A popular British guide defines the monuments that burn on the last night of the San Juan festival in Alicante on June 24 as a “satirical cardboard structure that portrays current events and personalities”.
However, a visit to the most important creations of the 2023 edition, the ten Special category Bonfires, those with the largest budget and aspiring to the juiciest prize, refutes this assertion. There is hardly any trace of criticism or satire in the monuments, but an allegorical desire, the symbolic treatment of great themes that inspire the most representative artists of the construction of faults or bonfires; beyond whether there is any substantial difference between the fleeting sculptural ensembles that are made for Valencia and Alicante, which would be another debate.
Already in the presentation of the sketches, the commissions themselves offered clear clues about the theme of their Bonfires: Baver-Els Antigons, which opens in the Special category, presented the work ‘Senti-mental’ as a set “that talks about emotions and feelings of people, such as anger, peace, tranquility or hatred.
Vicente Chaveli has made for Carolinas Altas, always among the favorites, a bonfire -‘Renacer’- with two figures that represent “nature and purifying fire, symbolizing the destruction that humans are causing to nature and to ourselves.”
David Sánchez Llongo, winner of the Fallas in Valencia, is the author of ‘L-Mental’, a project for Diputació-Renfe “that talks about the origin of life”.
Néstor Ruiz and Salva Bañuls are responsible for the Florida-Plaza la Viña bonfire, ‘Els elements i l’energia’, and that is their theme, of course. Florida Portazgo seeks to revalidate its victory last year with ‘Vents’, a 20-meter-wide wooden wind rose. Pere Baenas, the artist in charge of making it, explains that the winds are the main reason for the bonfire and that “each direction brings different things with it.”
The bonfire of Hernán Cortés presents ‘Estigias’, a reference to the oracle of ancient Greece to which warriors went to find out their future before battles. The bonfire represents the theme through three women who spun the thread of life and decided who lived and who died.
Palacio and Serra have made ‘Encantats’, a bonfire for La Cerámica around the theme of enchantments, such as those of mermaids or Medusa, which turned everyone who looked at it to stone. The Polígono de San Blas bonfire, by Paco Giner, is called ‘Contrasts’, and it is the only one among the main ones, those that most people visit (the City Council offers a free bus tour of all of them), which alludes to the elections or relations between citizens and politicians.
Sagrada Familia presents the work of the artist Pedro Santaeulalia entitled ‘This is love?’. That revolves, you have guessed it, around love, with scenes on how affective relationships affect us in all its versions. Finally, Seneca-Autobusos competes with ‘Poesía eres tú’, by José Gallego and Toni Pérez, who have included his ninot de Lorca in the annual exhibition in the hope that he will be pardoned.
“We must not forget that the Hogueras were created by a man from Cádiz who wanted to replicate the Fallas model in Alicante, and here instead of jokes we had ninots to criticize and satire”. Fernando Abad, a prestigious journalist and foguerer from Alicante, explains it. With this spirit, the festival was born, which is now 95 years old, but the war and a long dictatorship arrived to impose limits on the creators that forced them to follow the path of allegory. With the return of democracy and the politicized transition, the transgressive atmosphere of the time was reflected in the work of the creators, but that spirit has gradually faded. “You have to go to the bonfires of some neighborhoods to find satire,” says Abad.
With the passage of time, the party has been institutionalized. Today it is an event that is heavily subsidized by the City Council, which has increased its budget for it by 20% this year. And, as Abad, a member of Seneca-Autobusos, explains, “in the largest commissions there are people from all parties, so when a political satire has been made it has been distributed to everyone.” And always in a secondary way, because the main motif, the leitmotif, today flees from the grotesque and mundane to follow sentimental and abstract paths with the making of fleeting allegorical sculptures that risk more in their delicate architectural balance than in their messages.
