Artist’s Statement

Candelario is a multidisciplinary artist based in Havana, Cuba who employs performance, video, drawing and painting in his socially engaged art practice. He is the founder and director of LASA, Laboratorio Artístico San Agustin – located in the outskirts of Havana, which he created “in response to the need for contemporary artistic practices in the public space” and offering an experimental framework for “cultural confrontations” in a peripheral area of Havana. With the aim of raising a consciousness of belonging and questioning what it means to have a sense of place, LASA becomes a platform through which artists and community find mutually engaging activities that bridge art and life. These socio-artistic practices in turn generate new ways of thinking about urbanism and community development vis-à-vis artistic interventions.

In the specific context of contemporary Cuban society in which the arts are part of state-run structures, such as the Ministry of Culture, Candelario has created a unique model through which to engage differently with issues of collectivism, while maintaining the function of LASA as an autonomous entity. This often means negotiating with state actors and community members toward an integrative process in which all actors involved benefit.

In a series of public programs conceived as part of Candelario’s project at Dimensions Variable, curated by Elizabeth Cerejido, the artist will lead discussions about the realities of social practice and art in the specific context of contemporary Cuban socialist society and conversely what socially-engaged art might mean in the socio-cultural and economic context of Miami.

Candelario will spend two months in Miami as part of a residency at Fountainhead. Dimensions Variable will be transformed into the artist’s laboratory. Stay tuned for a series of public programs as part of Candelario’s project.

Artist’s Links

website: http://lasa-cuba.com/          

gallery links:    www.dimensionsvariable.net