Through its social networks, its podcast, collaborations with icons like Ronaldinho, Rauw Alejandro and Trueno, as well as alliances with brands like Sebago and Playboy, Nude Project has consolidated itself as the reference brand for an entire generation. Whoever buys a t-shirt or a cap does not acquire just a piece of clothing, but accesses this entire ecosystem.
The brand was born in 2019 with the motto "By Artists, For Artists", a message that from the origin placed creativity at the center of its identity. Now they honor this motto with the opening of La Masía Gallery, their new flagship store in Barcelona. The store is distributed over two floors with very different personalities.
The ground floor evokes the atmosphere of a traditional farmhouse and the space is organized into thematic rooms that reinterpret the legacy of great Catalan artists such as Gaudí, Dalí and Miró. It also integrates permanent works created by Filip Custic, recognized for his disruptive visual universes, and Pedro Hoz, who reinterprets classic elements from an urban aesthetic.
In contrast, the upper floor is conceived as a white cube to host temporary exhibitions of emerging Catalan artists, curated by Urvanity Projects, to highlight local creativity and generate a dialogue with Barcelona.
To understand the weight of this exhibition program, it is necessary to explain who is behind it. Urvanity was born in Madrid in 2017 by Sergio Sancho, a collector and former advertising executive who could not find the type of contemporary art he was interested in in Spain and decided to create his own fair. He started by showing work by urban artists and, over the years, it matured until it was rebranded as UVNT Art Fair.
In 2022, CAN, Contemporary Art Now, its sister fair in Ibiza, arrived, and in 2026 both events merged under the same brand, CAN Art Fair, based in Madrid and Ibiza. CAN Art Madrid is held on the same dates as the ARCO fair and has become one of the essential events of the Madrid Art Week.
Urvanity Projects is the branch of the company that brings contemporary art to urban spaces throughout the year.
But fairs are only one part of the project. Urvanity Projects is the branch of the company that throughout the year brings contemporary art to urban spaces, organizes live actions, and develops cultural projects for brands such as Iberia, Swatch, Mahou, or Lexus. The fairs promoted by Sancho have broken barriers and opened them to a younger and more modern audience, and this spirit is what they now transfer to La Masía Gallery, connecting art with a young and modern audience.
The program proposed by Urvanity Projects for La Masía Gallery, focused on emerging Catalan artists, features eight exhibitions a year. The inaugural exhibition was by Carlota Pérez de Castro, a visual artist whose work explores identity and movement based on flamenco as a conceptual axis. It was followed by Tetramorfo, by Laia García, from June 11 to July 19, whose pictorial practice develops between figuration and abstraction. Currently, you can visit Revelarse, by Quim Gordún, from July 23 to September 13, with an artistic proposal focused on figuration.
As we have seen throughout this series Art where you don't expect it, the relationship between companies and the art world has become a fundamental strategy for building brand identity. In a context where values weigh as much as the products themselves, art emerges as an ally capable of transforming the way brands connect with their audiences and convey their purpose. Nude Project has understood this well, and its new flagship store in Barcelona is the most ambitious proof of this so far.
The key data of this project is demographic. The audience that buys from Nude Project is very young, precisely the age group that is most difficult to attract to museums, exhibitions, and galleries. That a brand with this client profile bets on contemporary art, not only by incorporating work into its store but by building a temporary exhibition program, is relevant in itself. That it does so alongside Urvanity Projects, with all its experience bringing contemporary art to young audiences, is a successful alignment.
Everything indicates that art needs new formats to continue connecting with the public, and especially to promote a generational change of visitors and future buyers and collectors of contemporary art.
It will be necessary to pay attention to the programming that arrives after the summer and see if proposals like this, halfway between culture, brand and experience, consolidate and manage to generate an interest in art that goes beyond the visit to the store.