Podría think about it and paraphrase the protagonist Solenoid Mircea Cartarescu that the individual exhibition of Laia Estruch (Barcelona, 1981) at the Ehrhardt Flórez Gallery is close to home: you only have to touch the inflatable surface of the work with your fingers, which occupies all access to the gallery, to understand that now There are no holes or cracks.
Unlike the idea of this character who conceives literature as a machine capable of generating initial happiness and subsequent disappointmentIt is the indifferent spectator who experiences only this last effect before this work.
The opening bar might evoke the work of Daniel Buren, who closed the doors of the Galleria Apollinaire, and some restless people would not hesitate to stay outside, sensing that the Catalan artist was looking beyond the air cylinders inside.
Discover with wisdom what you can go through the inflatable to reveal what is hidden on the other sidewith the hope of encountering an exhibition description similar to Buren’s at the John Weber Gallery, using his works from one end of the room until one has to reach the facade of the entrance building.
no exact when piercing dense plastic that resistssliding away from the joy of their power reaching until they finally reach the other side, they enter with a vac, accompanied by the continuous sound of the engine that isolates the structure.
Visitors may indeed feel disappointed considering the anti-climatic installation. However, they are curious as to who will actively seek this feeling. They understand it graphic documentation attached to the surface is attached to the installationwhich refers to the artist’s previous projects.
Laia Estruch: ‘CARRAU’, 2026. Photo: Jonás Bel / Galería Ehrhardt Flórez
Through these images, when you see them interacting with your work, you understand that play is an essential element in this context, and that crossing this membrane is akin to being children play in a bouncy castle, fully aware that we are solely responsible for creating our own experiences. And this game continues in the next two spaces, where there are more inflatable membranes that we have to pass through when we are born.
Expectation is maintained during the journey: we ask you will find something on the other side or if the show is limited to a large one boom from the umbrella. In the end, we find that in this constant movement and repetition, as it happens when turning the carraca (“carrau” in Catalan), a sound creation is created by our own hands.
It is a gesture that is remembered in a society that is more used to delegating everything to artificial intelligence, the value of action and participation in the face of mere contemplation and the insensitivity of one watches the game turn without touching it.
Ah, in active curiosity lies the bliss of what Cartarescu has: the word to set something in motion, in that go play and the power to discover for one that which seemed veiled.
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