Beschreibung:

Contemporary Cuba: Works from a Private Collection Yoan Capote Follow Como los peces (Like Fish) signed and dated "Capote 00" inside case cover silver place setting with fish hooks, in leather case, in 6 parts 9 x 13 3/4 x 11 in. (22.9 x 34.9 x 27.9 cm.) Executed in 2000, this work is unique.
Provenance Nina Menocal Gallery, Mexico City Acquired from the above by the present owner Catalogue Essay Yoan Capote studied at the famous Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana, where he still lives and works today. He has exhibited extensively in Cuba and abroad, including solo exhibitions at Jack Shainman Gallery and the acclaimed institutional exhibition, Adiós Utopia; Dreams and Deceptions in Cuban Art that travelled from the Museum of fine Arts Houston to the Walker Arts Center in 2017. Capote’s work tackles themes of migration or government, referencing important aspects of Cuban identity since the Revolution. He uses sculpture and other media to create analogies between visual poetry and lifeless objects by merging conflicting and disparate objects to create paradoxical images imbued with political and psychological undertones. This approach results in witty, thought-provoking artworks that investigate power and difference based social constructions. The present work is an iconic example. At first glance the viewer is confronted by fine silver cutlery contained in a velvet-lined, leather case, symbolizing the affluent Cuba prior to Castro’s revolution. However, Capote has embedded these eating devices with sharp fish hooks, thus referencing the title Como los peces , meaning “like fish”. This tiny intervention changes our interpretation entirely, thereby referencing not only the food shortages in Cuba that Capote’s generation experienced after the post-Soviet economic crisis, but also the tantalizing draw of political ideologies—both communism and capitalism—that lure the common man into perilous behaviour. Read More