La Rioja is the setting for Alice Espanet’s first exhibition, held at Ritxi’s winery. The visit brings together the commercial presentation of her art, her unease at being away from her infant twins, and the abrupt destruction of the works after she overhears a dismissive judgment of them.

The Winery and Its Setting

Ritxi’s winery in La Rioja combines an old stone building with a large glass extension that he added during its renovation after his father’s death. Visitors enter through the newer section; the exhibition is arranged in the winery’s elegant, modern tasting room. For Alice, the surrounding landscape is no welcome distraction: on the cold, unpleasant spring day of the exhibition, the vines look like charred stumps. She seldom visits La Rioja and dislikes its scenery, finding even the fuller colors of autumn quickly overwhelming. Her own preference is for cool colors.

The Exhibition and Its Commercial Plans

Ritxi has organized a public launch for Alice’s paintings in the tasting room, with selected friends and acquaintances invited and a communications employee preparing a small catalogue. The paintings are for sale, priced between 180 and 300 euros according to size. Ritxi also imagines extending Alice’s spider imagery to a wine label, softening its harshness to make it more commercial. The wine he has been planning, made by carbonic maceration, is to bear Alice’s name.

On the day, Alice and Ritxi set out for La Rioja before noon, leaving Mélanie with the twins. The exhibition is her first, and the journey is also the first time she has been so far from the babies. She calls Mélanie every half hour to check that all is well; occupied with changing nappies and feeding fruit, the nanny answers only about half the calls. By the time the couple arrive, winery staff have hung the paintings, selected the wine for guests, and arranged the catering. The catalogue is a simple A4 triptych, folded by hand; eighty copies lie fanned across the central table.

The Rupture at the Exhibition

With the preparations complete, Alice has little to do but wait. Ritxi, despite having promised that the day would be devoted to her and the exhibition, is pulled into an unavoidable phone call and then a brief meeting with the marketing manager. He suggests that Alice take a walk while the rain has stopped. Outside, she circles the old building, wary of stepping off the path and muddying her all-black clothes. A severe headache interrupts the walk; leaning against the wall, she takes a few breaths and lights a cigarette. From an open window, she hears the communications employee call the paintings cheap copies of Louise Bourgeois, predict that they will sell quickly because people want to please Ritxi, and disparage the catalogue work.

About half an hour later, Ritxi returns to find that the paintings are no longer intact. Alice has smashed a bottle reserved for the reception against a table and used its broken neck to slash the canvases; some frames are broken too. Spilled wine stains the floor and walls. She declares the exhibition over, throws down what remains of the bottle, and says she wants to go home to see the children. Ritxi asks her to wait in the car while he explains the scene to his employees. La Rioja thus becomes the setting for a sharp reversal: a carefully prepared, sale-oriented launch ends in the destruction of the work it was meant to present.