COLLECTION
A collection encompasses the present continuous, past perfect and future perfect. The Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo houses the Contemporary Art Collection of the Autonomous Community of Madrid, now called the CA2M Collection, and the ARCO Foundation Collection.
CATALOGUE
All the works in the CA2M Collection and the Fundación ARCO Collection are available for consultation in our catalogue..
The control of environmental conditions is essential for the conservation of a collection. The building has an air conditioning system through which it is possible to maintain the humidity and temperature levels required to stabilize and slow down the natural aging of the materials that make up the pieces.
The Contemporary Art Collection of the Autonomous Community of Madrid came into being in the mid-1980s, with the acquisitions made by the Directorate General of Cultural Heritage via the Advisory Council for the Visual Arts.
Our Collection is growing every year thanks to acquisitions from art galleries, artists and heirs, as well as through donations. The Department of Culture and Tourism of the Autonomous Community of Madrid has a Commission for the Assessment of Art Acquisitions that usually meets twice a year to decide on any acquisition and donation offers that have been presented.
The storage – or reserve – area is the space where works of art remain the longest and is also the place with the highest number of artworks in the museum. It is, therefore, a very important area not only for the conservation of the collections, but also for their entire management cycle.
It was deposited at the CA2M in 2014, through a loan agreement between the Autonomous Community of Madrid and the ARCO Foundation. The ARCO Foundation Collection, set up with the idea of promoting the interest of collecting in Spain, stood out for being one of the first international contemporary art collections that has been able – from a Spanish standpoint but with an international vision – to tell the history of art from the 1970s to the present day, bringing together a reference list of some of its fundamental names.
A collection is like a living organism, where each part only functions in close coordination with the others.
The transportation of artworks is one of the most important aspects of preventive conservation. This intermediate step between the loan leaving its usual place and its installation in another location is essential to its conservation.
Prizes
The ARCO Madrid Regional Prize for Young Artists was created in 2004 to recognise the best visual artwork (including painting, drawing, comics, engraving, sculpture, mixed media, photography, exhibitions or any other type of artistic expression, without thematic or technical restrictions) made by artists aged 40 or younger, with a sale price of €35,000 or less, and which has been displayed at the year’s ARCO Fair. The Region of Madrid purchases the winning work for the CA2M Contemporary Art Collection.
The Madrid Regional Estampa Prize, created in 2008, aims to recognise the unique character of one or more works by artists participating in the fair. The winning work is acquired by the regional government from the gallery with which the artist works and given to the Contemporary Art Collection of the Region of Madrid, based at the CA2M Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo.
The aim of the Apertura Comunidad de Madrid award is to recognise – within the different disciplines that make up the visual arts, and with no limits on age or artistic technique – the quality of the work of one or more artists participating in the yearly editions of APERTURA. As it is an acquisition prize, the winning works will become part of the Museo Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo’s collection.
Collection exhibitions
Let’s Think Positive came about in 2003 as part of the exhibition If Alive that Manuel Saiz presented at the Museu de L’Empordà in Figueres, Girona. The idea behind the exhibition was the beginning of the preparations for his future 65th birthday on the 10th of January 2026.
The world of Miki Leal is a world of jazz, cinema, the American lifestyle and sport, as well as his family world, his domestic environment and within it his personal belongings.
Part of a group of figurative women painters like Esther Boix and Isabel Villar, Carmen Pagés’s work reflects openly on social injustices and how power is wielded over the least fortunate in today’s societies.