La Habana, persone in attesa
2015
We can transform the world, starting from Cuba. It is a fertile ground for experimentation, innovation, and change….. A cultural, artistic and scientific platform has been consolidated in Cuba, upon which we can generate and help to grow a kind of politics that will lead to renewal of the whole society.
—Michelangelo Pistoletto
Inspired by Pistoletto’s visit to Cuba, La Habana, persone in attesa (Havana, People Waiting, 2015) is one of a group of Quadri specchianti (Mirror Paintings) that represents the daily lives of Cuban citizens. Organized as an expansive frieze across four mirrored panels, La Habana, persone in attesa depicts a group of Cubans seated at a bus station in Havana. There is an implicit equality to these individuals, united as they all wait for the bus, while diverse in age, dress, and background. Also reflecting the forms of its viewers, the work tests perceptions and preconceptions of identity, liberty, and civic life.
Behind the seated figures in La Habana, persone in attesa is a grid of black lines that delimits the space, its geometric structure and status as a barrier contrasting with the variety and vitality of its subjects. Significantly, the grid in the present work parallels the steel bars of the artist’s The Free Space (conceived 1976 / fabricated 2020) installation—a cage-like structure that is empty and inaccessible to the viewer—visually and conceptually linking the two and raising themes of freedom and its absence. In conversation with curator Hans Ulrich Obrist, the artist explained: “It is interesting that the station is a point of exit, of passage, of arrival and of departure. For Cuba, the very idea of leaving the country is faced with challenges. You see that the cage is within the picture itself. It wasn’t made to be a cage, but it is. It became one because we don’t see each other in the cage. The viewer sees the Cubans before them, but sees beyond to the inside of a cage. Cuba is a well-known place with double meaning: a place that is a cage because it is caged in—there is the embargo.”
MICHELANGELO PISTOLETTO
La Habana, persone in attesa
2015
Four panels, each: 98 7/16 x 49 3/16 inches (250 x 125 cm)
Overall: 98 7/16 x 196 7/8 inches (250 x 500 cm)