LOOP ART FAIR Barcelona 2023

El reparo, 2021

Within the variants of copla, the minera and the cartagenera are forms of song that directly address the region’s recent collective memory. La Unión, the epicenter of mining and economic activity in past decades and centuries, has witnessed its surroundings and landscape transform into reds, oxides, and greys—recalling a history of exploitation of the land while retaining a certain sense of enigma. The mining range of La Unión feels otherworldly.

The title of the exhibition directly refers to a traditional drink from the Campo de Cartagena: a mixture of sweet wine and cognac, which functions almost like a popular energy drink among local farmers. At the same time, reparo also means the healing of a wound. With El Reparo, the artist Fito Conesa proposes using the gallery as a video installation in order to create an immersive work with multiple layers and nuances.

El Reparo is a video installation that transforms the gallery walls into a semi-desert, rocky, and almost extraterrestrial landscape, featuring two opposing images: on one side, a wind turbine whose movement sets the rhythm; on the other, a hypnotic song—the powerful image of a woman, Lola, surrounded by an unsettling terrain over which she performs a minera. The project represents a form of reconnection between the artist and his place of origin, both physically and within the family sphere. A way of bringing together past, present, and future which, although already uncertain, has now become pure speculation and science fiction.