Red Light. Solo show curated by Nilo Casares.
Aula Cultural de la Caixa d'Estalvis del Mediterrani.
La Llotgeta, Valencia. Spain 2013.


Hardly anyone believes in eternal love any more. Not even the shortest and most perishable.   The  word  love  sounds  corny.  So  relationships between men and women,   including    those   of     the  same   sex,   are   not   impossible,   as    the psychoanalyst  Jacques Lacan  postulated, but  miraculous.  In  the  midst  of the oasis  of  making  something last, the vast wasteland of mutual incomprehension arises.  And  so,  adrift  (to follow Lyotard)  the  emotions  float,  lacking  a   loving narrative to contain their enormous flow.

Fernando Gimeno shows in La Llotgeta of the Obra Social de Caja Mediterráneo this  emotional  drift,  through  diffuse,  languid,   everyday images,  collages  and paper notes.  All  of this is arranged in the form of a sentimental journey, in which the sensation of loss dominates  over the  "longed for"  or "indifferent" encounter. Sheets more or less dishevelled,  more or less empty;  corridors  of  white  pallor; loose notes betraying a certain lack of communication (so close, so far; so close, so far) and that Red Light of the exhibition's title underlining the road to nowhere of so much frayed emotion.

The  whole  reveals  the  difficulty  that  exists  today  in  finding  a  way out of the crisis, in this case a sentimental one.  Like money,  feelings  have  also  fallen into the drift established by the exchange value as the measure of all things. Emotions have to flow,  as liquids flow,  to compensate for so much past solidity, so much relationship clogged  up  by the  weariness of life together. And yet, the sentimental fluidity that Gimeno captures in  Red Light,  like an improvised diary, exudes  a  certain  melancholy  reflected  in those  eloquent  crumpled sheets, in those sentences that sometimes have death as their witness, and in those naked bodies that seem inhabited by loneliness.

It is, no doubt, the sign of our times. A labile time,  chained by passing instants in which  no action  proclaims  its  truth,  inhabitants  of a fictional  universe that, as such, betrays its imposture. Fernando Gimeno stages  this  fragmented universe of diffuse, vague, ethereal feelings, whose dreamlike substance is, after all, what threads,  with  difficulty,  this nightmarish  journey.   A  Red Light  that, instead of setting  off   all   the  alarms  provoked   by  so  many   images  and   loose  notes, extinguishes them by dint of the dreaming itself.

- Salva Torres for Makma magazine. Read the original review in spanish here