Carlos Garaicoa @ Galeria Luisa Strina, Sao Paulo - Landscapes of labour

Carlos Garaicoa: Landscapes of labour
Galeria Luisa Strina, São Paulo
April 3 - May 25, 2019

Carlos Garaicoa shows sculptures, drawings and installations specially produced for the solo show at Galeria Luisa Strina, focusing on modernist architecture and the paradoxes between the beauty of the utopian urban landscape and the efforts and manual labor involved in its construction (both historically and daily – in the artist’s own process of creation).

The exhibition is composed of 4 “work tables” in which the artist painted enlarged Oscar Niemeyer blueprints; these works are titled Power, Justice, Dance and Death. Around this set, the artist installs drawings of wires connected by nails and old rulers, directly on the wall. These also allude to the modernist architecture and the ideals of this unfinished civilizational project, especially in Latin America.

New works from the Puzzles series, which began in 2018, complete the exhibition, in which photographs of Cuba’s urban landscape are enlarged on pieces of puzzles in bluish tones. In part of the surface of the jigsaw puzzle photography where the architecture is ruined, Carlos Garaicoa disassembles the puzzle, leaving in what remains of the “original” landscape; under the collapse of the small pieces, a black and white image of the same places is visible, installed as a second layer, in the background, depicting the urban ruin.

CARLOS GARAICO

‘I take a multidisciplinary approach to issues of culture and politics, particularly Cuban, through the study of architecture, urbanism, and history. My main subject and inspiration have always been the architecture of the city of Havana and the Cuban way of life, but there are also parallels with many other cities that I visit, which also inspire me.’

Highlighted recent solo exhibitions: Ser Urbano, Espaço Cultural Porto Seguro, São Paulo (2018); Nada veo, nada digo, nada oigo, UNAICC (Unión Nacional de Arquitectos, Ingenieros de la Construcción de Cuba), Havana, Cuba (2018); Parasol Unit, London, England (2018); El Palacio de las tres historias, Fondazione Merz, Turin, Italy (2017), and CGAC – Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea, Santiago de Compostela, Spain (2018); Yo nunca he sido surrealista hasta el día de hoy, MAAT Museu de Arte, Arquitetura e Tecnologia, Lisbon, Portugal (2017); Orden Inconcluso, Museum Villa Stuck, Munich, Germany (2016); The Politics and Poetics of Space, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Oslo, Norway (2015).

Recent group shows include: Condemned to be Modern, LAMAG Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Los Angeles (2017); Please come back. The World as a Prison?, MAXXI Museo e Nazionale Delle Arti del XXI Secolo, Rome, Italy (2017); Cuba: Tatuare La Storia, Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea (PAC), Milan, Italy (2016); El Tormento y el Éxtasis, Es Baluard, Palma, Spain (2016); Labor Relations, Wrocław Contemporary Museum, Wrocław, Poland (2016); Nuevos territorios: laboratorios de diseño, artesanía y arte en Latinoamérica, Museo Amparo, Puebla, Mexico (2016); CUBA LIBRE, Cuba contemporánea desde la visión de Peter Ludwig, Museum Ludwig, Koblenz, Germany (2016); Transhumance, beyond human horizon, Centre d’Art de Bruxelles (CAB), Brussels, Belgium (2016); 12a Havana Biennial Cuba (2015).

Some of the collections his work is part of are: Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; LACMA Los Angeles County Museum, USA; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Dallas Museum of Art, USA; MUSAC – Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León, Spain; Centre Pompidou, France; Museo Nacional de Arte Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; Tate Colleciton, London; MOCA Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; MOMA Museum of Modern Art, New York; Inhotim Institute of Contemporary Art, Brumadinho, MG, Brazil.

GALERIA LUISA STRINA
Rua Padre João Manuel 755
Cerqueira César 01411-001
São Paulo SP Brazil
www.galerialuisastrina.com.br