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Abstract

The Buades Gallery (1973–2003) was not merely a commercial space in Madrid. In the history of art in Spain, it served as a professional and political node for Spanish conceptualism, an art form which, due to its idiosyncrasies, required its own channels of distribution. This article seeks to examine the trajectory of Mercedes Buades in alignment with this movement, re-evaluating her role from a feminist perspective and highlighting the importance of certain agents who have traditionally been invisibilised. To this end, a theoretical approach is adopted, following the sociology of art and the social history of art, paying particular attention to the contributions of Enrico Castelnuovo, Pierre Bourdieu and Núria Peist. These frameworks enable an analysis of the role of the gallerist as a structuring agent within the artistic field, capable of generating symbolic capital and establishing dynamics of production, circulation and consumption in the context of post-Franco Spain, a country that lacked a consolidated museum infrastructure at the time. Even so, Mercedes Buades established a model of gallery practice that, beyond its commercial dimension, contributed decisively to the symbolic configuration of contemporary art in Spain and formed part of a network of artistic visibility that promoted experimental art.

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1009240
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Location
Title
The Buades Gallery: A Tube of Oil Paint Open to the World Mercedes Buades and Her Support for Spanish Conceptualism, 1973–1978
Publication title
Arts; Basel
Volume
14
Issue
4
First page
80
Number of pages
25
Publication year
2025
Publication date
2025
Publisher
MDPI AG
Place of publication
Basel
Country of publication
Switzerland
Publication subject
e-ISSN
20760752
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
Document type
Journal Article
Publication history
 
 
Online publication date
2025-07-21
Milestone dates
2025-04-15 (Received); 2025-07-09 (Accepted)
Publication history
 
 
   First posting date
21 Jul 2025
ProQuest document ID
3243977147
Document URL
https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/buades-gallery-tube-oil-paint-open-world-mercedes/docview/3243977147/se-2?accountid=208611
Copyright
© 2025 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.
Last updated
2025-09-10
Database
ProQuest One Academic