BUNKERS & ART
COLLABORATION WITH MARIA MARTINEZ CANAS & RAFAEL DOMENECH
BUNKERS & ART
COLLABORATION WITH MARIA MARTINEZ CANAS & RAFAEL DOMENECH
Bunkers and art, a liason between military archeology and artistic
expression with a lively recent history, starting from the use of these
abandoned fortifications as temporary or permanent exposition spaces.
But not only. Recently Cuban photographer María Martínez-Cañas (1960)
realized a series of collages in collaboration with Rafael Domenech, by overlapping
watercolor geometries with paper figures and archival pigment prints of bunkers.
In the collages, Martínez-Cañas deconstructs and reconstructs the
classic and austere prints of these constructions, setting them free from
traditional formal limits and from their grave context, sectioning them on
paper like Gordon Matta-Clark did to the bodies of buildings.
Though lacking the symbolic and political implications of the
American artist, Martínez-Cañas' work extends our perception of bunkers. A
series of obsessive alchemic motifs projects them into mysterious lunar
landscapes, transforming them into cyanotypes of extraterrestrial architectures
from which to grasp new vital meanings. A kind of visual shock, therapeutic in
its way of healing the image of the bunker from the wounds of the past.
MARIA MARTINEZ CANAS
Martinez-Cañas brings a sense of her own history and past, as well
as a fresh and experimental attitude, to all of her work. Her medium can best
be described loosely as "photo-based" in that over the last thirty
years she has used virtually every photographic medium in realizing her ideas.
Although her work can be technically elaborate, the process never gets in the
way of the forcefulness and impact of her imagery. Maria Martinez Cañas was
born in 1960 in Havana, Cuba, and because of the revolution her family moved to
Puerto Rico when she was an infant. She attended college in the United States,
and received a BFA from the Philadelphia College of Art in 1982 and an MFA from
the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1984. Subsequently, she moved to
Miami where she lives and works in the Little Havana section.
Since 2005 Canas has worked on several series which are more
personal in their exploration of her identity than all of her previous
projects. These four projects, grouped together under the title of Tetralogy
were shown in a museum installation in the Freedom Tower, Miami during the
winter of 2009/10. Although Tetralogy is comprised of discrete works, her
methods have evolved and been shaped by several installation projects done in
Miami and New York including installations at Wave Hill, Florida International
University and Lehigh University.
Canas' mature work began with the Totem Series, 1990 - 1992,
inspired by the Afro-Cuban artist Wifredo Lam and consists of spiky and
swirling forms containing images of pre-Colombian sites which are inlaid
mosaic-like into biomorphic shapes. Much of her work is carried out in an
extremely large scale- up to 6 and 7 feet- echoing the mural traditions of
Latin America, and yet they contain minute details and information which she
gathers from her external photographing expeditions and brings back to the
studio to use as the source material for prints. A collage aesthetic is central
to her approach, for example her series Quince Sellos Cubanos/ Fifteen Cuban
Stamps 1991-92 was inspired by gift of Cuban stamps given to her by her sister.
She selected stamps in which the imagery inspired her own interpretation which
again combines her cubist-Latin style with photographic images of Cuban
landscape and architecture. Canas' generally works in a serial way, and the
scale, technical methods and specific themes change, but is always driven by a
spirit of questioning.
RAFAEL DOMENECH
Born in Havana, Cuba, 1989.
Lives and works Miami, Florida
EDUCATION
Current student in New World School of the Arts, Miami, Florida
2009 BA with a specialization in Sculpture. Academia Nacional
de Bellas Artes San Alejandro, Havana, Cuba
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2011 Immobile Fragment of a Second, Artxpace projects, Palm Beach,
Florida
2010 Middle Ground, Armory Art Center, West Palm Beach , Florida
Ultima Imagen de Ciudad, Galeria Casa-Museo Oswaldo Guayasamin,
Havana, Cuba
2009 The Wall, Collateral to 10th Havana Biennial, Academia
Nacional de Bellas Artes San Alejandro (National Fine Arts Academy), Havana,
Cuba
Canalización-GAS, Galeria Cascarilla, Academia Nacional de Bellas
Artes San Alejandro, Havana, Cuba
AWARDS
2012 Third Place, League for innovation, USA
2007 Third Place, Cotemporary Sculpture Contest, Barcelona, Spain
2006 Award for Excellence, Galería Transeuntes, Havana, Cuba
2006 First Place, Third Provincial Festival Martiano, Havana, Cuba
2004 First Place, Alejandro Dumas in Memoriam Contest, Havana, Cuba
WORKSHOPS
2008 Creation of classroom workshop “Cascarilla”, founder and
director. Havana, Cuba
Video-art Workshop, Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes San
Alejandro, Havana, Cuba
2007 Drawing II and Performance, Slade University, London, UK
Art exchange between Japanese artists and Cuban students. Results
exhibited at Contemporary Cuban Art Gallery, Havana, Cuba
Cuba-UK in Art, Exchange between Cardinal Wiseman High School in
London and Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes San Alejandro, Havana, Cuba
2006 Art exchange between Japanese artists and Cuban students.
Results exhibited at Contemporary Cuban Art Gallery, Havana, Cuba
