Carlos Aires presents Bailad, bailad, malditos, a solo exhibition at Matadero Madrid as part of the institution’s Abierto x Obras programme. Curated by José Luis Romo, the exhibition is on view at Nave 0 from September 11, 2026, to January 24, 2027.
Taking the architecture of Nave 0, a former cold-storage room in Madrid’s municipal slaughterhouse, as his starting point, Aires draws on the traces left by a past fire. Bringing together more than one hundred structural supports and approximately twenty screens, the site-specific installation invites visitors into a dance floor suspended between ruin and resilience, celebration and threat, euphoria and unease.
Within an environment resembling a metal forest, darkness, movement, and an unsettling soundscape converge. The exhibition’s title references Sydney Pollack’s 1969 film They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, which portrays people compelled to dance for extended periods during the Great Depression in an attempt to escape poverty. Here, dance emerges not only as a form of celebration but also as an expression of resistance, exhaustion, and the necessity to carry on.
Exploring the intersections of power, economy, violence, desire, and memory, Aires brings the historical traces embedded in the architecture into dialogue with the tensions of contemporary life. Bailad, bailad, malditos marks the artist’s first solo exhibition at a public institution in Madrid.
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