Fernández-Pello

Divided into three parts (Carlos de Amberes Foundation, Río & Meñaka, and Carabanchel), the exhibition follows the author's personal life from his birth and childhood to his current relationship with the two poles of artistic life in Madrid: those represented by the Salamanca and Carabanchel neighborhoods. Two extremes of the city that have been, since Goya's times, reconciled through the problematic ambiguity of art; through their places of exhibition and their places of production; through the difference between the real and the unreal.

Starting with its title, Nothing Too Deep poses a riddle –a game– to the viewer. On the one hand, it is a trivial, simple, indirect statement about the nature of art as something superficial, of little relevance, displaying a high degree of social vanity. On the other hand, it is a kind, audacious imperative to fulfill the poetic obligation to delve deeper into the intricacies of something seen as superficial.

Based on that dual premise, an implausible –almost impossible– existential story is constructed, one that is marked by the author’s continued professional lack of definition as a curator, sculptor, professor, translator, designer, economist, consultant, gallerist, and collector, as he does not quite fit into the categories provided by a system of validation that is obsessed with belonging.

Chapter 3. The Carnal Bump Trap

For more than ten years, Fernández-Pello has been interested in the secret life that exists behind the work of art. His pieces englobe the useless, the design object, YouTube, Bravo's reality shows, remnants of other works, the philosophy of Parmenides, and strategic teachings. Looking at them as if they were entities with a life of their own, he is interested in imagining what a work does when it is stored, when it breaks, or when time goes by and it gets old. What it does when it is not exhibited. Nietzsche proclaimed in his book Beyond Good and Evil that “everything profound loves a mask or disguise.” Behind this statement lies the classical idea that there is an essential truth to things, hidden behind a multitude of masks. But the search for that truth has long been postulated as the last of the masks; the last of the fictions; the last of the brands we can buy. I fear that there is no real truth at all. That it is just another product. The tricky goal of an exhibition is to unravel the real truth behind the subject being worked by the artist; to reveal the end result and answer behind the piece of art. Nothing could be further from that intention. But not in the sense that there is nothing beyond that. Swim away from that intention; take two or three more strokes, until your arms tire. You will see that there is nothing very deep here; instead, there is a series of beautiful lies, weak fantasies, and remnants of fiction – as real as the space being occupied.