HAVANA.- Ivan Falardi's first solo exhibition in Cuba, "Eyes in Havana," is currently on display at the Fábrica de Arte Cubano (FAC) in Havana. The exhibition, which opened on June 7, 2025, will run until August 31, 2025, and explores the concept of vision and perception.

Curated by Patricia Silverio Guzmán and sponsored by the Italian Embassy in Havana, the exhibition features over 300 works by the Bergamo-based artist. The works invite visitors to consider the nature of vision, drawing inspiration from photographer Robert Frank's idea of "listening with one's eyes," which suggests perceiving underlying meanings and silent resonances in images.

Artistic Trajectory and Themes

Ivan Falardi, who previously worked in television and cinema as a producer and director, has explored the subject of vision through various mediums. This exploration began with a theatrical performance titled La Grammatica dello Sguardo (The Grammar of the Gaze) and continued with the 2023 installation EYES. 206 Punti di Vista (206 Points of View), exhibited in Genoa. The exhibition in Cuba incorporates additional perspectives, drawing from the current socio-historical context of the island, which has prompted Falardi to integrate themes of listening and reflection alongside observation.

Technique: Light Painting

A defining element of Falardi's work is the Light Painting technique, a process first recorded by Man Ray in 1935. This method allows the artist to combine light, form, and color to generate diverse perspectives. Through this technique, the works convey human emotions and address subjects such as solitude, vulnerability, and the interplay between explicit and implicit elements.

Exhibition Structure and Integration

The exhibition is designed as a site-specific installation, divided into thematic areas that examine different aspects of "vision" through light patterns, reflections, repeated marks, and interactions with the surrounding space. Falardi's works are positioned to engage with the industrial architecture of the Fábrica de Arte Cubano, where structural elements are integrated into the exhibition's narrative.

The exhibition includes the series Space and Time. "Space" comprises seven works derived from repeated photographic captures of pavement. "Time" is presented as a diptych featuring red and yellow tones.

Upon entering the first gallery area, visitors encounter an installation of 44 eye forms positioned close to the floor, alongside two wall-mounted elements that allude to the shape of an eye. The second area similarly features eye forms. Those placed on the ground are complemented by a larger, distorted eye creation, reflected in two mirror-polished aluminum composite panels. The use of reflective surfaces to generate multiple perspectives, fostering interaction between light, material, and space, is a recurring feature in Falardi's work.

Adjacent to these installations, a plexiglass cube encloses a terracotta ear and brass wires, created by blind sculptor Luigi Turati. This piece emphasizes the human capacity for perception through multiple sensory channels, re-evaluating the exclusive focus on visual input and encouraging a more intuitive engagement with the environment. This sculpture serves as a conceptual basis for a series of over seventy plexiglass cubes, each containing a resin cast of an ear that is half white and half black. These symbolize the notion that vision is a multifaceted process involving interaction with other senses.

The exhibition concludes with a section featuring works by Cuban artists, selected by the curator, providing varied artistic approaches to the exhibition's central themes.

Following its presentation at the Fábrica de Arte Cubano, the installation is scheduled to be relocated to Plaza Vieja, within Old Havana, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Subsequently, it will be displayed at the Museo de la Ciudad in Plaza de Armas, a historically significant square in the Cuban capital.

Ivan Falardi holds a degree in Philosophy, with a thesis on the filmography of Hungarian director Miklos Jancso, whose assistant he was for a period in the 1970s. He later pursued careers in film and television direction. Throughout these periods, photography was a consistent element in his work and travels. Falardi's transition to photography as his primary medium was driven by a desire to explore the nuances of a single frame, aiming to reveal latent and ambiguous aspects of reality. His adoption of the light painting technique facilitates his exploration of the eidolon (the visual object of interest), utilizing darkness to examine the properties of signs, forms, lights, and colors.