, works converge that examine the complex relationship between official iconography, advertising, and the climate crisis, evidencing the tension between the utopia of progress and the reality of environmental impact. The works of artists like Ramón Masats (Spain, 1931-2004), Panos Kokkinias (Greece, 1965), or Cecilia Paredes (Peru, 1950) become essential instruments to analyze how contemporary urbanism shapes collective identity and transforms ecosystems.
For its part, Everyday Spaces, the title of the third section, reflects how spaces, often relegated to routine or indifference, acquire a symbolic dimension that reveals the playful and political aspects of daily life. Through the artistic vision of Bárbara Wagner & Benjamín de Burca (Brazil, 1980; Germany, 1975); José María Mellado (Spain, 1966), Colita (Isabel Steva Hernández, Spain, 1940-2023), the ordinary becomes extraordinary, reflecting a territory where social, emotional, and gender tensions emerge, challenging heteropatriarchal structures and where the human spirit finds its way.
The last section, Human Archaeology, presents a perspective that goes beyond passive observation of the environment, inviting exploration of the visible and invisible vestiges that constitute inhabited spaces. Artists such as LUCE (Spain, 1989), Yuval Avital (Israel, 1977), or Anastasia Samoylova (United States, 1984) intervene in these territories, appropriating them and transforming them through an aesthetic language that combines beauty, form, and meaning. In this way, space ceases to be a utilitarian background to become a canvas where history, memory, and human tensions are revealed.
Metamorphosis: space and society in the idealista collection explores the role of photography and video art as a critical tool in a world — or a time — in conflict and transformation. As its curator, Elisa Hernando, points out, “this exhibition invites us to reconsider current society as a creative act where 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, “we wanted to share such an important milestone for us as the first 25 years with all our users, clients, and friends. These works share daily space with the people who work in idealista's offices in the three countries where we are present, but we wanted to reveal them so that those who visit the exhibition can enjoy them as we do. The central axis of this collection is the debate between space and society, between the urban and the human, between the urban landscape and people. We have been collecting unique works that dialogue with each other and participate in our aspiration to bring transparency and clarity to our urban environment. When the exhibition ends, they will return to the walls of our offices, and this collection will continue to grow with new works by artists through the idealista Contemporary Art Award and the acquisition of works that impact us, make us think, move us, and awaken our curiosity and reflection.”/
