Gallery façade. November 2024
Information
BUILT A HOME AND WATCHED IT BURN
Noemi Iglesias Barrios & Gema Polanco
Curated by Ester Almeda
From November 16, 2024, to January 25, 2025
Intro
Intro I grab from the towel the book I’ve returned to dozens of times over the last few months, which has rested on an unfamiliar nightstand for many nights, and I read: “I remember the fascist rigidity of whom didn’t feel or couldn’t accompany me. There is no compassion if the body doesn’t tremble. I don’t want it to happen again. How do we open ourselves to knowing the lack of compassion in those we choose? Anguish: the body thinks it will only survive by repairing the damaged bond of love.”1 The sea lashed with lascivious force at the small rocks rising from what was, at that time, the shoreline. The tide had left bare much of the land that at times remained underwater. The wind, timidly, hinted a storm that wouldn’t let up for the days to come. A place that once used to be a safe, happy refuge. A home in which I now felt strange, foreign.
The concept of home is mutable. It is not something inherently bound to time. Sometimes, home does not exist; at others, it changes form suddenly, and sometimes it disappears. Other times, the home moves with you. It changes location. Perhaps home is within ourselves, and we are responsible for who we let in. For who can take their shoes off and come in slowly. For who rushes out like a whirlwind with untied shoelaces. Above all, responsible for protecting the home so that no one could turn to ashes which took so long to build.
The problem, perhaps, is that in this attempt at protection, we erect walls so high and impenetrable that no one dares to enter. In this regard, I borrow Zygmunt Bauman’s words: “In our world of rampant individualism, relationships are a mixed blessing. They oscillate between a sweet dream and a nightmare; there’s no way to tell when one turns into the other. Almost all the time, both avatars coexist, though on different levels of awareness. In a modern living environment, relationships may be the most common, intense, and profound embodiments of ambivalence. And therefore, we could argue, they rightfully occupy the center of attention of modern liquid individuals, who place them at the forefront of their life projects.”2 Miley Cyrus’s Flowers plays from a nearby bar. A song born as an anthem for self-care in this era of liquid love, in which everything is fleeting, unstable, individualistic, narcissistic, and consumeristic. A reminder that, to love and care for others, we must put ourselves first.
A seagull approaches me, interrupting my reading, and staring at me. I feel like little by little, they are losing their fear, already used to the irritation of tourists bothered by their presence. Then I realized that love and fear work in the same way. I recall a line from Hagai Levi’s version of Scenes from a Marriage: “It’s like a piece of tape that you rip off. And try to reapply; It might stick, but It’s never gonna be like the first time”. These are feelings that, through force of habit, lose their intensity.
I close the book and pick up the notebook in which I have written dozens of letters over the past few months. Letters that will never be sent, letters whose recipient is no longer online. I think of the film A House on Fire (Casa en llamas), by Dani de la Orden, and a shiver runs down my spine. Finding myself, like the main character, facing the sea, as all her memories disappear behind her. A spectator to the burning of a house built on love and hope. Debating between putting out the fire or enjoying watching everything burn and start fresh. Perhaps some letters should never be received. Perhaps, simply, they are just a means to expel the demons that inhabit the mind. Perhaps those letters are what should be turned to ashes… something to mourn to and thus find peace.
First movement: Gema Polanco. I decided to take care of myself.
A large, vibrant blue cloth, like a banner, warns us at the entrance: I decided to take care of myself. It’s a cry, but not a war cry. There’s no combativeness, no hint of vengeance or struggle, except the internal one. Instead, it is a declaration of intent. Gema Polanco’s works transport us to a world of self-care, shelters, confessions, and advice, like the kind you give your friends when you know they are unable to release the voices in their heads. They are that hug you need so much when loneliness prevails, when, after so much trying to care for others, you have neglected yourself. That late-night call of release to the friend who is always there to listen, even if you feel like a record stuck on the turntable needle, always playing the same note, on repeat. When all you need is a kind voice to say, “It’s going to be okay.”
In the artist’s words: “Working from an intimate place to make our realities visible or to tell our stories, both as a form of liberation and normalization, is a way of resistance, struggle, and empowerment for us as individuals and as a society.” This work is also reflected in Playing with my innermost shadows and learning how to handle them. It presents a scene in which an internal conflict unfolds between herself and her alter ego—a dance with her demon, attempting to entangle her in its tentacles. A shadow play, a struggle with her darkness culminates in catharsis in the style of a Greek tragedy. One in which the heroine rises from her ashes, and the trophy is her well-being.
Red Ferrari-lacquered iron letters give us one last piece of advice: Trust your gut. Our body is wise, and it often sends warning signals that we deliberately ignore. But our nervous system never rests. What happens in our gut never lies, which Polanco reflects through wiring linking the letters, waiting to be “turned on.” Waiting for the signal to be heard. Like an alarm or a road sign.
Her installations, drawings, and textile works are intrinsically related to punk music and aesthetics. They are a scream into the microphone, a mosh pit at a concert, a physical and mental catharsis that invites us to liberate ourselves, shake off our demons, expose our wounds, and love our scars. Courage, love, and scars, as the song goes. They are a journey of destruction, construction, and self-knowledge that prepares us for what’s to come.
Second movement: Noemi Iglesias Barrios. If the phone doesn’t ring, it’s me.
The antithesis of self-care is a product that has genuinely inhabited our society for centuries: the myth of romantic love. A relational behavior for which we have been trained and educated since early childhood. Popular culture is heavily influenced by this collective romantic utopia, which has reached extremes of neoliberalism through social media and dating apps. This has degenerated into a narcissistic and egocentric system based on superficial connections, love as a quick-consumption product (fast love), and, in most cases, disposable. Desire ceases to be unconscious and physical and becomes conscious and analytical. Emotional responsibility is nowhere to be found. And so, the cycle repeats, and again we turn to self-care as an antidote for the invisible wounds that all these processes leave on our self-esteem.
Behind the blue velvet curtain, Noemi Iglesias presents various projects related to love in the digital age, the commoditization of emotions, and relationships seen through the prism of consumer culture. As in the previous room, three warnings printed on porcelain stoneware appear: Love over, play again?; I love you but I hate you. Sick on the floor, and If the phone doesn’t ring, it’s me. The three phrases are surrounded by bouquets and floral wreaths (something common in Iglesias’s work, where she reproduces the traditional porcelain flower technique), with a delicacy that contrasts with the harshness of the message. The fourth mural, We both swiped right, shows us again a profusion of roses, around which phrases from Tinder messages encourage users to interact after a double match: “Tell them why you swiped right; you’re both Tinder addicts, that’s something you have in common; someone should create an app to meet cool people… oh, wait…”
In the dehumanizing and unsettling process that is liquid love, an invisible mechanism is set in motion on social media: ads for dating apps, love coaches, psychology experts, fortune tellers, and tarot readers appear. In a humorous tone, the artist presents the project Dat-Astral Chart, which proposes twelve personality types based on users’ digital behavior, inspired by horoscopes and astrological readings but with a digital twist: the typer, the loner, the swiper, the scroller, etc. All personalities come together in a glass and LED engraving, interconnected.
The exhibition is completed with Love Me Fast, a neon piece that reminds us of the Little White Chapel sign in Las Vegas (where you can get married any day of the week for just $150), Landscapes of Affection, a series of phone-shaped pieces made from recycled cobalt from obsolete phone batteries in which the artist reproduces her daily phone movements over a period, and Data prints, a drawing composed of her fingerprints.
Ester Almeda
Art Historian Director – Galería MPA