Cardiogram. Lola Lasurt

Lola Lasurt’s exhibition ‘Cardiogram’ suggests various reflections on the recent past through a sculpture of a woman called “democracy” and two series of images projected on zinc plates or painted by the artist and arranged on each floor of the gallery.

Like an amateur historian, the artist recomposes various elements to construct a narrative with multiple meanings. The story has two beginnings. The first is a visit to the Museo del Gremi Artesà de Fallers, a museum in Valencia’s Ciutat Fallera district, and an encounter with a figure made for a Falla, possibly a ninot spared from the flames, called “democracy”. Made by José Azpeitia, perhaps in the early eighties, it is a life-size nude figure of a young woman lying face up with her eyes closed. The patina of dark paint that covers the fibreglass piece imitates the bronze finish of funerary sculptures. She appears to be dead, but her placid face invites us to think that perhaps she is only asleep. For the exhibition, the artist has collaborated with the school of the Grau Superior de Formació Professional d’Artista Faller i Construcció d’Escenografies, the guild of Falla artists, also based in Ciutat Fallera. The students have made a crochet cushion to support, hold, protect and care for the figure of “democracy”.