Open call for artists "Architecture of Silence" Physical work 2D and 3D

The Exhibition

Architecture of Silence is an exhibition about what is not said — and what that silence builds.

Silence is structural. It holds the space between gestures, between words, between objects. It is present in the pause before a brushstroke lands, in the gap of empty canvas that makes a composition breathe, in the weight of an installation that asks the body to stop, to recalibrate, to feel the room.

This exhibition proposes that silence is not the absence of form but a form in itself — something that can be painted, sculpted, inhabited.

We are inviting artists working in painting, drawing, sculpture, installation, and mixed media to submit work that inhabits this territory.

We are interested in paintings that hold stillness without stagnation, in sculptures that occupy space with quiet insistence, in installations that alter the atmosphere of a room without overwhelming it.

We are looking for physical work — work that exists in space, that has weight and surface and shadow — that understands silence as a material as much as any pigment or steel or found object.

This is a call for work that trusts the viewer's patience. For paintings that reward extended looking. For installations that change the way air feels. For sculptures that seem to absorb the noise of the world around them.

We welcome artists at all career stages — painters, sculptors, and installation artists working in any tradition, from representational to fully abstract, from intimate scale to considered ambition — who find silence somewhere in their practice.

The Venue & Context

The exhibition takes place in a contemporary space in Madrid city centre, one of the most symbolically charged locations in the Spanish capital, a place where history, transit, and the memory of collective experience converge.

The gallery offers high ceilings, well-lit wall space, and the kind of considered environment that painting and physical work need to be seen properly.

The total wall space runs to 11 metres, shared across all participating artists.

Each artist is allocated up to 1 linear metre of wall space — a focused, deliberate constraint that asks works to be carefully chosen and precisely presented. Within that metre, height, medium, and configuration are entirely at your discretion.

This is not a limitation but a curatorial condition. Some of the most powerful paintings in history are small. The metre is yours to use with full intention.

Madrid in April is a city at its most vibrant — culturally, socially, and atmospherically. The art season is in full swing, international visitors and collectors are present, and the city's own art community is engaged and active.

The week of 19–25 April situates Architecture of Silence at a moment of genuine cultural energy, offering artists seven days of focused, intensive visibility in one of Europe's great art capitals.

Viewings are arranged by appointment, ensuring that every person who enters the space has sought it out with intention — collectors, curators, gallerists, press, and serious art audiences meeting your work with genuine curiosity and focus.

What Artists Receive

This opportunity is designed to give artists something lasting — a platform, a professional record, and a network that extends well beyond the week of the exhibition itself.

Visibility & Promotion

• Instagram promotion (13K followers) — dedicated posts and stories featuring your work, process, and practice in the lead-up to and during the exhibition week.
• Permanent post on our website — your name will remain discoverable long after April 2027.
• Digital and/or printed materials — a professional publication contextualising your work within the full exhibition, suitable for grant applications, residency proposals, and gallery submissions.
• Targeted promotional campaigns — reaching collectors, curators, and painting and sculpture audiences in Madrid, across Spain, and internationally.
• Printed materials and digital promotion — distributed across Madrid and directed at the wider European contemporary art community.

Professional Documentation

• Professional photography — high-resolution images of your work as installed, taken during the opening evening, freely available for all professional and personal use.
• Professional video — footage capturing your work in its full spatial context, the atmosphere of the space, and the audience encounter; a living document of the exhibition.

Your Story, Your Voice

• Published artist interview — conducted and edited as part of the exhibition's public programme, giving you the space to speak about your practice and intentions in your own words.
• Artist talks — selected artists will be invited to present their practice to audiences of collectors, curators, and fellow artists throughout the run.
• Mix-and-meet gathering — a relaxed, curated evening connecting exhibiting artists with invited collectors, gallerists, curators, and cultural figures from Spain and beyond.

The Opening Night

• Public opening evening, 20th April — with drinks and live music, introducing your work to Madrid's art community in the best possible setting.
• Tapas, driks and social interaction with collectors and public .

Care & Professionalism

• Installation and de-installation by the curatorial team — your work handled, positioned, and installed with expertise and full attention to lighting, sightlines, and spatial relationships.
• Secure venue access — your works monitored and protected throughout the exhibition period.
• Certificate of participation — formally recognising your inclusion in Architecture of Silence.

Submission Details

Each artist is allocated up to 1 linear metre of wall space within the gallery.

The gallery wall runs to a total of 10 metres, shared across all participating artists. Please submit works with this allocation in mind — we encourage you to think carefully about what you place within that metre, and why.

You may submit up to three works for consideration, from which the curatorial team will work with you to agree on the final selection and hanging arrangement.

Works on paper, canvas, board, or other wall-mounted supports are all welcome, as are small sculptural works that can be presented on a plinth or shelf within your allocated space.

Please include: images of each proposed work (minimum 1,500px on the longest edge), dimensions and medium, a brief description for each piece, and a short artist statement of no more than 200 words.

Works may be offered for sale; standard commission applies, with full terms provided upon acceptance. Works do not need to be for sale to be considered.

There is a participation fee of £300, payable within seven days of acceptance.

This fee directly funds the production of the exhibition, the opening event, the catalogue, and the professional documentation and promotional support provided to every participating artist and is not refundable.

About the Curator

Architecture of Silence is organised by Monica Mardare, MA Fine Art, an independent curator working across London and Europe, committed to producing thoughtful, sensory exhibitions that foreground emotional depth, spatial intelligence, and the quiet complexity of the physical encounter with art.

Monica's curatorial practice is shaped by a belief that exhibitions should do more than display work — they should construct an environment in which the work can be fully itself, and in which the viewer is invited into genuine, unhurried encounter.

Her projects are defined by careful thematic coherence, spatial sensitivity, and a deep and sustained investment in the artists she works with — before the show opens, during its run, and long after it closes.

Architecture of Silence marks her first major project in Madrid — a deliberate and excited engagement with a city whose relationship to painting, sculpture, and the physical arts is among the richest and most serious in Europe.

How to Apply

We warmly welcome submissions from artists working in painting, sculpture, installation, and mixed media whose work engages — directly or obliquely — with silence, stillness, absence, the unsaid, negative space, or the quiet structures that underpin lived experience.

Whether your paintings are monumental in feeling or intimate in scale, whether your work sits close to the body or reaches toward the architectural — if silence is present in it, and if you can bring it to 1 metre of wall, we want to see it.

We look forward to seeing your work.