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Bailad, bailad, malditos (Carlos Aires)
Carlos Aires transforms Nave 0, the slaughterhouse's fire-scarred former cold room, into a haunted dance floor of shored-up metal supports and some twenty screens, part of the Abierto x Obras site-specific series.
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The screens stand upright, like giant phones, and on each one strangers somewhere in the world are dancing. Carlos Aires spent five years collecting these clips without knowing what for. They are also the only light: he switched the hall's own lighting off.
Nave 0 was the slaughterhouse's cold store, and it burned; the scorch marks are still there. Aires braced it with more than 160 props, so you walk through a forest of supports. Opening-night guests from outside the art world assumed the props were holding the building up, a fair guess in a city that is always en obras. The loop runs about 45 minutes without repeating: dance clips first, then a "night" section filmed in darkness in a ruined 1932 tuberculosis hospital, over real recordings of news, Gaza, Ukraine and fire.
Aires told ABC the sound is "hard to listen to"; younger visitors dance anyway. Entry is free, capacity permitting: 5 to 9pm Tuesday to Thursday, noon to 9pm Friday to Sunday.
Look for
The 21 vertical screens
Look for screens mounted upright like phones, playing dance clips from around the world in a feed that works like a social-media scroll.
The forest of props
More than 160 props shore up the old cold store, and opening-night visitors took them for the building's real supports.
The night section
Footage shot in total darkness with a night-vision camera in the ruins of a 1932 tuberculosis hospital outside Madrid.
The fire-scarred walls
Scorch marks from the fire in the old cold store are left visible, and they were the starting point for the whole piece.
Good for
- Cheap Culture
- Evening Visits
- Out-Of-Town Guests
Skip if
You don't want to stand in the dark with real recordings from Gaza and Ukraine.
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Image credits
4
- Bailad, bailad, malditos (Carlos Aires)Courtesy of Matadero Madrid
- De los que hicieron México su hogar: una ofrenda a la memoria del exilioCourtesy of Casa de América
- Apertura Madrid Gallery Weekend 2026: Entre la retícula y la vidaCourtesy of Museo Lázaro Galdiano
- Matadero MadridAlesKubr2, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain