CARLOS GARAICOA Cuba
Auckland Art Gallery - NEW Gallery

The Postcapital Project* is an attempt to define the coordinates in which contemporary Capital can be understood and the different displacements it has suffered in the last 15 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Capital, in terms of economy and finance, and Capital like the representative city of a country.

With the end of the Cold War and of the supposed opposition of Capitalism / Communism, contemporary society now finds itself redefining its political and cultural borders. Discussions have shifted away from their respective well differentiated and constantly contrasting social projects towards a united search that, protected by economic and cultural policies, would define a new course - the much discussed 'Global Culture' and 'Global City' - that would substitute or counteract the absence of an opposition system like the one the Real Communist system proposed.

Postcapital then arises like a metaphor of a strained city, a city full of contradiction in its essential quest for money. An invisible city that we long for, that we manipulate and that in some way inhabits us, both physically and metaphorically. A city that lives in our pockets and in our wallets.

An imaginary theme-park-city that guides us through an economic utopia, through the non-frontier of a world soaked up in its power needs, those represented by pieces of paper that encapsulate its political-economical power and redefine a new cartography. Postcapital tries to eliminate and neutralise these powers, by placing each representation at an equal hierarchical level and by proposing a museological representation of this new world.

- Carlos Garaicoa, 2006

* Postcapital is an installation that was part of a homonymous show that took place at Palau de la Virreina in Barcelona, in April 2006.

Background

Carlos Garaicoa was born in Havana, Cuba in 1967, where he still lives and works. His work was the subject of a major solo exhibition, Capablanca's real passion, at The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles in 2005, touring to the Royal Ontario Museum of Art, Toronto in 2006 and The Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia in 2007. A monograph of the same title accompanied the exhibition. Other recent one-person shows include La habitación de mi negatividad, Galería La Casona, 7th Bienal de la Habana, 2003; De la serie Nuevas Arquitecturas, Centro Wifredo Lam, Havana, 2003; Self-flagellation, survival and insubordination, Sala Montcada, Fundació La Caix, Barcelona, 2003 and Aspen Art Museum, Colorado, 2005; La misura de quasi tutte le cose, Palazzo delle Papesse, Siena, 2004; and Postcapital, Palau de la Virreina, Barcelona, 2006. Significant group exhibitions include Documenta 11, Kassel, 2002; 26th Bienal de São Paulo, 2004; New Photography, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2005; Inverting the Map: Latin American Art from the Tate Collection, Tate Liverpool, 2005; 3rd Tirana Biennale, Albania, 2005; 51st Venice Biennale, 2005; Dialectics of Hope: 1st Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, 2005; and Liverpool Biennial, 2006. Garaicoa was Artist in Residence at Coleçao Teixeria da Freitas, Rio de Janeiro in 2006. Winner of the 34th International Contemporary Art Prize, Monte Carlo, 2005, he was also the recipient of the Katherine S. Marmor Award, MOCA, Los Angeles in 2005.