You are a pioneer of Cuban contemporary art; describe your career and its evolution.
My most well known pieces began to emerge in the 1990s. Since that date, I was able to go in depth in my work. It is in 1994 in the Havana’s biennial as well as in the movie Fresa y Chocolate that my first pieces were exhibited.
My work is structured around various artistic projects – I am not one of those artists who have only one path of research, on the contrary, I have several. At present, I am working on a dozen of projects!
Chronologically, what are the most relevant and emblematic projects of your work and of your artistic approach?
My first project was Occidente Tropical which was a research centered on the progressive process of mixing and miscegenation between various cultures that settled in Cuba. It was a way to understand history. I particularly put stress on the kitsch of the Christian culture as well as of the socialist culture, particularly Russian. Other influences like Afro or Hindu were also put to the fore in this project, which was questioning the presence of objects and artifacts that were either eclectic or absurd in the Cuban landscape.
A little while later, I started working on eroticism in politics. I approached the subject through various angles: on the one hand, by looking at the several erotic traditions that are abundant in contemporary art and on the other hand, by studying in what way one could mix eroticism with the political phenomenon and use the political essence as an image.
In my project, Mistica del resguardo y de la gozadera, which could be translated as “mystic of protection and pleasure”, my work is based on religious rituals. The majority of those who practice whatever religion have a protective amulet. For instance, the Afro-Cubans have necklaces to protect their energy and health. I found inspiration for creating protective statuettes in the influence of Asiatic art in the Cuban culture, which was imported through the Asiatic decorative art. Those amulets mix the notion of power, religion and eroticism.
With Sobre como aprendió a caminar la tierra which means, “on how the earth learned to walk”, I developed a reflection on architecture and men, and vice-versa. On the world and the environment surrounding men in the sense of “constructions”. I got interested in this architecture of the thought which surrounds men. Everything that is around us was structured through the experience of men themselves and the philosophy men created to understand themselves. Architecture describes us in a philosophical and human way. Architecture is functional to men. I therefore represented human faces and their relationships to architecture. All in all, the human shape is an architectonic shape.
Almost simultaneously, I started another project: Habanos Libres which was a very punctual work with an excessively thin and punctual reference. In Cuba, we have plenty of things in common with Africa, such as the links and relationships to slavery. More recently, numerous Cubans left to fight in Angola and in Mozambique. The majority of them came back traumatized, with various pathologies and hallucinations linked with the themes of victory, of the hero and of the vanquished, just like it was the case for a lot of war experiences. These people became crazy, and while in Cuba we do not have homeless people, these people were acting as such. I did a lot of research on them. I created my own hallucinations about them and these hallucinations are based on historical facts. Some of my pieces such as Cazador de Mariposa, Africa, Sobre Mi Habana, Por mi Habana paso un tren… are the results of these hallucinations. The series is not over yet, I could keep on exploring that theme.
Another punctual approach was based on the reflection on the possession of satellite antennas. It is illegal in Cuba. Nevertheless, a great number of Cubans do have them, hiding them in such an original way that they eventually look like contemporary art installations. I documented these hiding places with photographs and I created my own stories and installations with these antennas (Pensamiento Secreto, Vuelo Secreto). These photographs were exhibited in Toulouse (France) on occasion of the Rio Loco Festival, but when they were exhibited in Cuba at the Museo del Ron in 2003, the exhibition catalog was censored. This year, I will be finishing the last installation which is linked to this project and it will be called El secreto.
More recently, you studied in depth and in a recurring way, the theme of exile and immigration. To what extent did the iconography that is linked to that theme (the idea of flying, of leaving…) allow you to express your ideas?
Since 2003, I got interested in the plane as a symbol. In a general or in a more polemical way. I chose to make a project entitled No todo lo que vuela se come (everything that flies cannot be eaten). The plane is an object created by men and this object flies, feeds national strategies and intelligences but cannot be eaten. I built several installations linked to this subject, like Híbrido de hipopótamo, Goodbye my love, currently exhibited at the José Marti international airport or First Class, exhibited at the HB exhibition.
For this same subject, I used different processes of creation and several materials. That is why, since 2006, I started to elaborate my project Sub-marino hecho en casa (homemade submarine). This project is a fiction… It is about the story of three artists who would make this artwork in a fictional way. One of them discovers that there are two cities of Havana, glued together, but one of them is a virgin land. They create a travel agency in order for the Cubans to visit that second city. Each must then build his own submarine to get there, helped by the three artists. It is a utilitarian artwork, which provokes a travel towards us. This reflection on migration changes into a reflection towards us and not towards Europe or the USA for example. Instead of migrating towards another place, let us migrate towards ourselves.
The idea is also for this group of artists to become independent and for them to create other projects. Starting from this idea, I even made my first two pieces of video art. I presented these artists on television where they talked about the support of Esterio’s Studio and I was also recorded as the sponsor of this group for an interview.
Your works are multidimensional. You often create sculptures and installations based on your drawings and paintings. And now you add to that video art. How do you conceive the different stages of your creation? What does each medium have which is complementary to the others?
In October, for example, I will close the Occidente Tropical project with an exhibition. There will be works of art which were in the making, and which have been set aside or which have remained at the stage of drawing and for which I will now build installations.
To me, drawing is both a finished work of art and also an ongoing prototype which is at risk of becoming a tridimensional work. Drawing is like writing or making a statement in a literary way. Being tempted to change drawing into a work of art is more complex. It involves changing scale and material. That’s why drawing is a work of art in itself which can become another tridimensional work of art but also a painting or a video. There is no end.
But I have other examples of works of art where I initially started by sculpting before drawing. That is the case of my series with Pinocchio and La historia se muerde la cola (history bites its tail). From sculpting came drawing and now I set myself on creating a comic strip. It is the part of the story that is unreal that interests me.
You are particularly attached to the titles of your pieces. Is your relationship to writing and to literature, an important part of your work? Why have you decide, for example, to write a comic strip based on one of your pieces?
My pieces, which are both figurative and representative, stem from a specific thought, even if sometimes, they are made on the occasion of a series. An idea never repeats itself from one time to another. Artists think in images. Thoughts start there, in the head, and to the thought an idea is attached, it supports the thought in theory. This is why I give so much importance to my titles. Without a title, a piece is empty of meaning; this is horrible for the public.
As each piece of my work is part of a more general thinking, in all my work I have always given a particular attention to the titles of my pieces. There are lapidary titles, where you can find a lot of literature. Here are a few examples: la mente se puede hacer en todas partes (the mind can form itself anywhere) ; los dragones del castillo me comieron las partes más sensibles (the dragons of the castle ate the most sensitive parts of myself). My titles are my thoughts getting concrete; both linked to the structure represented in my drawing but also to a more oral form.
In literature, it seems to me that writers transmit thoughts in images, and I too transform my thoughts into visual art. I cannot sit down and write so I sit down and paint. Literature allows me to establish connections with the way I think. History, philosophy, aesthetical processes, politics etc… are structural themes of my work. I like considering several directions and paths, each project is like a volume of one single work for which I create alchemies. From this idea, I decided to make a volume of presentation of my work, as if the presentation would get enriched by following volume.
For the Pinocchios, I felt they should start moving so I drew them. The idea is to make a book with a CD. We would start from a piece like Goodbye my love or la historia se muerde la cola then we would explain what Pinocchio has to do with all this. This book would be converted into video animations and printed in limited edition. It would be possible to exhibit the whole of this artistic project including the drawing, the video, the CD and the paintings.
In fact, I wrote my first book of ‘lies’ when I was thirteen. I keep writing it in thought and I wish I had a second Esterio to write!
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