ALEXANDRE ARRECHEA
The internationally renowned and thought-provoking speaker Alexandre Arrechea, a Cuban artist whose work involves concepts of power and its network of hierarchies, surveillance, control, prohibitions, and subjection, will give a public lecture entitled CORNERS at OCAD University.
With CORNERS, Arrechea introduces sculpture within the context of the public environment. Dialogue strategies will be explored in the talk, as will issues such as the evolution of site-specific sculpture, the related realm of collaboration, and the future of public artwork. Moderated by Omar Estrada.
Presented by Latin American Canadian Art Projects in partnership with OCAD University's President's Speaker Series.
About Alexandre Arrechea
New York-based artist received a BFA from Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana, Cuba. As a founding member of the Cuban artist collective Los Carpinteros, his work employs visual metaphors for ongoing social themes of inequality, cultural disenfranchisement, and the disputed position of art in a global, media driven society. Since returning to his individual practice, he focuses on large-scale sculptures and installations that interrogate the interconnectedness of urban design with systems of power and surveillance, first drafted in watercolors. His practice includes installation, painting, and the use of what he considers are objects with “elements of truth”; this last category has included found remnants of places, like debris, fragments of walls, and measuring tape. He is best known for monumental projects like NOLIMITS (2013), the ten sculptures on Park Avenue. In 2015, he won Artist of the Year Award by the Howard and Patricia Farber Foundation in Havana during the 12th Bienal de Havana. In 2016, Coachella Music Festival in Palm Springs, CA commissioned Arrechea and made the monumental Katrina Chairs. Arrechea has had individual exhibitions at institutions such as Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Havana; PS1 Contemporary Art Center in New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) in Los Angeles; and the New Museum in New York.
Omar Estrada is a Cuban visual artist who works with interdisciplinary installation, sound, video, interactivity, and narrative text. His work explores the tensions between art, science and technology, questioning the validity of political and cultural knowledge as absolute. Estrada has had solo exhibitions in Cuba, the Caribbean, South America and North America and has shown his work in group exhibitions in Cuba, France, Spain, Korea, Canada and the United States. His most recent exhibitions include: 2015 Havana Biennial, the Caribbean Biennial in the Dominican Republic and Sur Gallery in Toronto. Estrada has taught art at the bachelor and masters degree level for over 20 years and presently lives and works in Havana and Toronto.
LACAP acknowledges the financial support of the Ontario Trillium Foundation, the Ontario Arts Council, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Toronto Arts Council through the City of Toronto and Business for the Arts. LACAP also gratefully acknowledges its corporate sponsors: Underline Studio, See Through Web and Steam Whistle Brewery; its partners: OCAD University, Prefix ICA, Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean and Sur Gallery.
