Carlos González

(Cuba, 1982)

On his artwork

The questioning of the political, the relationship between the individual and society in the construction of social change emerged in Carlos González's work after his time at the Cátedra de Arte Conducta —directed by Tania Bruguera- and the performance group Makinah. These are a set of interrogations that he has continued to investigate in his work, straining the possibility of intervening in social space, questioning its capacity for agency, its potency as a factor of change and the probability of impacting collective geography from its own chimeras.

Carlos González has used a variety of artistic media to carry out his research. Video, actions, painting, the manipulation of materials such as paper, register his occupation in disrupting the fatigues of the environment. Ways of interrupting inoperative temporalities. The preparation of the body, of our mentalities for the revolutionary act, the reappropriation of our existence, social mobilisation, are forms for this total reconstruction of life to which he is committed. Photography that captures and re-invests moments of his everyday life; the alteration of books and magazines through a graffiti-like manoeuvre and a kind of action painting that relocates him within the historical-cultural current contained in the pages; social protest, have been ways of practising the restlessness that runs through his practice.

Trajectory (summary)

Studies

2003-2007- Graduated in Painting from the National Academy of Fine Arts ‘San Alejandro’.

2007-2009 Studied at Tania Bruguera's Department of Art-Conduct.

2008-2013 Graduated from the Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA).

Group exhibitions

2018-The OTHER STUDIO at FAC. Cuban Art Factory, Vedado.

2018-Smell of rain. Centro de Desarrollo de las Artes Visuales (CDAV), Habana Vieja.

2018-Post-Mainstream. El Artista Gallery, Old Havana.

2015-Maretti Prize (III edition). Centre for the Development of the Visual Arts (CDAV). Habana Vieja.

2015-Suspensive Points. Collateral XII Havana Biennial, Museo del Ron Gallery, Old Havana.

Awards

-- Mention in Drawing at the 13th March Salon.

-- Prize in Sculpture at the IV Salon Waldo Luis Rodríguez.

-- Residence Habana Cultura 2013.