Three artists from Norway, Spain and Cuba aesthetically dialogue using iron as an element in a joint exhibition that opens its doors this Saturday in Havana, and that transcends art to become a project of knowledge and cooperation.
The exhibition entitled “Iron” is sponsored by the independent art studios Estudio 50 and Figueroa-Vives, and brings together the creators Signe Solberg (Norway), Francisco Olivares Díaz (FOD, Spain) and José Emilio Fuentes Fonseca until July 1 (JEFF, Cuba).
“My experience has been very intense,” says the Norwegian artist in a break from the assembly work of the last two weeks, in which she has cut and cast under the astonished gaze of the Cuban blacksmiths, because she manages alone with her blocks of iron.
His work, installed in the large empty space of the old factory that the Estudio 50 gallery occupies, resembles Nordic landscapes. “The blacksmiths have quickly and well understood how I work and that is why it has been an effective and fantastic process,” says the artist, who is exhibiting for the first time in Cuba.
“The environment (of the exhibition) is different from what I am used to but I have had an incredible and fantastic team, even though my Spanish (language) is not so good”, she declares.
facilities for dialogue
A few meters from Solberg works his Spanish colleague FOD, who also assembles his house-shaped facilities with iron “so that the public can interact with them”.
“What we have tried to do is a dialogue to integrate the three artists that we exhibit in this huge and overwhelming space from the iron, which is the starting point,” he explains.
It is the second time that FOD exhibits in Havana because he was one of the ten Spanish and eight Cuban creators who made up the exhibition “Artists in Production”, organized in November of last year also by both independent art studios.
“It has been wonderful to come to Cuba to work and set up this exhibition through installations that may seem strange, but are very interesting,” said the artist.
The last of the three works belongs to the Cuban JEFF, whose proposal is a giant Christmas tree “from which dozens of small openwork iron figures hang (planes, animals, houses, cars, children),” according to the exhibition catalog. .
The Cuban’s work is called “Arc de Triomphe” and alludes to “the dream finally achieved of having built the Christmas tree that he and generations of Cubans never had”, in a reference to the prohibition in force for decades that did not allow this Christian celebration .
Exhibitions such as “Iron” are part of the concept of converting old factories into spaces to exhibit contemporary art; a line that several Cuban artists and studios have followed and where on this occasion, beyond the artistic process, the essential thing has been joint work.
The project goes beyond the combination of perspectives and styles, because the two European artists have taken advantage of their visit to bring iron-working tools to Cuba.
The objective is to donate them to local creators who cannot access them due to the shortage that afflicts the island and the difficulties in importing this type of component.
Among the objects that arrived on the island in the suitcases of Solberg and Olivares – and miraculously passed customs without arousing suspicion – there are electric saws, discs for cutting metal and even a welding plant, as well as gloves and protective glasses, among other things. . Art that creates more art.
