01.21 — 02.22.21
Fifth exhibition in the program “History as Rumor,” dedicated to the action Helado de agua de mar Caribe (2002) by artist Quisqueya Henríquez (Havana, 1966). In it, Henríquez blurs the possible distinctions between the artistic object and the ephemeral action. It consists, essentially, of ice cream made with Caribbean sea water as its main ingredient, which was shared with participants who wished to try it.
The production process involved the artist collecting the main raw materials—seawater and seaweed—and making the ice cream under the guidance of chemical engineers and specialized manufacturers. The process culminated with the public presentation and an invitation to participants to consume the ice cream. As a result, Caribbean seawater was ingested in an unexpected format in terms of form, texture, and context. During the process of testing and adjusting the ingredients, Quisqueya Henríquez also took photographs that later became a work of art in themselves. The work won the 19th Eduardo León Jimenes Art Competition Award.
Data Sheet
Curator: Sara Hermann.
Testimonies: Silvia Cubina, Peter Doroshenko, Amy Rosenblum Martín, Maggie Miqueo, René Morales.
Institutional Colaborators: Centro Cultural Eduardo León Jimenes, Santo Domingo.
Opening conversation
Thursday, January 21, 6:00 p.m.
Quisqueya Henríquez in conversation with Sara Hermann
Presents: Gabriela Rangel
History as Rumor
Multiple movement performances
On the occasion of the celebration of its nineteenth anniversary, Malba presents La historia como rumor (History as Rumor), an annual program of online exhibitions created by Gabriela Rangel, Malba’s artistic director, with the aim of documenting and contextualizing a set of performances that took place at different times and in various places in the Americas and the Caribbean, in a historical transition period marked by the end of the Cold War and the advent of the internet.
A collaboration between guest curators and various international museums and institutions is the starting point to present a research project every month that will allow us to revisit a series of actions and performances that became production milestones of their time, and that will engage in a direct or indirect conversation with problem areas of the present. A video record of testimonies from spectators who witnessed those performances, and of experts from different disciplines giving their opinion on them, will create an archive that will make up the oral history for each of the projects.
The selection of artists and specific actions respond to a very broad framework that began to be debated regionally in 1981, at the First Latin American Colloquium on Non-Objectual Art and Urban Art at the Museum of Modern Art in Medellin, Colombia. The starting point of the selection also understands the historical transmission of performances as a rumor, defined as a multiple movement in a diagram sketched by Ulises Carrión, Mexican poet and visual artist based in Amsterdam. Both frameworks propose the reconfiguration of a set of works in a period of time influenced by the conceptualisms that began globally since the 1960s.
The exhibition of each performance includes a record of the action, along with vast archival material, such as photographs, films, storyboards, press clippings and documents that aid the reconstruction of the piece and its context. It also includes an interview with someone who has witnessed the performance and four video testimonies by leading specialists from different disciplines. The choice of the various voices and materials is intended to recontextualize these performances in the present as contemporary expressions.
The series La historia como rumor will be available until September 21st, 2021 along with Malba’s 20th Anniversary celebration.
Quisqueya Henríquez
Born in Havana and Dominican by origin, Quisqueya Henríquez studied Fine Arts at the Higher Institute of Art in Havana (ISA). Since 1997, she has lived between the Dominican Republic and the United States. She is considered one of the most important artists of her generation in the Dominican Republic and of paramount importance in the Caribbean region. She has received various awards and scholarships such as the South Florida Cultural Consortium, Cintas Fellowship, Eduardo León Jimenes Competition, and the Knight Foundation as artist-in-residence at the McColl Center for Visual Arts in 2011. Her work can be found in numerous public and private collections, including the Bronx Museum of the Arts, NY; Museo del Barrio, NY; Perez Art Museum Of Miami, PAMM; Allen Memorial Museum of Arts, AMAM, Oberlin, Ohio; Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, TX; Cintas Foundation, NY; Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection, NY; and Rosa and Carlos de la Cruz, Miami.
Sara Hermann
She holds a degree in Art History from the University of Havana, Havana, Cuba. Since 2005, she has served as Chief Curator at the Eduardo León Jimenes Cultural Center in Santiago, Dominican Republic. She was director of the Museum of Modern Art of the Dominican Republic from 2000 to 2004. She is a member of the International Art Advisory Council of the Caribbean Arts Initiative and co-founder of Curando Caribe, a program of pedagogy, contemporary art, and curatorial studies established in 2014 by the Centro León and the Spanish Cultural Center. In the curatorial field, she conceptualizes and curates exhibitions of contemporary artists working in the Caribbean, Central America, and Latin America in general. Her research and work interests focus on the margins of the visual arts (social and territorial) as well as the role of education, translation, and mediation in the process of making the visual public.
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