Cuban Art Hits East Hampton

Born in 1977, in Pinar del Río, Cuba, Yoan Capote is an internationally recognized artist who currently lives in Havana. Trained at the Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA), Capote gained recognition after he and a group of fellow students created a collaborative sculpture that won a UNESCO Prize at the VII Havana Biennial in 2000. He has received Pollock-Krasner Foundation and Guggenheim Foundation grants.

In a review of the artist’s work, cultural critic and author Eleanor Heartney wrote: “Capote’s work is both thought-provoking and humorous. He brings to mind the absurdist impossibilities of Rene Magritte, overlaid with a sense of nostalgia for physical experience in an increasingly digital world.”

Capote has worked in a variety of media including sculpture and installations, drawings, videos, paintings and public space projects. Examples of the artist’s creations include “Nostalgia”—crafted from bricks, cement, and a suitcase he carried from Havana to New York—and “Intrinsico”—made of plaster and dollar bills.  To build the cast bronze “Migrant 2010-2013,” Capote created molds from two uprooted trees. Travelers on one of our 2012 journeys to Cuba had the opportunity to meet him, and they were impressed by his work.

Interested in seeing Capote’s art but can’t travel all the way to Havana? American Friends of the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba (AFLFC) recently announced a new solo exhibition by the artist. The exhibit, which includes four sculptures, is on view in the gardens of LongHouse Reserve in East Hampton, New York through October 12, 2013.

In a press release about the exhibition, AFLFC says, “Capote’s psychologically driven, superbly crafted bronze sculptures call attention to issues of immigration, exile, and emotional conflicts, centering around the symbolic relationships between the individual and its contemporary social environment and experiences.”