El Apartamento
HAVANA
artapartamento.com
@art_apartamento / info@artapartamento.com / Future Fair Voices: Christian Gundin / Artsy
The ways in which History has been processed by art as a result of the Modernity crisis
are several. In this regard, the strategies go from reviewing the past and displacing the
historical dominant voices to giving more attention to sub-alternate groups and minorities.
Taking this interest of art in history as a starting point, our project seeks to present some
recent manners of addressing national and global history. Our presentation brings together
the work of five Cuban artists: ARIEL CABRERA (who selects images taken from pre-established heritage documents to enter rough areas and aspects rarely touched by Cuban History), REYNIER LEYVA NOVO (interested in reinventing the past through photographic manipulation), DIANA FONSECA (an artist who tries to rescue her own personal memory form the collective one), ORESTES HERNÁNDEZ (always located in the dark areas of the contemporary man’s subjectivity) and ARIAMNA CONTINO (who uses a very ritual and meticulous technique for building works which explore Cuban and worldwide ongoing conflicts).
Founded in 2015, El Apartamento is interested in the most incisive and strong proposals within the contemporary Cuban art panorama. Hence, its rejection to the option of circumscribing its work to a specific generation or a way of doing. On the contrary, the project proposes to foster the coexistence between productions distanced by its theoretical assumptions and work methodologies; such position has enabled the ability to bring together a substantial list of creators who belong to the eighties, nineties and emerging artists recently graduated from the Higher Institute of Art (ISA).
As an artistic project generated outside the official circuit, it intends to implement alternative dynamics of work that can be different from those of institutional spaces. This commitment, along with a sustained work with "critical" artists, and the promotion of debate among the different agents of local and foreign art world (artists, curators, gallery owners, public) promotes the gradual articulation of a singular position within the contemporary Cuban art. Despite its youth as a project, it has already organized several exhibitions of interest, including collateral shows to the XII and XIII editions of Havana Biennial and projects for the collaborative programs CONDO New York 2019 and CONDO Mexico City 2019. Some of the most relevant examples are: 16 mm/ Fotografía en movimiento, a collective show of videoart; Sputnik, by Eduardo Ponjuán; Blow Up, Blow Up, by Joan Fontcuberta and Leandro Feal, curated by Iván de la Nuez; and Criaturas de isla, by Juan Carlos Alom. El Apartamento has also been gradually consolidating its artists’ visibility in the international arena by means of its participation in important art fairs: ArtBo, ARCO Madrid, The Armory Show, Zona MACO, PArC, Untitled, LISTE Basel and Expo Chicago.