We join in with great ideas that we are unable to fully sustain. Many of them represent progress, change and evolution, but they are also the origin of hypocritical attitudes in our society. Vegans buy flowers is an exercise of self-criticism that highlights the contradictions we all tend to fall into. Iván Forcadell (1993) crosses the limit of everything that should not be said with this experiment that vindicates his need to end the hypocrisy and silences imposed by contemporary morality.

The exhibition is a tribute to flowers, main characters of an excessive universe of fun and carefreeness that floods the gallery’s room. The artist wants to give a voice to these beings, talk about their feelings and build a safe space for them; show that not all are the same, not all enjoy the same mental state or have the same dreams … Shall we talk about the flowers’ fetishes? In a constant humorous mood, the author imagines how the day to day of a flower must be like. He wonders: Does anyone ever thinks how the rose feels when its used indiscriminately for funerals and celebrations? What is the chamomile doing? Or what happen’s when the lavander isn’t in the mood to hide bad smells?

The key of this exhibition is the irony, present in each symbol, in the language, and even in its colors. As seen in the artist’s first piece of video art titled “Another Price in Love”, the artist’s main intention is to transport the viewer to the precise moment when a flower is being defoliated while screeching screams fill the space through a strident and agonizing sounds. Thus he reveals the pain of others and how others use it for their own benefit.

The Virgin of Flowers, the second axis of the show, embodies that tradition that is always present in Forcadell’s proposals. This virgin sculpture with a kitsch air that alludes to those pre-Christian cultures in which flowers were the central element of the offerings; meant to convert the viewer into a devotee and, with a certain sarcasm, invites them to participate in this rite that consists of offering a flower while condemning it to observe the world from impotence. The judges of the act are the vessels located in front of the virgin. Which alude to the great contradiction of the show, in which they are at the same time containers of life, inasmuch as they keep the flowers fresh, but at the same time they become funeral urns, since in the background they are spaces without escape for them.

Forcadell plays with the viewer and in a witty manner proposes an exercise in self-criticism. He represents the subtlety of contradictions and asks whether we will be able to perceive in all of those in which we incur. Vegans buy flowers is evidence of that fine line that sustains our morals.

To learn more about the exhibition, schedule your appointment and learn more about the Lab 36 visit the website at www.lab36.org and its social networks at www.instagram.com/lab36.bcn