OSLO.- Carlos Garaicoa has participated in all the major international art biennials, and is one of the most acclaimed Cuban artists on the international art scene. The National Museum presents Scandinavia’s first solo exhibition by this artist: “Carlos Garaicoa. The Politics and Poetry of Space”.

The beauty and contradictions of the urban landscape occupy a central position in Carlos Garaicoa’s oeuvre, politically as well as poetically. His work examines how cities and architecture shape our thoughts, memories and dreams. To evoke the many layers of the city, the artist uses a variety of media and techniques, including drawing, photography, sculpture and installation.

Urban narratives
The city’s contrasting landscape, its utopias and dystopias, is a recurring theme in “Carlos Garaicoa. The Politics and Poetry of Space”. The exhibition incorporates a number of different narratives: about the city where people live and reside, about colossal buildings founded on power and political ideologies, and about the ruins of former greatness and buildings left incomplete.

The exhibition presents a wide range of Garaicoa’s recent work, including miniature models in real gold of central banks such as Deutsche Bundesbank and Banco de España in Saving the Safe(2014), as well as earlier works from the beginning of the 2000s, among others a fictional university in Campus or the Babel of Knowledge(2002–2004).

Havana–Oslo
Several of the exhibited works originated in Cuba and refer to issues related to the Castro regime and Cuban society, such as Fin del Silencio(2010), a series oftapestries with poetic and politically motivated slogans inspired by terrazzo intarsias in the streets of Havana.

Yet these are universal issues with relevance in a global context. Although the artworks in this exhibition do not specifically focus on Oslo, the questions Garaicoa raises about the city as a hub of power and control over the sphere of action of its residents are relevant. Oslo is currently undergoing a phase of massive construction and redefinition.What types of public spaces are being created? Whom are they being built for, and who owns them?

Carlos Garaicoa (b. 1967 Havana, Cuba) is one of the most acclaimed Cuban artists on the international art scene today. He studied art at the Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA) in Havana. Today he makes his home in both Madrid and Havana, and, unlike many of his Cuban colleagues, has had the opportunity to travel and work throughout the world. In the past few decades, his art has been shown at Documenta (2002) and at all the major international biennials such as Venice (2005, 2009), Havana (2012) and São Paulo (2009). Solo exhibitions of his work have been held at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, and the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin. His works can also be found in private collections and museums throughout the world, including the Tate Modern in London, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

The exhibition has been arranged in collaboration with Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, Madrid, Fundación Botin, Santander, and Villa Stuck, Munich.

Curators for the exhibition are Sabrina van der Ley, The National Museum, and Agustin Pérez Rubio, Director of the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA). The exhibition will be shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art from 17 April to 23 August 2015.