March 2009: Madrid Poster Art

On a completely unrelated note, I hope to write about my friend Rio's Papergirl Project submission very soon. He's putting amazing hand-cut stencils on paper. One of those stencils will be me! Papergirl will have to wait, though, because another paper-centric festival is on the bill today. Alberto De Pedro, the founder and organizer of the Madrid Poster Art Festival, gives us background on the event and where he plans to take it. He writes:

“I'm from Madrid and I spent 29 years doing photography and graphic design. I have also spent years photographing street art; it’s something mysterious. Being so close to it, I have also participated in this phenomenon. I create black and white photographs on 80g paper, then enlarge them and transfer them to the walls.” 

“All of this started with my friend and fellow photographer, Raúl Cabello. MadPoster was born after participating in the Turin International Poster Festival with Raúl last year. The festival’s seamless operation and participation success seemed feasible to replicate in Madrid. We worked in the streets for months. Our friend El also got involved with the project. This stage of my life was a rich creative period. Today, MadPoster is the first international poster art festival held in Spain.”  

“The festival consists of three events in all areas of the city of Madrid: the buildings of squatter social center Patio Marville, the art gallery Spore, and public spaces donated by the city. The idea is to bring art to people from a directly and without social, political, or economic barriers. My task as good organizer and has been to find and coordinate team activities and interventions.”  

“Another thing worth noting is the autonomy of the festival. We reject sponsors and sponsorships that can curb our intentions, both artists participants. The people at Patio and Espora have ceded their space freely and donated their time and efforts selflessly. I’d like to thank Rafa, Raúl Javier Abarca, Fragil, Lola, Rafafans, and many more!” 

“This year, we had about 120 artists from around the world participate: The Tone, FKDL, Zosen, Mat Curran, Sixo, Ttalics, B -toy, Sakristan, Pixel Population, and a long list of people from Iran, Canada, USA, Tokyo, Australia, Europe, South America. The turnout was striking and we were very happy.Shigeo Sato of Tokyo crossed half the world to paste posters in Madrid. Flix came from Caracas, Venezuela, with a suitcase full of paper. Also, there were many local artists from Madrid: Taltevigila Fatu & company, Nano4814, Elton…”  

All photos courtesy of Alberto De Pedro.

Thanks, Alberto! While this year's festival ended in March, there are still plenty of photos to see. Check out the event's official website, Alberto's Flickr, or find him on MySpace. Off to NYC today; hopefully I'll have some good stories and a great ProFile tomorrow!