Alexandre Arrechea, Thessaloniki Biennale, 2009 (Greece)

Arrechea Alexandre The work of Alexandre Arrechea is rooted in the scrutiny of power structures. The visual manifestation of this reflection is constructed as a highly aesthetic display of surreal architectures and the absurd engineering of impossible mechanical devises as if born out of the set of a science fiction B movie. An early interest in architecture was already manifest in the works that he made as a participant in the collective Los Carpinteros /The Carpenters, of which he was part since the trio’s student days in the Cuban Art School, in the 1990s, and has developed through his solo career which began in 2003. The highly elaborate wooden sculptures that became Los Carpinteros’ trademark gave way to a more personal language that allows Arrechea to explore mechanisms of control and the silenced but lethal presence of fear and mistrust in social relations. An example of this is his emblematic sculpture El Jardín de la Desconfianza/The Garden of Mistrust (2005), a life size sculpture of a tree whose branches are equipped with foliage made of CCTV cameras that follow the passerby, recording their movements into a database.  Κeeping with this Foucaultian approach, his drawings refer to the discomfort produced by the demise of utopian social models and their authoritarian formulas by means of distorted scale and the displacement of signs from the realm of dreams to the stage of the modern city. Employing watercolor in large format drawings of buildings, bridges and other architectural typologies, he creates a theatre of the absurd, where the intellectual heritage of socialism and its consequent contradictions are at play. His latest video, Black Sun, premiered in Thessaloniki, marries the instability of the animated image of a wrecking ball in the moment of destruction with the apparent solidity of the setting: a large wall receiving the impact of a virtual ball. Here, the work acquires a new dimension as the image is projected over one of the remaining fragments of the original Byzantine wall that surrounded the city providing protection. As if an occurrence proper of Second Life, the psychological impact provoked by this unstable marriage of support and image revives the anxiety of the inevitable failure of violence, and of the failure of power to survive its own fears. Gabriela Salgado 2009

Arena, 2007

Alexandre Arrechea to Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art (Greece)

Black Sun (Video Projection) will be presented at  The Byzantine wall during the event of Thessaloniki Biennale: 2

THE ROOM OF ALL, 2009 10 HAVANA BIENNIAL

The room of all, 2009 Arrechea: "The Room establishes a direct link between the art work created for the biennial and the ups and down of the dow jones industrial... a house divided into 11 steel panel sections. ( They would be build at 10 feet.) Each panel is mounted on ball bearings and they move on a threaded axis. Each day during the course of the biennial, the installation would change by manually expanding or closing it's spaces to the "rhythm" of the economic fluctuations of the Dow Jones Industrial shown on the internet daily. 

ARCO 2009

New Orleans, Plaza of good fortune.

Alexandre Arrechea
Mississippi Bucket, 2008
for Prospect.1 New Orleans Bienial



Mississippi Bucket was inspired by my affinity to the city of New Orleans through a personal event that happened while I was reading about the 1927 storm that broke the Mississippi River levee. A few years later, in 2005, Katrina devastated New Orleans and the similarities between the two historical events became even clearer. This piece is a large-scale bucket carved in the shape of the Mississippi River made out local driftwood from the river itself. It is a metaphorical reminder that what happened in New Orleans (the levee breaking and Katrina) effected the world and relates to all of us.

In the summer of 2003 in Havana, Cuba my friend the writer and art restorer Rosa Lowinger gave me a book titled "Rising Tide" by John M. Barry. The book examines the 1927 Mississippi River flood and how it changed America and, more specifically, New Orleans which was at the epicenter of this dramatic event. While reading the book, my mother got sick and was diagnosed with breast cancer. I knew difficult days were ahead and decide to be with my mother full time at the hospital. During the quiet hours, while most patients were asleep, I read Rising Tide on and off for days. The book became my shelter from the reality surrounding me. As I read of the menacing river encroaching on New Orleans and the real damage it could cause, my mother’s situation worsened. One night, June 10, 2003, the descriptive sounds provoked by the force of the water breaking the levee until it collapsed mixed with the moaning sounds of my mother. Coincidentally, this was the time that my mother died. There was a moment of silence that I will never forget. Since this experience I have always felt a strong bond to New Orleans and the idea of creating a work for the city was always in the back of my mind. The opportunity became a reality and I never felt luckier than when Dan Cameron called to invite me to participate in Prospect 1.

Mississippi Bucket is Height x 32 x 28 feet. The sculpture was made by local New Orleans carpenters with driftwood salvaged from the Mississippi River after Hurricane Katrina


Madrid, 2008

PROSPECT.1 NEW ORLEANS BIENNIAL (MISSISSIPPI BUCKET)

Paseo, 2008

New York Post, Sept 25, 2008

Mistrust, Sept 2, American University Museum

Suicide landscape, 2008 (Reviews by ABC and El Pais)