"Pim Pam Pum… Fire!!!" Carnival Exhibit Opens in Tenerife

The Tenerife Circle of Fine Arts, located at 43 Calle del Castillo in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, celebrated Carnival this Thursday with a new exhibition. Titled "Pim Pam Pum… Fire!!!", it features works by artist Cristóbal Tabares and his collaborators.

This project is part of the activities planned for the Circle's centenary celebration (1925-2025). The exhibition was opened by Tabares, the exhibition's curator Octavio Zaya, and the president of the Circle of Fine Arts, Pepe Valladares, among other notable guests. The initiative is a collaboration with Sanieco and the Cultural Association La Flor de la Gorgolana, from Arafo.

The exhibition runs until February 14 and is open Tuesday to Saturday, from 10 AM to 1 PM and 5 PM to 8 PM. Curator Zaya explains that Cristóbal Tabares and his team "transfer Carnival to the plastic arts as an aesthetic and political principle." They do this "through a collective and polyphonic proposal" where "the artist temporarily suspends the established orders of art, appropriating, transforming, and parodying works and symbols of artistic and cultural authority." Zaya adds that it also "celebrates collective work, popular culture, and the festive manifestations of Tenerife Carnival."

Artist Tabares states that "the starting point is excess." He describes it as "accumulation, the feast of flesh and plastic, the beauty of the toxic and the ephemeral." From this, he explains, "the exhibition proposes an open, unfinished, and plural world, where meaning is not imposed from above, but rather emerges from interaction, conflict, and shared celebration."

In Zaya's words, "Carnival has been one of the most persistent forms of symbolic resistance against political, religious, and cultural powers." He adds, "More than a festive celebration, it is a profound cultural phenomenon that proposes an alternative vision of the world: irreverent, collective, and contrary to the seriousness and dogmatism of official discourse. In Carnival, hierarchies are suspended, roles are reversed, and collective laughter becomes a critical and liberating force."