Luis Pérez Calvo. Cromos de artista

From 23 October to 26 April 2026, the CentroCentro cultural space is hosting an exhibition by multidisciplinary artist Luis Pérez Calvo, whose career is defined by an intense reworking of Spanish popular iconography from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s through drawing, collage, painting and ceramics. 

Since 2015, Pérez Calvo has produced more than 500 pictorial works inspired by his wanderings through galleries, studios, fairs and independent spaces. Far from the major international circuits, his practice has focused on the city’s vital pulse and on the personal connections that shape his artistic ecosystem. The artist refers to this body of work as Cromos del artista (“Artist’s Trading Cards”), evoking the albums of trading cards he collected as a boy and now transforming them into a nostalgic, ironic and deeply human universe.

The exhibition presents a selection of these works together with a mural created in situ, inviting visitors to revisit the recent history of Madrid’s art scene from an emotional perspective. Rather than establishing a canon, it offers a constellation of images that celebrate and share art itself.

Renowned for blending popular art with references to comics, advertising and urban culture, Pérez Calvo turns this exhibition into a tribute to creativity and to the power of memory as a form of cultural resistance.

Image credits:

Mural from the exhibition "Artist's Trading Cards" (detail), 2025 ©Luis Pérez Calvo. Photography: Amapola creativa