JORGE MAYET

The work Arquitectura para las almas (Architecture for Souls) which Jorge Mayet (Havana, Cuba, 1962) has created for the Aljub space of Es Baluard Museu d’Art Modern i Contemporani de Palma recovers the “bohío” the artist placed on the waters where the Atlantic merges with the Caribbean when he was invited to take part in Miami Basel 2009. The “bohío”, a Cuban peasant house, floated like a mirage precisely off a coast inhabited by thousands and thousands of Cuban refugees in this US city. Mayet’s “bohío” succumbed to the storm and ended up devastated by the inclemencies of the weather, like so many other “bohíos”.

Devoid of political connotations, not aiming in any way to stir up consciences over an embargo that has given rise to so many dangerous sea voyages over the last half a century, Jorge Mayet set memory before the gaze of millions who walk along Miami Beach every day, the memory he also took away with him from Cuba when he chose Mallorca to live in, the memory of what is closest to us, the home all men, all people originate from.

Arquitectura para las almas, installed in Es Baluard’s Aljub, represents the memory of the memory, the remembering of the story of that “bohío” that left Cuba to “sail” towards Miami until the unpredictable sea put an end to the mirage, but not to the memory.
 
Location-Hall: Aljub.
Production: Es Baluard Museu d'Art Modern i Contemporani de Palma.