GRETA ALFARO
The Blood of the Earth
Rosa Santos Valencia
Carrasquer, 1
46001 Valencia
Opening Friday, January 19, 2024,
18:00 - 21:00
If you haven’t seen Greta Alfaro’s art in person yet, here’s a link to various airliners, you can still get tickets to get you out to Valencia in time for the opening of her new show, The Blood of the Earth, at the Rosa Santos Gallery where it opens on Friday evening. Subsequently, the show runs until April 12th.
I swear to God, this magazine has implored you to check out Greta’s incredible work so often, I personally have implored you to check out her work so often, my alter egos have implored you to check out her work so, so very often, I am beginning to feel like Lankester Merrin reaching for my nitroglycerine, “Virtus Christi te urget!” and you know that didn’t end well.
The Blood of the Earth dives deep into the labours of the soil, the labours of the people and the labours of the elements, that taken as one, constitute Winemaking. It is this exsanguination of the earth that holds an enduring allegorical and metaphorical place in Greta Alfaro’s oeuvre as it does in so many facets of our culture. It's intoxicating and not merely an intoxication. There is an aspect of devotion to violence. Isabel Mellen, in her artful piece written for the show, reminds us of how the wine ingested in the Eucharist represents the blood of Christ's nutrition for the soul... And, His blood transmuted into wine flows from his wound in his side, to be tasted.
The main image here (above) is a still from Greta's video, Las Labradoras (The farmers). The flow of blood, a symptom that the body is still alive, is captured in the video. Each blow of the boxer to the bag filled with skin leaves an indelible mark of wine that reflects the pain of the body of the farming women, subjected to the rigors of physical work in the field and labor at home. The prints on the bag are the prints on her skin. They are the ones who, with the blood of her womb, perpetuate the painful miracle of life and the ones who dye their hands picking the grapes from the vines and making the wine. - Isabel Mellen.
Greta Alfaro lives and works in Spain and in the UK, she has an MA in photography from London’s Royal College of Art; Greta has exhibited all over the world and her video installations are, well there is something of a beautiful gluttonous quality about them. In Ictu Oculi, her collection of lazy feeding Buzzards is in the Saatchi collection, see it here (oh just do it!). Comedias a honor y gloria was staged in Valencia’s incredible, Moor-ish cockfighting ring, the splendid octagonal tower affording all the intimate and claustrophobic view to the kills. Reimagined by Alfaro, the internal walls are tiered with cascading glasses of wine, which visitors, armed with a glock pistol, violently destroy under the watchful gaze of surveillance cameras. (Can’t imagine it happening here.) Ther are way more to experience of course... Check Greta's website here.
Essentials
The Blood of the Earth
Rosa Santos Valencia
Carrasquer, 1
46001 Valencia
January 19 - April 12th, 2024
More info Rosa Santos Gallery, here
Greta Alfaro's website is here
