Quisqueya Henríquez at MAM Museum

From Apr 25th through Jul 20th, 2008.


Miami Art Museum presents Quisqueya Henriquez: The World Outside, A Survey Exhibition 1991 – 2007, the first major survey of this Cuban-Dominican artist’s work in the United States. The World Outside provides a selection of 22 sculptures, installations, drawings, photographs, videos and light/sound works spanning the last two decades of the artist’s career. Henríquez has gained international recognition for her concept-driven art, which she uses to bridge the cultural and psychological distances between the Caribbean and the “outside world.”

The multifaceted works on view exhibit how Henríquez employs her sharp sense of humor and acute sensitivity to the struggles and ironies of everyday life to break down the barriers between experimental art and popular culture. She photographs construction sites, historical buildings, monuments and beaches strewn with trash, emphasizing how these sights echo global economy, culture, politics, and climate.

The artist uses a wide variety of genre and media to engage the viewer in reexamining issues related to the environment and its role in the production of cultural clichés. In works such as Helado de Agua de Mar Caribe (Caribbean Seawater Ice Cream) from 2002, she humorously addresses the stereotype of the Caribbean as a “hot-blooded” individual through ice cream manufactured using Caribbean seawater.

Additional examples of Henriquez’ humorous use of objects drawn from the daily life around her include Jugando con la adversidad (Playing with Adversity), 2001-06, a series of sculptures fashioned from balls, among them a basketball converted into a purse and a soccer ball turned into a cap. Her designs for gift-wrapping papers, one of which is folded around the exhibition catalog, combine bright colors and attractive geometry with scenes of garbage washed up on the beaches of the Dominican Republic. These works were first conceived as a participatory project. Henríquez approached storeowners in Santa Domingo and asked, with a measure of success, that they use her designs to wrap customers’ purchases.

Among other works included in Quisqueya Henríquez are El mundo de afuera (The World Outside), a video edited from hundreds of hours of footage shot from a camera set on a tripod on the balcony of the artist’s apartment over a three year period; Bornnaked, an installation/sound work built inside a sofa and Intertextualidad/ Intertextuality a video projection merging horses and automobile bodies that spills over into a vinyl wall installation.

For more information, please call: 305.375.3000

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.