The second edition of the international festival LuzMadrid, organized by the Department of Culture, Tourism and Sports, will illuminate the city with more than 20 artistic installations from October 27 to 29, between 8:00 p.m. and 1:00 a.m. Spectacular creations will illuminate the heritage and the urban landscape with this great cultural event that returns to consolidate itself on a biennial basis and was presented this morning by the mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, together with the delegate of Culture, Tourism and Sports , Marta Rivera de la Cruz, and the councilor of the Arganzuela district, Dolores Navarro, offering Madrid residents and visitors the possibility of living an unforgettable cultural experience.
The mayor has stressed that “culture is part of the DNA of this city and the soul of the people of Madrid” and that all citizens will be able to enjoy with LuzMadrid 2023 “the creativity, ingenuity, talent and strength of more than 20 artists, established or emerging, who will illuminate the facades of the main buildings and monuments that we have in Madrid and will allow us to discover another perspective of the city. In the words of Rivera de la Cruz, “LuzMadrid 2023 is once again a reason for meeting and celebrating, to dress the city with another look and to remember that Madrid is also a night city.” The delegate also stressed that the City Council “has done everything on its part to make this festival a success.”
In a delivery that has movement and vibration as its backbone, LuzMadrid establishes a dialogue between art, the urban landscape and the general public, in which nothing has been left to chance. Each of the works starts a conversation with the environment in which it is located. Spectators will be able to enjoy, free of charge, the itinerary they decide along four large areas. This year, in addition, the festival adapts to the rhythm of the city, optimizing pedestrian areas and ensuring minimal traffic disruptions.
One of the main characteristics of this second edition is that some of the pieces that can be enjoyed have been conceived and produced exclusively for LuzMadrid. Artists from France, Finland and Argentina will accompany the Spanish authors, the majority in this second edition, making up a large list of creators of recognized prestige.
Zone 1 of the Festival, the Landscape of Light
The Festival is divided into four zones that cover different areas of the city. Zone 1 includes El Retiro, with the pond and monument to Alfonso Reina Sofía National Art Center and the CaixaForum vertical garden.
– Stopping time is the proposal where the illuminator Juan Gómez-Cornejo (National Theater Award), with the help of Illusion Stage, uses the fusion of music and light in a work specially designed for LuzMadrid in the pond and monument to Alfonso XII .
– Continuing in El Retiro, on the Crystal Palace lake, the Finnish artist Niko Tiainen proposes Translucens, a holographic projection on a curtain of water. Already in the Planteles area, Aura, by Xevi Bayona and Alex Posada, is an immersive experience that consists of 16 rings of light installed in trees that illuminate the environment and generate shadows while they move to the rhythm of the sound, creating dreamlike atmospheres that They contrast with the natural forest landscape.
– On the Cuesta de Claudio Moyano you will find The Garden of Read and Unread Books, an installation also specially created for LuzMadrid by Ramón de los Heros where, from a figurative approach, the artist develops a poetic universe of characters illuminated from within. , fixed on the magical moment of whoever finds what they were looking for.
– The façade of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food will show off Amadeus, the interactive experience proposed by José Vaaliña, director of Estudio Eyesberg, in which the citizen, stepping on the keys of a piano projected on the ground, activates changes in the work real time.
– At the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Daniel Canogar, a prestigious artist who has developed his work halfway between Spain and the United States and whose work has been exhibited in major museums around the world, presents Scrawl, a digital piece specific for LuzMadrid 2023 that reacts to the trends of
– In the vertical garden of CaixaForum, photographer Rosa Muñoz will install the site-specific work Floresta de cristal, a reflection on nature as inspiration for architecture. Geometric figures make up the pieces of a puzzle that the artist handles, bringing to the viewer’s memory floral stained glass windows with Gothic reminiscences. Furthermore, during the festival, CaixaForum adds to its usual activities and exhibitions, concerts and fun science workshops around light, for family audiences.
Sustainable vocation
As in its previous edition, LuzMadrid 2023 has an ambitious environmental and social sustainability strategy that includes the entire planning, creation and development process of the festival with the firm purpose of achieving continuous improvement at each event.
LuzMadrid seeks to revalidate the recognition achieved in 2021 by A Greener Future, an organization that evaluates and audits the sustainability management systems of festivals and events in the culture and entertainment industry internationally.
In addition, the organization makes a double effort, aimed, on the one hand, at improving the efficiency of consumption of both energy and other natural resources and, on the other, at perfecting and expanding the scope of the study of the carbon footprint, considering the most representative emission sources (travel and movement of people, transportation of infrastructure, materials and products, electrical consumption of the network, fuel consumption, generation of waste, wastewater, etc.).
Collaboration between large cultural institutions
In order to carry out the programming of this great festival, which takes place in some of the most representative places in the capital, the collaboration of institutions such as the Senate, the Reina Sofía National Art Center Museum, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fishing and Food, National Heritage, CaixaForum Madrid, Carmelite Order, Matadero Madrid, Italian Institute of Culture of Madrid, Central Design–DiMad, APDI, Hyper House, Espacio Insight and Gruta77.
