Wilfredo Prieto: Curtain

How we come to understand what is part of our reality is the question posed by visual artist Wilfredo Prieto in Curtain, an exhibit that represents the Cuban Pavilion at the 60th International Venice Biennale. It´s curated by Nelson Ramirez de Arellano and commissioned by Daneisy García Roque.

The installation highlights, with a poetic gesture, the weight of identity, the significance of identity and the complexities surrounding integration and belonging. It challenges the notion of luck and its implications within the context of evolution and natural selection, represented by the changes, diversity, social, racial, ethnic, political and economic differences. Prieto proposes an analysis of reality that revolves around the interplay of opposites and varying levels of sensitivity: the tangible physical realm and the realm of representation, which serves as a metaphorical reflection of ourselves. It is an introspection of human thought, for despite the many ways in which individuals think, feel and behave, we are part of the same thing. 

Wilfredo Prieto graduated from the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana (ISA). He was a member of the artist collective Galería DUPP (Desde Una Pragmática Pedagógica), where he received the UNESCO Prize for the Promotion of the Arts in 2000. He has participated in artist residencies at Headlands, San Francisco; Gasworks, London; Le Grand Café, Saint-Nazaire; John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, New York and Kadist Art Foundation, Paris. Among his most important exhibitions are: Ping-pong grid at MNBA, Havana; Speaking Badly about Stones, S.M.A.K, Belgium; Leaving something to chance, Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros, Mexico City; Balancing the curve, Pirelli HangarBiccoca, Milan and Tied up to the table leg at CA2M, Madrid. The works are in collections at the Centre Pompidou, Paris; Collection Museum of Old and New, Tasmania; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and MoMA, New York.

Wilfredo Prieto’s artistic practice is characterized by a deliberate juxtaposition of materials, concepts, and forms, his actions being more poetic than sculptural. The idea is always the matrix of his language where the dematerialization of everyday objects becomes radical gestures that incisively criticize contemporary society. He currently lives and works in Havana, Cuba.

April 19–November 24
Teatro Fondamenta Nuove (Cannaregio, 5013)
10am–6pm