Carla Fuentes

When she was a child, Carla Fuentes Fuertes (Valencia, 1986) made a paper and glue fly that accompanied her everywhere. Since she was a child, she gave flies a value and attention that for other people they did not deserve. For the adult Carla, flies have been and are humble companions of her daily solitude in the studio. The exhibition “En boca cerrada también entran moscas” is an exercise through which the artist invites us to look at ourselves as a society.

"Two thousand flies came to a honeycomb of rich honey, and because they had a sweet tooth, they died as prisoners with their legs in it". "Humans perish in the prisons of the vice that dominates them" wrote De Samaniego. In an era in which we spend hours connected to social networks, aren't we all a little bit flies, against the glass of the screen, wanting to see the world? The way we relate to each other has changed substantially: we now post photos and videos. We talk less, yes, but we express and say a lot about ourselves through the images we share on social networks. That's why today, in a closed mouth, flies can also enter.

Flies, perched anywhere, make us something earthly, perhaps we should stop to observe them to realize how brief and intense life is. As the poet William Blake once said: "I dance and drink and sing till some blind hand takes my wing". Flies exist to remind us how small we really are, something that many seem to have forgotten in these times ruled by collecting likes and followers.

Schopenhauer saw in flies a "symbol of impertinence and audacity". While the rest of the animals flee from man, the fly perches on his nose. Perhaps this exhibition, and the work of Carla Fuentes in general, is metaphorically that, the lame fly that wants to wake us up and get us out of our self-absorption. Go and see it, just in case.

Text: Ana Montes