Death of a Printed Story
Death of a Printed Story is a comment and personal reaction to the inexorable massive presence of printed propaganda in our everyday existence. In a predominantly visual culture that overproduces printed material, the piece explores the relationship between reality and simulacra, creating a scenario where media begin to reign in contradictory and conflicting rivalry with themselves. Reality has been frozen and stopped in time by this grey matter which covers the room and detains life and movement. Deconstructing the logos that suffocates us in an abstract space is at once both threatening and delicately meditative. Compressed paper rolls and grey pulp made by combining pages from history, religion, fashion, pornography, and art magazines are reassembled to produce a mixture that is completed once the spectator, as part of a complicit relationship, steps into the space. The material has been used as an organic and invasive substance, reducing the space to a grey zone detained in time. The material that once had contributed to build our culture through centuries, defining both, our individual and social psychology has expanded as an incontrollable plague through the space denoting its devastating scatological and destructive implications.
Fabian Peña
Fabian Peña was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1976. He currently lives and works in Miami, Florida, since 2006. Fabian graduated from the Superior Institute of Arts in Havana, in 2003. Peña has worked as part of the duo “Elsoca & Fabian” (1999-2007) and with a group of artists in the “Colectivo Enema” (2000-Present). Recent solo exhibitions include: Subliminal, David Castillo Gallery, Miami, Florida, USA (2011), GRIZZZ, Magnan Projects, New York, USA (2008) and Frozen Moment, Bernice Steinbaum Gallery, Miami, Florida, USA (2008). His work has been presented in group shows including Amerika, David Castillo Gallery, Miami Beach, Florida, USA (2014), Global Caribbean V, Duke University, Little Haiti Cultural Center, Miami, Florida, USA (2013), Cuba Now, 21c Museum in Louisville, Kentucky, USA (2011), Cintas Finalists Exhibition at Freedom Tower, Miami-Dade College in Miami, Florida, USA (2011), Aesthetics & Values 2011, Frost Art Museum, Miami, Florida, USA (2011), New Work Miami 2010, Miami Art Museum, Miami, Florida, USA (2010), Dead or Alive at Museum of Arts & Design, New York, USA (2010), Cuba! Artists Experience Their Country, Hunterdon Museum of Art, Clinton, New Jersey, USA (2008), Killing Time, Exit Art, New York, USA (2007), Waiting List (Time and Transition in Contemporary Cuban Art), Mestna Galerija, Ljubljana, Slovenia (2006), Landings 1, at Conkal Arte Contemporaneo/CAC. Ex-Convent of Conkal, Mérida, México (2004), VIII Havana Biennial at Wifredo Lam Contemporary Art Center, Havana, Cuba (2003).