Carles Tarrassó


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Aigua en cistella

2026
Wicker basket with black and blond pez (pitch made from tar and rosin derived from Pinus pinaster resin)
250 × 180 × 50 cm
Aigua en cistella (“water in a basket”) begins with a paradox: carrying water in a wicker basket seems impossible. Borrowing its title from a Valencian expression describing a futile task, the work revisits a traditional craft technique that turns impossibility into possibility.

Historically, wicker containers were waterproofed with pez—a pitch obtained by slowly processing the resin of Pinus pinaster—allowing them to store water and wine. Applied to the interior of the basket, this dark, glossy coating transforms a porous structure into a watertight vessel, revealing how vernacular knowledge quietly overcomes material limits.

The work draws its form from the monumental tinajas that have long shaped the landscape of Castilla–La Mancha. Traditionally used to store and ferment wine, these earthenware vessels are unfolded into an open structure whose fragments evoke the vastness of the Manchegan plain.

Rather than celebrating nostalgia, Aigua en cistella explores the meeting point between utility and beauty. Its waterproof interior remains largely concealed, much like the craft knowledge passed down through generations. The basket becomes a metaphor for Castilla–La Mancha itself: a seemingly austere landscape sustained by invisible currents—water, sap, or wine. In doing so, the work proposes tradition not as the opposite of innovation, but as one of its most enduring forms.


Joaquín Ruiz Espinosa



Presented at:
ARCO Madrid 2026, 06.03.2026
Mezquita de Tornerías, Toledo, Spain, 01.07.2026 – 13.09.2026





«Amor d’amo, aigua en cistella»
(A master’s love is like water in a sieve.)

Valencian popular proverb





Credits:
Part of Tránsitos. De la tierra al arte, commissioned by the Government of Castilla–La Mancha for ARCOmadrid 2026.
Curator:  Joaquín Ruiz Espinosa.  
In collaboration with wicker artisan Juan Manuel Marcilla (Cestería Marcilla).









































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