LILY Fuentesal Arenillas, curated by Claudia Elies, is an exhibition structured around an accumulation of textile pieces, arranged between pillars and glass cases like a large backbone. The work carried out by the artists has been filtered over the years, forming ways of understanding sculptural practice as a collective learning process adapted to a constant loss of form. 

The exhibition is divided into two levels: the ground floor displays Carousel, and on the first floor we find Imaginary y Conch shells. In all three installations, there is an elasticity that returns again and again to that small theater of drifts where necks intersect with waists and fists with feet, maintaining the movement of those beside them and resting their hands in flight on the materials that have continually led them to action and event. A construction in which there is not always a clear story, but rather narratives and stories that intertwine, intersect, and repeat themselves as the forms stretch, rest, and disappear.

Carousel It is a correspondence between Fuentesal Arenillas and the artist Itziar Okariz., a correspondence between Cádiz, Madrid, and New York that materializes in a multitude of garment-letters. The pieces respond to a desire to bring their artistic practices closer together, to seek new structures through them, to find other ways of communicating through the physical. Itziar Okariz has explored different ways of putting these materials into action, while also producing a video archive of all these exercises, carried out alone, in the company of her daughter Izar, or with her students. The conversations between the two are exercises in closeness, in getting closer, in finding common ground; but also a friendship, a seed brought by a bird, a waltz in the estuary, an accumulation of gestures, or a change of axis to do a handstand in a skirt. A wardrobe for everyone that seeks in—and through—new structures in which common interests appear and give shape to the installation.

Imaginary is constructed from the accumulation of traces that repeat and pile up to generate a new material arrangement.. Fuentesal Arenillas keeps, cuts out, and transports all those memories from years spent together, sticking them onto these táblex boards that used to be the floors of their workshops, creating an archive of uncontrolled forms. A palimpsest intervened by uncontrolled nature, with a path towards new interpretations acquired from more than seventy frames that give shape to the work. Each one documents specific ways of being and actions of those who were there. For this occasion, they have invited a new perspective and interpretation by the artist LUCE, who contributes to expanding these layers of memory. A work of tracing that communicates, unites, and gives narrative to other forms of intimacy, making the everyday a shared stage.

Based on the same patterns and cuts as the signature garments that make up Carousel, a series of new variations are configured: Conch shells. Produced specifically for the exhibition. LILY, the artists express a dynamic of multiple transformations and imbalances in which there is no final position. Articulated in space, they are in a state of repose, accompanying each other with different loads and tensions. These pieces suggest other forms of waiting, other gaps, and other ways of perceiving new movements. Gestures that refer both to the word and to the volume that yields with use and that, over time, facilitates posture, stretching, or character, managing to enter and exit its coverage, sliding through the fullness and emptiness of the surface that falls under its own weight.

The exhibition unfolds in the same way as the flowers of a sea lily, which emerge each day and accumulate alongside others, creating a new order. The pieces on display are capable of changing without losing their original form, of becoming something else without ceasing to be what they are.

Fuentesal Arenillas (Huelva, 1986 – Cádiz, 1989) explore relationships and states as a starting point, working with dual figures, the evolution of their own praxis, and the practice of sculpture after the game from which it originates, shaping themselves based on the metaphorical possibilities of materials. Their allegorical and linguistic implications are inserted—installed—into other circuits of material and cultural—popular—production. Among their latest solo exhibitions are Carousel, in Condeduque (Madrid); The dance of change, at the Andalusian Center for Contemporary Art (Seville); Glossy cover Thin margin, at Sala de Arte Joven (Madrid); Casapuerta, at the Luis Adelantado Gallery (Valencia); or A necklace of windows, at Centro Párraga (Murcia). They have recently exhibited collectively at FLOOR, José de Guimarães International Arts Center (Portugal); What a head weighs, at the TEA Museum (Tenerife); Processi 150, at the Spanish Academy in Rome; A recent history II, at the Juan March Foundation (Palma); Sight and Touch [ca. 1929–30], at the Federico García Lorca Center (Granada); Dialects, at CA2M Madrid; or Right of reply, at the Patio Herreriano Museum (Valladolid). They have received various awards, grants, and residencies, including the 2024 Fundación ”la Caixa” Production Award; the 2024 ARCO Community of Madrid Award; the 2022-2023 Academy of Spain in Rome Award; the 2023 Generaciones Award from La Casa Encendida; the María José Jove Foundation Residency; the VI ARCO Cervezas Alhambra Awards; the XXV edition of the VEGAP Awards; and the Matadero Crea Award, among others. — Texts by Claudia Elies I Photos by Eva Carasol