PARIS.- Galleria Continua is presenting La Sección áurea, a new solo exhibition by Carlos Garaicoa, in its Parisian gallery in the heart of the Marais.
The exhibition revisits the recent production of Carlos Garaicoa’s work, presenting a new series of paintings and sculptural installations that highlight the artist’s enduring interest in architecture, mathematics, geometry, as also revealed by the displayed preparatory drawings. This show marks a return to color as a central strategy in many of his works, allowing Garaicoa to revisit his origins as a painter while reexamining the themes and obsessions that have shaped his career. These influences include the European avant-garde, Russian constructivism, the Bauhaus, abstraction, and Cuban and Latin American concretism, as well as the literary imagination of Jorge Luis Borges.
Witness the transformation of urban space: See how Garaicoa uses diverse materials and techniques to reimagine architectural forms and create thought-provoking works that challenge our perceptions of the city.
At the heart of the exhibition lies the series π=3.1416, a collection of relief paintings created using carpentry, painting, and mixed techniques reminiscent of assemblage. These works explore cities and formal inventions that verge on abstraction and sculptural artifacts. Overflowing with color and geometric concepts, this series represents an additional layer of meaning in Garaicoa’s artistic trajectory, bridging formal concerns rooted in the history of 20th- century art with a forward-looking perspective on contemporary painting and sculpture.
The reliefs of the series, as curator Osbel Suárez described them, could be considered ‘ works in transit ’, establishing a musical overture for the exhibition: ‘ The very nature of the reliefs - halfway between two- dimensionality and the third dimension - blurs the boundaries between the pictorial and the sculptural, placing us in an ambiguous, hard- to-define territory. Just like overtures, they set the tone and atmosphere for the themes that are approaching, for what is to come, indispensable for inspiring anticipation and creating expectations.’
The other main core of the exhibition is the installation Toda utopía pasa por la barriga II (Every Utopia Passes Through the Belly II), a project that Carlos Garaicoa has been developing for over fifteen years. This work reflects on the concept of utopian and idealized cities, influenced by metaphysical and paper architecture imagined by past architects. The installation consists of an extensive collection of glass jars, each containing wooden models of imaginary buildings, various types of stones, and food ingredients. The glass jars act as sealed capsules that prevent interaction with the external world, addressing themes of solitude and marginalization, particularly relevant within large metropolitan areas. The transparency of the jars exposes their contents, with the diverse food items evoking the food and ecological crises intensified by the increasing demands of human society, leading to environmental degradation, medical emergencies, and nutritional challenges. In light of these realities, Toda utopía pasa por la barriga II envisions dystopian cities that reflect these crises, standing as witnesses to the displacements and disruptions of our time.
The pieces invite the viewer to reflect on the garden - not only as a natural phenomenon but also as a human construct - and on the element of the tree, which becomes a poignant metaphor for the fragility of existence, the resilience of nature, and the precariousness of urban life. To this end, the sculptural installation Entre espinas, made of acacia thorns, Acacia, Oak, Linden, and Balsa wood, and metal elements, specifically addresses the danger inherent in the ever-growing dominance of architectural constructions over the natural environment.
Together, these artworks trace paths that highlight the tensions between culture and nature, the organic and the constructed, the rigidity of precise forms, and the freedom of natural growth. Developed through reflections on previous creations and experiences, the exhibition features artworks that find their place within a rich interplay of contrasts and perspectives. Beyond these meditative reflections, the exhibition critically engages with the concept of beauty that has shaped Western thought, while addressing sociopolitical challenges and ethical questions that continue to influence the trajectory of contemporary society.
Carlos Garaicoa, born in Habana (Cuba) in 1967, studied thermodynamics and later painting at the Instituto Superior de Arte, Havana (1989 - 1994). He currently lives and works between Havana and Madrid.
Garaicoa has developed a dialogue between art and urban space through which investigates the social structure of our cities in terms of their architecture. He employs a multi- disciplinary approach to address issues of culture and politics, particularly Cuban, through the study of architecture, urbanism and history. His chief subject has always been the city of Havana. By playing with sculptures, drawings, videos and photographs centred around irony and hopelessness, Garaicoa has found in his installations, for which he often uses a wide variety of materials, a way to criticize modernist Utopian architecture and the collapse of the 20th century ideologies, by going deeper into the concept of the city as a symbolic space.
Among his most important solo shows we can highlight those at the Rocca Maggiore of Assisi (2024), Brownstone Foundation, Paris (2022), PEM Peadoby Essex Museum, Salem (2021), SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah (2020); Lunds Konsthall and Skissernass Museum, Lund (2019); Parasol Unit Foundation, London (2018); Fondazione Merz, Torino (2017); MAAT, Lisbon (2017); Azkuna Zentroa, Bilbao (2017); Museum Villa Stuck, Munich (2016); Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo (2015); CA2M Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, Móstoles, Madrid (2014); Fundación Botín, Santander (2014); NC- Arte and FLORA ars + natura, Bogotá (2014); Kunsthaus Baselland Muttenz, Basel (2012); Kunstverein Braunschweig, Brunswick, Germany (2012); Contemporary Art Museum, Institute for Research in Art, Tampa (2007); H.F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York (2011); Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam (SMBA), Amsterdam (2010); Centre d’Art la Panera, Lérida (2011); Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Caja de Burgos (CAB), Burgos (2011); National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMST), Athens (2011); Inhotim Instituto de Arte Contemporáneo, Brumadinho (2012); Caixa Cultural, Río de Janeiro (2008); Museo ICO (2012) and Matadero (2010), Madrid; IMMA, Dublin (2010); Palau de la Virreina, Barcelona (2006); Museum of Contemporary Art (M.O.C.A), Los Angeles (2005); M.O.M.A, NewYork, US (2005); Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango, Bogotá (2000).
He has participated in prestigious international events such as: the Biennal of Cuenca (2023), the Biennials of Havana (1991, 1994, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2009, 2012, 2015), Shanghai (2010), São Paulo (1998, 2004), Venice (2009, 2005), Johannesburg (1995), Liverpool (2006) and Moscow
(2005), the Triennials of Auckland (2007), San Juan (2004), Yokohama (2001) and Echigo-Tsumari (2012); Documenta 11 (2003) and 14 (2017) and PhotoEspaña 12 (2012). He received PEM Prize 2021 and in 2005 he received the XXXIX International Contemporary Art Prize - Foundation Prince Pierre de Monaco, and the Katherine S. Marmor Award in Los Angeles.
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