CA2M - Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo

The CA2M Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo is the contemporary art museum of the Autonomous Community of Madrid. Inaugurated in May 2008, it commemorates the bicentenary of the public proclamation in Móstoles that marked the start of the uprising for the independence of Spain against Napoleonic rule. The commemoration of a popular revolution has served to provide the region with the only museum in Madrid dedicated exclusively to contemporary art which, over time, has positioned itself on a national level as a communicator of narratives about contemporary Spanish art.

Dedicated to a form of intellectual leisure and the continuous stimulation of curiosity, the CA2M is a space where the present – and the questioning of it – is endorsed. The past – the centre’s own and that of the collections it houses – is an archive that is always open and continues to be created; it should be imbued with meanings that correspond to a critical present and that contribute to glimpsing a future that, rather than confronting or combating its risks, ascribes them to the actual possibility of cultural coexistence. The current need for many voices, for building a multiplicity of possible socio-cultural narratives, allows an unlimited institutional imagination to be shaped and the continuous reinvention of this space for new potential visitors. The centre is a place where the knots of cultural narratives are tied and untied over time in a fluid and disseminated movement, but which is understood, from a geographical standpoint, as strategic. Contemporary art is a social field with an emancipatory power over representation. A reconstitution of the complexity of the past in order to understand the present is a particularly relevant task; it can activate the cultural production of its immediate environment while also having global horizons and effects.

Its location in Móstoles allows it to question the complex definition of what a metropolis is as well as its own role in contemporary culture, linking its connections with its immediate surroundings in the south of the Autonomous Community of Madrid with its calling to extend beyond these borders. This is why it puts so much focus on its relationship with its visitors. Its geopolitical position in the South of Madrid – as a local place of culture for more than a million people, as well as for the five million inhabitants of the entire region – allows it to be a space devoted to innovative and unifying strategies to ensure that art fully achieves its function as an intellectual stimulus in society and in contemporary culture.

Since 2016 to 2023, Manuel Segade took over from Ferran Barenblit as director of the CA2M, via an open call whose judging panel was made up of Lara Almarcegui, Ferran Barenblit, Manuel Borja-Villel, Aurora Fernández-Polanco, Cuauhtémoc Medina, Guillermo Solana and Carlos Urroz. For more information on the project click here.

OUR MISSION

The main goal of the Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo museum is to encourage work in contemporary art and to make it public. The CA2M’s commitment to contemporary creation and critical thinking is carried out through its exhibitions, collection, activities, educational programmes, research, digital communication and publications.
The CA2M works along lines that criss-cross its entire programme and that help it to encompass ideas that go beyond the visual arts to include film, music, literature, design and the performing arts.