Carlos Garaicoa.
All Utopias Go Through the Belly

Architecture has been the driving force behind Carlos Garaicoa’s poetics for the past thirty years, with ruins serving as an aggravating factor and leitmotif. This exhibition, however, brings together works that, if not exclusively, at least consistently, explore a concern for our place in the natural order. Lockdown during the pandemic afforded the artist an opportunity for introspection, leading to a renewed focus on drawing and works that incorporated more pronounced and frequent references to elements of nature. Attention has shifted from conventional architectural elements to vegetation, as depicted in the image of a tree that gradually crushes an already damaged building with its roots as it grows.

Behind every contemporary city lies a past—and a present—of violence, abuse and usurpation that extends beyond human actions, affecting displaced animals and uprooted plants and extending to polluted air and overexploited resources. In recent decades, we have become increasingly aware, though still insufficiently, of the catastrophic impact that our rampant consumption, that is, our lifestyle, has on Earth. We urgently need to find a model of harmonious coexistence between humanity and the natural world, given that over the past two centuries we have progressively excluded ourselves from forming part of this unifying concept par excellence. We are nature, no matter how we act. However, we must strike a balance between those dissident human beings and the rest of us, between the world of proto-futuristic architecture to which we are in thrall and the jungle. From a microscopic virus to the top of the food chain, natural resistance is an extremely efficient defence mechanism. Only in this way can one survive the onslaught of antibiotics or totalitarianism. Cuban-Spanish artist Carlos Garaicoa understands and captures these signals with unparalleled insight. Adaptation and physical and intellectual exhortations, in equal measure, are the only possible way forward.

Carlos Garaicoa (Havana, Cuba, 1967) initially studied thermodynamics before shifting his focus to painting at the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana (1989–1994). He currently lives and works between Havana and Madrid, where he and his wife set up the artist-in-residence project Artista x Artista.

Garaicoa strikes up a dialogue between art and urban space to explore the social structure of our cities through their architecture. He employs a multidisciplinary approach to address cultural and political issues by studying architecture, urbanism and history.

His most recent solo exhibitions are All Utopias Go through the Belly (CAAM Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno, Gran Canaria, and Es Baluard Museu d’Art Contemporani de Palma, Spain, 2024), Listen to the Birds Flying (Rocca Maggiore, Assisi, Italy, 2024), Oratory (Oratorio San Filippo Neri, Bologna, Italy, 2022), We Dream on a Scratched Glass Surface (installation, Wellbeing Summit Week, Bilbao, Spain, 2022) and Score (PEM Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, United States, 2021). He has also presented solo shows at SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, United States (2020); Lunds Konsthall and Skissernas Museum, Lund, Sweden (2019); Parasol Unit Foundation for Contemporary Art, London, United Kingdom (2018); Fondazione Merz, Turin, Italy (2017); MAAT, Lisbon, Portugal (2017); Azkuna Zentroa, Bilbao, Spain (2017); Museum Villa Stuck, Munich, Germany (2016); Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo, Norway (2015); CA2M Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, Móstoles, Spain (2014), and Fundación Botín, Santander, Spain (2014).

He recently received the PEM 2021 Award from the Peabody Essex Museum. In 2005 he received the XXXIX International Prize for Contemporary Art from the Prince Pierre Foundation in Monaco and the Katherine S. Marmor Award in Los Angeles.