Carlos Garaicoa: primera exposición personal en Irlanda

Carlos Garaicoa: primera exposición personal en Irlanda, originalmente cargada por PROYECTO DESLIZ.

El Estudio Carlos Garaicoa tiene el placer de invitarte a la
inauguración de su primera exposición personal en Irlanda. La muestra
lleva por título Overlapping , y abrirá sus puertas el miércoles 9 de
Junio a las 18:00 horas, en el Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) en
Dublin.

Ese mismo día, a las 17:00 horas, el artista ofrecerá una charla
donde hablará sobre el urbanismo y el tejido social y arquitectónico
de la ciudad. Asimismo se presentará el catálogo Overlapping editado
por el IMMA y distribuido por Charta. El libro recogerá obras de
Carlos Garaicoa desde el 2005 hasta el presente e incluye ensayos de
Séan Kissane (curador de la muestra), Okwui Ewenzor y Sofía Hernández.

Esperamos contar con tu presencia si estás cerca, y si no, te sirva
este email como información y saludo,

Un abrazo,

Carlos G

Carlos Garaicoa Studio has the pleasure to invite you to the opening
of Overlapping, his first solo show in Ireland, that will take place
at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA), next Wednesday, June 9, at
18:00 hours.

The same day, at 17:00, the artist will give a talk to discuss his
interest in urban planning and the city’s architectural social
fabric. The exhibition catalogue, Overlapping, will be also launched
that day. The book was edited by IMMA and will be distributed by
Charta. It will include Garaicoa’s works from 2005 to the present and
also essays by Séan Kissane (curator of the exhibition), Okwui
Ewenzor and Sofía Hernández.

We hope to count with you if you are in town, otherwise we hope this
email can both inform and greet you,

Hugs,

Carlos G

FOTO: Carlos Garaicoa, No way out, 2002, installation of wood table,
wire, rice paper, light, 140 x 330 x 330 cm, Courtesy Galleria
Continua, San Gimignano / Beijing / Le Moulin, Photo by Ela Bialkowska

CARLOS GARAICOA AT THE IRISH MUSEUM OF MODERN ART

An exhibition by one of Cuba’s leading contemporary artists Carlos
Garaicoa, whose work explores the social fabric of our cities through
the examination of its architecture, opens to the public at the Irish
Museum of Modern Art on Thursday 10 June 2010. Carlos Garaicoa brings together new and recent works comprising sculpture, installation,
drawing, video and photography, which explore the themes of
architecture and urbanism, politics and history, and narrative and
human culture. Since the early 1990s Garaicoa has developed his multi-
faceted practice as a means to critique modernist utopian
architecture and the collapse of 20th-century ideologies using the
city as his point of departure. Adopting the city of Havana as his
laboratory, his works are charged with provocative commentaries on
issues such as architecture's ability to alter the course of history,
the failure of modernism as a catalyst for social change and the
frustration and decay of 20th-century utopias.

Garaicoa spends time exploring cities to discover their true meaning,
he often illustrates his vision in large installations using various
materials such as crystal, wax candles and rice-paper lamps. In No
Way Out, 2002, a city at night is constructed through various scales
of illuminated rice-paper lamps, while the materials in this work
reference Japan, the uniformity of the city landscape alludes to a
universal situation common to all cities worldwide. In The Crown
Jewels, 2009, miniature replicas of real-life torture centres,
prisons and intelligence networks are cast in silver and in Bend City
(Red), 2007, a city is constructed entirely from cut cardboard.

Havana, the extraordinary city where he grew up, is a particular
source of inspiration for Garaicoa’s work and it is from this city’s
complicated development that his preoccupation with the detritus of
the cityscape developed. After the Cuban revolution in 1959, many
architectural projects and buildings were left unfinished or
abandoned, in Havana and in other Cuban cities. This juxtaposition of
architectural projects halted and abandoned, and the buildings of the
colonial period, create a narrative of a complex political history
that scars the landscape. Garaicoa refers to these as ‘ruins of the
future, where ruins are proclaimed before they even get to exist’.
Garaicoa addresses these collapsed buildings in his black-and-white
photographs by pairing them with a second image that reconstructs the
missing parts with coloured threads and pins. By illustrating the
absence of these once-great structures, Garaicoa emphasises the
reality of these failed utopias. His interest in urban ruins has
expanded from the cities of Cuba to cities around the world from LA
to Paris to Moscow.

Garaicoa directly references iconic texts and writers through the
titles of his pieces as well as within the sculptural works
themselves, particularly the concept of the city as a symbolic space
as it appears in the work of the writers Jorge Luis Borges and Italo
Calvino. In On how my brazilian library feeds itself with fragments
of a concrete reality, 2008, publications on Brazilian architecture,
landscape and culture are stacked in rows interspersed with cement
blocks. The front of the sculpture reveals the books spines while the
back shows a number of bullets inserted into the cement. In her essay
for the catalogue Sofia Hernandez Chong Cuy describes this work “As
if it has been attacked, the sculpture sets in motion ideas of urban
development and the weight and the wounds of progress”. The use of
books is repeated in the works My personal Library Grows-up Together
with My Political Principles, 2008, where architectural publications
are assembled to form the framework of a city landscape and Monsieur
Haussmann, la perfection n’existe pas, 2009, where a stack of copies
of the book Paris-Haussmann are placed on a plinth with the exposed
paper at the base of the books inscribed with the plan of Place de
l’Etoile in Paris. Baron Haussmann was famous for his creation of
modern Paris, with its boulevards and grand vistas designed for the
bourgeoisie of Paris representing his ideal utopian city, but not
necessarily the reality.

Born in Havana, Cuba, in 1967, Carlos Garaicoa trained initially as a
thermodynamics engineer before his mandatory military service. While
in the army he worked as a draughtsman, learning the skills the he
would use later in his practice as an artist. He attended the Havana
Instituto Superior de Arte in Cuba from 1989 to 1994. Garaicoa has
exhibited extensively around the world, recent exhibitions include
the Venice Biennale, 2009; Havana Biennale, 2009; La Caixa Cultural,
Rio de Janeiro, 2008; Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia,
2007; the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, 2006, and Documenta II,
Kassel, 2002. He lives and works in Havana and Madrid.

The exhibition is curated by Seán Kissane, Acting Senior Curator:
Head of Exhibitions, IMMA.

The exhibition is accompanied by a fully-illustrated catalogue
documenting Garaicoa’s work since 2006. It includes essays by Seán
Kissane; Okwui Enwezor, curator, writer and critic; and Sofía
Hernández Chong Cuy, Director of the Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo
in Mexico City.

Artist’s Talk: Carlos Garaicoa
Wednesday 9 June 2010, 5.00pm, Lecture Room, IMMA
Garaicoa discusses his interests in urban planning and a city’s
architectural social fabric. This event is followed by the exhibition
preview and wine reception. Booking is essential and can be made
online at HYPERLINK "http://www.imma.ie/" www.imma.ie

Access
Visitors are asked to note that, on the OPW’s advice, the Museum is
unable to facilitate access by lift-dependent visitors, including
wheelchair users, to the First Floor Galleries in the main building
until further notice. The Museum greatly regrets this inconvenience.
The Ground Floor Galleries, the New Galleries and IMMA’s café and
bookshop remain accessible to all visitors.

Carlos Garaicoa continues until 5 September 2010. Admission is free.

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Saturday: 10.00am - 5.30pm
except Wednesday: 10.30am - 5.30pm
Sundays and Bank Holidays: 12noon - 5.30pm
Mondays: Closed
For further information and images please contact Monica Cullinane or
Patrice Molloy at
"

Estudio Carlos Garaicoa-La Habana
Calle 21 No. 802 apt. 2 entre 2 y 4. Vedado. Havana. Cuba. CP 10400

E-mail: imagenestrabajo@yahoo.es

Estudio Carlos Garaicoa-Madrid
Calle Puebla 4, bajo izq, Madrid. Spain 28004

E-mail: imagenestrabajo@yahoo.es