Cómo Harcerse Millonario
a través del Junk Mail: Galeria Luisa Strina

Galeria Luisa Strina presents from April 15th to May 16th, 2009, a solo exhibition by the Cuban artist Carlos Garaicoa entitled “Cómo harcerse millonario a través del junk mail.” The exhibit consists of drawings, junk mail, paper maquettes, cutting mats, and glass cases reminiscent of buildings. These address the conflicts of contemporary life through the use of urban imagery and architecture.

In the first floor of the gallery, the artist presents a series of personal questionings such as: the idea of mass e-mails which attract us to an illusionary, unattainable wealth, the mistakes, the intimacy of a drawing, and ideas that are either disregarded or accepted. In the same floor are also shown two glass installations, “mis obsesiones públicas” and “mis obsesiones privadas” which respond to the artist’s reoccurring interest in the notion of throwing oneself into a public abyss and the vertigo created in a vertical city.

In the second floor, Garaicoa exhibits pieces made from cutting mats which the artist has been making since the end of 2008. These pieces correspond to a series of automatic processes of drawing, that relate to pieces of cut-out paper (Ciudad Doblada) as they explore the interaction between a drawing and its materiality; searching to find a zone free of spaces and forms. In the same floor, “Frases para politicos de fala inglesa (from the series, Dibujos para no-fumadores) shows small drawings made from unpleasant consumer warning images printed on the back of cigarette packs.

In conjunction with “Como harcerse millonario a traves del Junk Mail” Garaicoa’s work is being shown at the X Biennial of Havana and at the Musel de Bellas Artes de La Habana with the exhibition “La enmienda que hay en mí.” This is his second solo show at Galeria Luisa Strina.