Abel Barroso

Barroso is part of a generation of artists who aesthetically renovated Cuban printmaking in the early 90's, transforming the traditional woodcut technique into three-dimensional objects. "Engraving is considered a conservative genre but since I started to build I decided to do something different with the technique, use its language, develop it in the way that interested me, finding new variations... I wanted to revolutionize its basis by, for example, making three-dimensional prints."

His works conceptualize the human traffic to the borders of a developed world. The crafted images offer at the same time, a contradiction between tropical technology (humorous reference to the Caribbean fruit) and the coldness and absurdity of global manufacturing.
With this manual technique (the artist uses a specific wood from trees of his home town), he contradicts the actual meaning of the objects created: telephones, computers, cameras - soulless industrial products.

Barroso has exhibited widely in Cuba and abroad. Public collections include amongst others: the MoMA (USA), the Whitney Museum, (USA), the Bacardi Foundation (USA), Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (Cuba), Centro de Arte Contemporáneo Wifredo Lam (Cuba), Minneapolis Art Museum (USA), Banff Centre for the Arts (Canada), Federal Reserve Collection (USA), and at the Cuban Pavilion at the 55th and 57th Venice Biennal.

Abel Barroso, 1971, Pinar del Río, Cuba.

Submitted by Michel Soskine Inc.