Like a couple, emulating that scene from “Lady and the Tramp”, the Regne de València-Císcar falla presents Pedro Sánchez and Carles Puigdemont as a couple in love. They sit at the table, on a estelada as a tablecloth, and stage the pact for amnesty, a concept that the Valencia Fallas of this 2024 seem to have taken the measure of. It is just an example of the ninots that from today can be visited at the Science Museum of Valencia, since this year’s Ninot Exhibition is committed to national politics and only makes small nods to local news.
The exhibition, the largest of ephemeral art with more than 700 pieces, both adults and children, is a window to the monuments that will be seen in the streets of Valencia in the month of March and, if this chronicler is guided by what has now been seen, National politics and its entanglements will have much more space than the Valencian problems. All of them, yes, will burn in the fire.
Pedro Sánchez is Isabel Díaz Ayuso’s dance partner in the ninot of the Falla Pintor Salvador Abril – Peris y Valero, which presents both as drivers of the bumper cars; The President of the Government is also the protagonist of the scene that seeks to save Josep Benlliure-Vicent Guillot’s commission from the fire. In this case with Alberto Núñez Feijóo, with whom he clashes over the renewal of the General Council of the Judiciary and the amnesty for the process.
Carles Puigdemont is also of interest to the Fallas commissions, as can be seen, since he is the figure presented by the Jacinto Labaila-Manuel Simó Falla, with a curious donut from the well-known program “Pasapalabra”, or in an intimate attitude with Sánchez in another scene that will speak for alone in the Pere Cabanes-Comte de Lumiares fault.
Likewise, the Ceramista Ros-Josep Maria Mortes Lerma falla presents Yolanda Díaz as the queen of hearts to whom Ione Belarra, Pablo Iglesias or Irene Montero ask “that her head be cut off!”, which again points to national satire as the axis of the scathing criticism of Fallas. Even the mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida has space in the exhibition as a participant in the “First Dates” program in the Pere Cabanes-Joan XXIII falla ninot.
Meanwhile, locally, there is little criticism to highlight. The mayor of València, María José Catalá, appears riding on an EMT bus in the ninot of the Isabel La Católica-Cirilo Amorós fault, also raising a banner of the PP-Vox municipal pact.
The socialist mayor of Mislata, Carlos Martínez-Bielsa, also sneaks into the exhibition with the help of the commission Doctor Marañón-Mestre Palau and the once multi-represented Mónica Oltra resists in the exhibition like Mexican Katrina in the ninot of the falla Bisbe Jaume Pérez -Lluís Oliag.
Television also finds its nod, with a Pablo Motos whom Joaquim Costa-Comte d’Altea presents as a “textbook brother-in-law.” Even Luis Rubiales, former president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation, is a ninot for the Tres Forques-Conca-Pérez Galdós commission.
Themes such as the citrus crisis, inflation or the tyranny that bills represent for the self-employed are not lacking in the exhibition, nor are allusions to the crisis of the Fallas artist, almost structural for years, or the drift of the Fallas to a mixture of uncontrolled bottles and tourists. Everyone is looking for the popular vote to save themselves from the fire on the night of March 19 in Valencia, while along the way they show a year of news that passes, fleeting, in the eyes of everyone. Do not miss it.
