that is by creating concepts on the basis of unexpected
combinations. In Fragmented City, small, irregular towers
made of cut-up old photographs suggest the existence of a
mass of human beings, disconnected from each other and
from themselves, in a way that reminds us of the fact that
we can never know the large majority of people who live in
our own cities. That is, the true texture of a modern city is
made of affective and physical connections, but mostly disconnections. At another level, Fragmented City underlines
the notion that modern cities fail to provide the sense of
community that human beings long for. In the case of Cuba
in particular, the promise of community was somewhat tied
to the idea of a more organic and just society that would
be brought by the Communist revolution, a promise that,
according to most critics, was not fulfilled.
Atados 2 consists of small bundles made up of old
postcards and letters precariously tied up with a simple
ribbon. The pieces evoke notions of private feelings and
family memories. They speak of travel but also of exile,
and of the work of memory done at the family level when a
member takes it upon him or herself to organize, preserve,
and cherish the visual residues of the family history. Part
of the mystery and the beauty of these pieces are provided
by their form; these letters and photographs are piled up
and tied up, and we cannot see their individual content. In
their compactness, they represent the peculiarity of private
memories—that is, that they only make sense to those who
know about the content. For outsiders, however, there is no
meaning other than the idea of memories, and an invitation
to reflect on the fragile vessels in which they travel.
In contrast with the private memories of Atados 2,
A la sombra de los maestros ingeniously speaks of a collective
16
artistic conscience made up by centuries of European art.
Our sensibilities have been shaped by those masters and the
way we create or understand art is inevitably conditioned
by those images that populate our aesthetic unconscious.
Tradition both shelters and confines us. Ultimately, the
umbrellas in A la sombra de los maestros, like the rest of Fors’
art, are meta-curatorial in the sense that they reflect on
how much meaning is produced in the process of selecting,
interpreting and “staging” a museum piece.
Reynier Leyva Novo and Silence
Reynier Leyva Novo’s (b. 1983) installations usually
reflect on Cuban history through a variety of media such as
battle inspired perfumes, tea prints made of dried flowers,
and puzzles that reconstruct maps of the battle of Dos Ríos,
where poet José Martí died in 1895.14 Novo’s piece in this
exhibition, the 2013 installation Sólo la tierra perdura (La
Batalla del Mal Tiempo) (Only the Land Endures [The Battle
of Mal Tiempo]) (p. 41), juxtaposes a large photograph and
a text. The photograph shows a landscape: green pastures
topped by a few clouds on a bright blue sky. While the image
gives us very few clues as to how to interpret the image, the
title is more eloquent. Sólo la tierra perdura is about erasure
and the loss of historical memory.
To the side of the photograph is a text in Spanish followed
by the English translation. The words offer a vivid account
of the battle of Mal Tiempo, one of the most significant
battles of the Cuban war of independence at which an army
led by Máximo Gómez and Antonio Maceo used machetes
to kill several hundred Spanish royalist soldiers in less