EXHIBITION. “The llibret de Falla: a cultural opportunity” at the Frankfurt Book Fair

World Design Capital Valencia 2022 pays tribute to Falla’s llibret at the most important editorial event in the world: the Frankfurt Book Fair. After its good reception at the IVAM (Valencian Institute of Modern Art) during the big days of the Fallas 2022, the exhibition “El llibret de Falla: a cultural opportunity”, curated and designed by Ricardo Ruiz, lands at the Messe Frankfurt as an ephemeral and participatory library.

This is the first international stop of this traveling exhibition and represents a milestone for the projection and recognition of Valencian culture thanks to the promotion of València World Design Capital 2022 and the support of the Department of Culture and Heritage through the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport of the Generalitat Valenciana. The Councillor of Education, Culture and Sport, Raquel Tamarít, who is travelling to the Frankfurt Fair on October 18th and 19th, will visit this exhibition which has the collaboration of Feria València,  Andreu World and LZF Lamps.

With the title “Falla’s llibret: a cultural opportunity”, the Frankfurt Book Fair 2022 will host from October 19th to 23rd an ephemeral library made up of a sample of Falla’s llibrets as intense catalogs of Valencian folk art. But it does not do it with a merely demonstrative or historical intention, if not pursuing the opportunity offered by these copies to the Valencian cultural industry, encouraging it to participate in it today and communicating that it is a powerful local tool for transformation. For this reason, although the exhibition includes historical llibrets that are fundamental to understand their evolution up to the present day, it focuses mainly on those copies with an outstanding edition, especially at an aesthetic level, and especially in recent years, where relevant advances have been made.

The llibrets de Falla are born from the collective work of Valencians and are formed by a sum of opinion articles, poems, historical studies, essays, stories, tales, illustrations… along with personal memories, experiences, festive events in the street or advertisements of neighborhood stores. As a written document, the llibret de Falla collects the oral and experiential testimony of the collective imagination. These publications, which are historically part of the Fallas, are an element that does not succumb to the flames, and yet goes unnoticed by the general public, who pay more attention to other artistic expressions of the Fallas.