ALEJANDRO FIGUEREDO DIAZ-PERERA (born Havana, Cuba, 1991, lives and works in Los Angeles, CA)

Alejandro Figueredo Díaz-Perera is a conceptual artist from Havana, Cuba who works a variety of
media including: video, photography, painting, installation and text. Whereas, the medium is dictated
by the idea or investigation. Through his practice, he seeks to make connections between the per-
sonal and the universal points of view, exploring absence and paradox in many different ways, by the
process of forcing to contradict himself.

Included here are works from 2014 with the newest being Skin and Unfamiliar Setting. Skin is a series
that addresses the built environment, the crafts person and skin. He begins by layering 20-30 coats
of latex paint onto a drywall surface, only to then cut these layers away revealing new and excit-
ing geometries. Unfamiliar Setting (made with his collaborative Díaz Lewis) is made from lint which
was collected from commercial dryers throughout Los Angeles. The lint was then strengthened and
molded over plates, knives and forks.

SELECTED PRESS

2017 KT Hawbaker, “See It Now,” The Chicago Tribune, November 9, 2017

Amiruddin, Zahra, “The anxiety of waiting, divided by silence,” The Hindu, May 29
Stromberg, Matt, “Inventive Responses to Labor and Immigration Issues at Human Resources,” Hyperallergic, March 23
Rob Marks, “Home Land Security,” Frieze Magazine, January-February, 2017
2016 Finkel, Jori “A ‘Home Land Security’ Art Show, at the Foot of the Golden Gate Bridge,” The New York Times, June 23
Quiles, Daniel, “Critics’ Pick: Present Standard,” ARTFORUM, March 1
2015 Zeenat Nagree, “The Artist is Not Present,” F-News School of the Art Institute of Chicago, April 20, 2015
Kate Sierzputowski, “Politics and a Performer Hidden Inside a Gallery’s Walls,” Hyperallergic, February 23, 2015

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2018 Díaz Lewis, Samek Museum of Art, with Cara Megan Lewis as Díaz Lewis, Lewisburg, PA
2017 Love is a Rebellious Bird, Aspect/Ratio Gallery, Chicago, IL
Safe Harbor, Visual Arts Gallery, with Cara Megan Lewis as Díaz Lewis, University of Illinois, Springfield, IL
Mumbai Art Room, Focus Festival Mumbai, with Cara Megan Lewis as Díaz Lewis, Bombay, India
A Dream Deferred, Mumbai Art Room, curated by Zeenat Nagree, Mumbai, India
2015 A Dream Deferred, with Cara Megan Lewis as Díaz Lewis, Aspect/Ratio, Chicago, IL
In The Absence of a Body, Chicago Artist Coalition, Chicago, IL
2012 Dopamine, 11th Havana Biennial, ISA, Havana, Cuba

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2018 Coloquio Internacional de Arte y Sociedad 2nd Edition, University of Guadalajara, Guadalajara, Mexico (forthcoming)
2017 The Cuban Matrix, Torrance Art Museum with Pacific Standard Time and Getty Museum, Torrance, CA
Racecar, Zuckerman Museum of Art, curated by P Seth Thompson, Kennesaw, GA
2016 Home Land Security, with Cara Megan Lewis as Díaz Lewis, For-Site Foundation, San Francisco, CA
Present Standard, curated by Edra Soto and Josue Pellot, Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, IL
2015 Material Monumental Normal, Riverside Arts Center, Riverside, IL
2014 Senselab, Center for the Development of Visual Arts, Havana, Cuba
2013 F5, Center for the Development of Visual Arts, Havana, Cuba
2012 ZOOM, 11th Havana Biennial, Department of Visual Arts, ISA, Havana, Cuba
Project Part Time, 11th Havana Biennial, Elsinor Gallery, ISA, Havana, Cuba
From AVI to MPG, 11th Havana Biennial, ISA, Havana, Cuba

SELECTED RESIDENCIES AND TALKS

2018 Ekard Residency at Bucknell University, artist-in-residence, Lewisburg, PA

2017 Open Engagement, “34,000 Pillows,” panel discussion, Chicago, IL
2016 DCASE Cultural Center of Chicago, artist-in-residence, Chicago, IL
Hyde Park Art Center, “Latino Art Now!, panel discussion, Chicago, IL
ALEJANDRO FIGUEREDO DIAZ-PERERA

Skin 25
2018
latex paint, spackling paste and drywall
25 x 24 inches
The Beginning aka The End, 2014 - Ongoing series, Ashes and acrylic paint on canvas.
The Beginning (aka The End) 22, 2016 The Beginning (aka The End) 23, 2016
Acrylic and ash on canvas Acrylic and ash on canvas
11” x 14” 27.9 x 35.5 cm 11” x 14” 27.9 x 35.5 cm
From the film: Search for Beauty,1934, director Erle C. Kenton From the film: State of the Union,1948, director Frank Capra

The Beginning (aka The End) 24, 2016 The Beginning (aka The End) 25, 2017
Acrylic and ash on canvas Acrylic and ash on canvas
11” x 14” 27.9 x 35.5 cm 11” x 14” 27.9 x 35.5 cm
From the film: St. Louis Blues,1958, director Allen Resner From the film: Alraune,1952, director Arthur Maria Rabenalt
The Beginning (aka The End) 26, 2017 The Beginning (aka The End) 27, 2017
Acrylic and ash on canvas Acrylic and ash on canvas
11” x 14” 27.9 x 35.5 cm 11” x 14” 27.9 x 35.5 cm
From the film: Jammin’ the Blues,1944, director Gjon Mili From the film: Spellbound,1945, director Alfred Hitchcock

The Beginning (aka The End) 29, 2017 The Beginning (aka The End) 30, 2017
Acrylic and ash on canvas Acrylic and ash on canvas
11” x 14” 27.9 x 35.5 cm 11” x 14” 27.9 x 35.5 cm
From the film: Ballad of a Soldier, 1959, director Grigori Chukhrai From the film: El Megano,1955, director Julio Garcia Espinoza and Tomás Gutiérrez
The Desert Grows, 2016, bed and artificial pond with stagnant water
The Silence (...) is Overrated, 2015, wall, microphone, 1925 Westinghouse fan motor,
broomstick and speaker
An inverted microphone is used not to amplify a voice, but to make a persistent knocking on a wall. The
title references a work by Joseph Beuys, "Das Schweigen von Marcel Duchamp wird Uberbewertet (The
silence of Marcel Duchamp is overrated)," which sought to critique the glorification of Duchamp's
attitude of turning his back to making art in the 1920s.

Here the microphone is used as an inverse symbol of power and social agency. The assemblage of a
microphone and a broomstick is being propelled by the modified motor of a 1920's oscillating fan. The
Silence (...) is overrated is designed to facilitate its own demise through an extended period of time. The
motor could stop working, the microphone could break, or the wall could cave in, leaving no surface for
the microphone to strike. It will stop emitting sound, therefore losing its function.
Todo lo Contrario (On The Contrary) 2013, fan, corner
In the Absence of a Body, 2015, white partition walls, 2.5'-wide enclosure, artist's body
For three weeks I will live inside the walls of a space.
I will not talk, I will not read, I will not write, I will not make anything or do anything besides the 5 basic
animal needs of moving, eating, releasing fluids, hygiene and sleeping.
Through the quiet sounds and movements of my body the audience can sense my presence but they will
not see me or know for sure if I'm really there.

a
..__
Dissonance , 2015, TV monitors, kneeling pads.
In this video installation, the audience is conditioned to kneel in order to experience the audio and to
complete the piece. The conditioning is created through three stimuli: the position of the TV screens, two
suggestive kneeling pads and the short length of the cable of the headphones. In any case, you will
either kneel or be forced to respond actively by refusing to participate.
Dissonance incorporates audio from two sources: a phone call Tania Bruguera made to her sister in
January 2015, after Bruguera was arrested in Cuba and banned from performing a piece where she
intended to place a microphone in Havana’s Revolutionary Square; and Assata Shakur’s reading of her
open letter to the Pope in 1998. Shakur, who has been living in Cuba as a political refugee since 1984
after escaping from the USA, was made the first woman on the FBI list of Most Wanted Terrorists,
causing her to “drop out of sight” in Cuba since 2013. Both Bruguera and Shakur have been hailed as
freedom fighters but, by their respective country’s definition, they are political dissidents.
Love is a Rebellious Bird
2017
single channel video,10:20 min. TRT
link to video:
https://vimeo.com/241584935
password: aspectratio
edition of 5 & 2 AP’s