The project Detrás del muro (Behind the wall) returns in this 12th edition of the Havana Biennial. For the occasion, the Havana seawall promenade is again chosen as the epicentre of the proposals. The idea of the wall becomes a metaphor for multiple references: the wall as square that separates, protects, holds, divides; the wall that transmutes its physical and corporeal scope to the emotional, spirit plane, to passions contained in every being that lives on one side or the other of the barrier -those living in the eternal behind- .
The works carry with them the marks of overflowing, irreverence, the bet at all costs by alternativity, as there are always those who are dissatisfied by the boundaries and go in search of new horizons, beyond the established border. The seawall is discovered as a space for utopias, meetings, forks or rebounds (the wall sometimes offers resistance); it opens itself not only as artistic square (now demystified), but also as interactive and self-recognition platform for those who harbor the dream of a new imagery and other personal landscapes. In this regard, I’d wish to refer to one of the projects that make up the list of this ambitious exhibition, the work Opuestos by Kadir López ( Cuba ).
Two drawn bows, both face to face, one towards the sea and another one challenging the land (it is hard to get rid of the migration issue), melt and cross their arrows. The drawn line, now inseparable and impossible to interrupt, refers to the reunion, the overthrow of the distances and differences, because distance is not only measured in physical space, but mentally, emotionally, in terms of ideological, political, cultural, sexual, human divergences…
The formal codes used in the work are not supported by tight or difficult-to-understand resources. The bow as a sign already involves itself common references and interpretations which, despite being stale, are of universal understanding. However, its main strength lies in the simplicity of its visuality, the linear games as structure and framework. Its multiple readings, not slight at all, are in the simplicity, economy of resources, the successful synthesis and the way in which a cosmopolitan symbol becomes a sensible fact. Opuestos, name that suggests pre-existence of a dividing element, which prevents harmony, arrangement, the possibility of a pact; is abolished in this work and filed in sudden union, in perfect fusion, perhaps as a result of love (Subiela would say), or the always needed tolerance.
Within the curatorial proposal, I consider this work gets along well with the central idea of the project. For our country, which for years and generations have grown up under the sign of the barrier, the damned circumstance of the water everywhere, the blockade and other confinements, subverting and undermining the idea of the wall, of being “behind”, already means an output.
