Carlos Aires transforms Nave 0 at Matadero Madrid into a dancefloor suspended between euphoria and ruin. From 11 September 2026 to 24 January 2027 There is a space in Madrid that still bears the marks of a fire. Scorched walls, visible traces of past violence. Carlos Aires looked at them and decided not to conceal them, but to inhabit them, transforming Nave 0 at Matadero Madrid into something hard to classify: an underground disco, an after-party that never ends, a place where celebration and catastrophe occupy the same moment and the same light. Bailad, bailad, malditos is the new site-specific installation by multidisciplinary artist Carlos Aires, his first solo exhibition in a public institution in Madrid, curated by José Luis Romo, artistic director of Matadero Madrid, as part of the Abierto x Obras programme. CARLOS AIRES, Abierto x Obras Dancing as a form of resistance The title is a direct echo of the Spanish release title of Sydney Pollack’s 1969 film They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, set during the American Great Depression, and distributed in Spain as Bailad, bailad, malditos, a reference Aires has carried with him for over twenty years: couples forced to dance for days on end, their bodies pushed to the limit in a competition where stopping means being out. Dancing as celebration, yes, but also as exhaustion, as the necessity to keep going when keeping going is the only form of survival. Aires had already used this reference in an exhibition over twenty years ago. It returns here with a different weight. Stills Videos, photo credits Cheveeyo & Malafamaestudios Euphoria and unease Entering the installation, the familiar begins to feel strange. The dancefloor is real, but the architecture containing it seems frozen at an uncertain moment, between what still holds and what might give way. The collapse is not visible, but it is felt. Something accompanies the visitor without ever fully revealing itself. Sound is central: a sound holography created in collaboration with Federico González (alias Suricata), voices and invisible presences that fill the space without disclosing their origin. Even technologies designed to see in the dark find their limits here. Sight is not enough. What remains is a sensation, an atmosphere, a doubt. Aires’s practice has always explored the relationships between power, economy, violence, desire and memory. Music is one of his primary tools: a cultural archive, a political language, a critical device. In this installation, everything converges in a space where events overlap at a speed that leaves no time to process them, while everyday life continues its course. The ordinary and the extraordinary, celebration and disaster: same room, same moment. Carlos Aires portrait, photo Lluc Queralt Carlos Aires Carlos Aires (Ronda, 1974) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Madrid. His work moves across power, economy, violence, desire and memory, using music as a cultural archive and critical device. He studied Fine Arts at the University of Granada and completed postgraduate studies at Fontys Academie in the Netherlands, HISK in Belgium and Columbus State University in the United States. He has received the Premio Generaciones Caja Madrid, the Young Belgian Art Prize and a Fulbright grant. The Abierto x Obras programme Abierto x Obras is Matadero Madrid’s programme inviting contemporary artists to produce works conceived specifically for Nave 0, a former cold storage chamber of the municipal slaughterhouse, exploring the dialogue between creation and space. Relaunched in April 2025 after a first phase between 2007 and 2018, it has already hosted installations by Greta Alfaro, Eva Fábregas, Mónica Mays and Cristina Mejías, the latter awarded the Premio Ojo Crítico 2026 in visual arts for her installation at the same venue. Bailad, bailad, malditos, Carlos Aires On view at Nave 0 of the municipal centre Matadero Madrid from 11 September to 24 January, as part of the Abierto x Obras programme.
