DAGOBERTO RODRÍGUEZ: TERRACOTTA SATELLITES AND A GYMNASIUM OF THOUGHT IN LUXEMBOURG

Cuban artist Dagoberto Rodríguez (Caibarién, Cuba, 1969) presents Broadcasting the Unknown, his first solo exhibition in Luxembourg, open until November 29, 2026. It is the first time the municipalities of Junglinster and Betzdorf have joined forces on an art project. Produced by VF Art Projects and curated by Emanuela Mazzonis, the exhibition unfolds across two venues, fifteen minutes apart.

In the former church of Roodt-sur-Syre, known as Al Kierch, Rodríguez installs El gimnasio del pensamiento (The Gymnasium of Thought): a full-scale gym with bars, benches, rings, and a climbing rope, where the weight plates bear the names of great writers and thinkers, from Simone de Beauvoir to Marguerite Yourcenar. In a space once devoted to the sacred, the artist sets today’s cult of the body against the culture of the mind. Watercolors accompany the installation. With a good dose of humor, the work is a reminder of what education and books still mean in an increasingly digital world.

In the annexes of Château de Bourglinster, the eye turns to the sky. A large installation of terracotta satellites, alongside paintings and videos, gives physical form to the invisible signals that connect and observe us. Using humanity’s oldest material for the most technological object of our time, the artist questions the power of communication networks, surveillance, and our vulnerability to technology.

The choice of venues reflects the region’s history. Since the 1930s, the Junglinster transmitter has carried Luxembourg radio across Europe. A few kilometers away, Betzdorf has become one of the world’s leading hubs for satellite communications. By placing his work in this landscape, Rodríguez connects a region’s history with a pressing question: who controls the information and the stories that shape our world?

Rodríguez, who trained at the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana, co-founded the collective Los Carpinteros in 1992. The collective exhibited in museums worldwide and took part in the 2015 Venice Biennale. His work is held in the collections of MoMA, Tate Modern, the Centre Pompidou, the Guggenheim, and the Museo Reina Sofía. Since the group disbanded in 2018, he has pursued his own practice from Madrid, across architecture, design, sculpture, and watercolor, using humor and irony to reflect on power, society, and everyday life. Of his work, he says: “I don’t think art is capable of changing governments or solving political problems. However, it is capable of generating a state of opinion about a government. My mission as an artist is to set up ‘poetic stages,’ and my practice is a form of ‘poetic activism.’”

The artist returns for Luxembourg Art Week, November 20–22, 2026, when large iron sculptures inspired by the toy construction bricks he longed for as a child in Cuba will be shown on the terrace of the Lëtzebuerg City Museum.

Broadcasting the Unknown is on view at Château de Bourglinster and Al Kierch, a former church in Roodt-sur-Syre, Luxembourg, until November 29, 2026.