call the punctum—shows a social wound. Bright color in the
dark image shoots out like an arrow and makes us question
aesthetically and emotionally not just what we think we
see, but also what we think we are.13
Ultimately, what is experimental about Peña’s series is
that it treats color photography as if it were black and
white photography, an effect that is achieved by using a
limited color palette. By including his own body in an essay
on color, he makes the spectator rethink the concept of race
as a mere question of color. Not only is race what you, the
spectator, make of it, but also you, the spectator, inhabit
an imperfect skin, permeable to the feelings of others, that
fails to contain you.
Fors and Time
It was the lack of photographic paper during the early
1990s that made José Manuel Fors (b. 1956) the artist he is
today. Unable to make the large photographs he envisioned,
Fors began using old photographs, most of them taken by
his grandfather, Alberto José Fors, (1885–1965), a scientist
(who is considered to have brought modern forestry to
Cuba) to create large collages. As his style evolved, Fors began combining photographs with objects found around the
house at first and then in clandestine antique stores in Old
Havana. His artistic language is made up of the collection
and accumulation of recovered objects, including the photographic object, natural objects like tree leaves and seashells
(what Fors calls “intervened nature”), and the passing
of time. What matters most to Fors is how these objects
showcase the wear and tear of time.
14
Figure 3. José Manuel Fors (Cuban b. 1956), The Great
Flower, 1999, gelatin-silver print, 72 in., collection of Leonard
and Susan Nimoy.
A conceptual artist, Fors sees the photographic image
not as an end in itself, but as the elementary material
support for an exploration of time and form. His work,
which alternates between a view of photography as a flat
representation and as a three-dimensional object, involves
a multiple-step artistic process that often begins with
taking photographs of old photographs, postcards, and
letters bearing the weight of time. Fors usually combines
them with found objects, and creates installations in his
own house that he then photographs in order to produce
the small photographic objects he uses in his final installations. Fors’ tableaux are gigantic and precise grid-like
structures that assume various shapes, like the circular
The Great Flower (1999) (figure 3, p. 14) reminiscent