Real Madrid Collective: From Brand to Queer Collaboration

The artist duo Real Madrid, composed of Gabriele Longega and Ilaria Zanella, discusses their collaborative practice, their choice of a brand-like name, and their exploration of masculinity and queer identity. They began working individually until 2015, then merged their practices into Real Madrid, a name chosen to evoke a corporate team identity and to complicate singular authorship. Their recent work, "From the patio group" (2017), was created with an LGBTQI community in São Paulo and involved a parade that served as an experience for the city and collaborators. Earlier, "Calaveras" (2016) was made for Idioletta in Milan at Spazio O', based on a text by David Tomas Martinez. Their exhibition "Beefy" at Placentia Arte in Piacenza investigated masculinity through an olfactory environment with tobacco and gasoline candles, referencing Paul B. Preciado's "Testo Tossico." The installation "Leave for the woods" (2016) used Androgel to draw circular arrows on the floor, detaching the substance from masculinity and genital identity. The duo now aims to explore adolescence as an anti-binary social condition, focusing on puberty and queerness beyond biology and hormones.