Humberto Castro: Tracing Antilles
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| Venue: | FIU Modesto A. Maidique Campus, Frost Art Museum |
Humberto Castro executes an artistic journey across the Antilles in an ever-transforming exhibition that conceptually circumnavigates the islands of the Caribbean. FIU's Frost Art Museum commissioned the Cuban-born contemporary artist to create a new multimedia site-specific installation entitled Tracing Antilles. Curated by Ana Estrada, the exhibition is the result of an artistic investigation of the historical events that have shaped the region's cultures through colonization and emigration.
For this project, Castro traveled to Cuba and Haiti, where he collected material to be incorporated into the installation at the Frost. He stated that "the purpose of this travel was to make real contact with the islands and their populations in an effort to understand long-term effects of colonialism." Comprising the new installation is a captivating blend of large-scale oil paintings and bronze sculptures, found objects, traditional crafts, Pre-Columbian artifacts, photography and video—a revealing documentary of the historical and social complexity of the region in a visual fusion of the past with the present.
Humberto Jesús Castro García (Havana, Cuba, 1957– ) is one of the most active members of the "Generation of the 1980s," which transformed the aesthetic and conceptual art scene of Cuba. He studied at the San Alejandro National School of Fine Arts and at the Higher Institute of Art in Havana. In 1983 he founded the creative team "Hexagon" in which, alongside other artists, he mounted installations aimed at provoking public participation in the work. In 1999, he moved to the United States and currently lives and works in Miami.
