MALBA - INAUGURATION OF "CARIBBEAN SEA WATER ICE CREAM" IN THE CONTEXT OF "HISTORY AS RUMOR"
La historia como rumor (History as rumor) is an annual program of online exhibitions conceived by the director Gabriela Rangel with the aim of documenting and contextualizing a set of performances that occurred at different times and places in America and the Caribbean. This occasion, the fifth exhibition of the program, will be dedicated to Helado de agua de mar Caribe (Caribbean Sea Water Ice Cream) (2002), by the artist Quisqueya Henríquez who will have a conversation with Sara Hermann moderated by Gabriela Rangel and broadcast on YouTube.
In Helado de agua de mar Caribe, Henríquez dilutes the possible distinctions between the artistic object and the ephemeral action. It consists, essentially, of an ice cream made with Caribbean sea water as a fundamental ingredient, which was shared with the participants who so desired.
The production process of the piece included the collection of the main raw material - seawater and algae - by the artist, and the production of ice cream under the advice of chemical engineers and specialized manufacturers. In the words of Quisqueya Herníquez: “The first version, and consequently all the others, was achieved with the vision of Claude Douyon and the chemical engineer in charge of Helados Nevada. Claude Duyon was an art gallery owner and an ice cream maker, a magical combination that worked in favor of the ice cream, and therefore the piece, being achieved. His factory made the first tests. We macerated seaweed to accentuate the flavor of the sea, added whey to achieve the consistency we wanted, added the stabilizers, and finally the color tests”.
The process culminates with the public and the invitation to the participants to carry out the action of consuming it. As a consequence, the water from the Caribbean Sea is ingested in an unexpected format of shape, texture and context. During the process of testing and adjusting the ingredients, Quisqueya Henríquez also took photographs that later became a work in themselves. The work won the Prize of the XIX Eduardo León Jimenes Art Contest.
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“Quisqueya Henríquez's body of work is extremely important in the Caribbean arts scene. It is worth highlighting her precursor work in approaching critical and pertinent topics to which art had made little reference up to now in local and regional settings. Quisqueya alludes to insularity from different languages; she critically reflects on the construction of fictions from the spaces of power; she develops a work openly questioning nationalisms; she raises, from archetypal scenarios that she creates, ambiguity, antagonisms and even her questions about the logic of the aesthetic thought of the moment. Her practice is full of proposals that are located on borders and that refer to discontinuity ”, explains Sara Hermann, curator of the project.
READ MORE: MALBA PRESENTS PERFORMANCES OF MULTIPLE MOVEMENT IN “HISTORY AS RUMOR”
Born in Havana and Dominican by origin, Quisqueya Henríquez studied Visual Arts at the Higher Institute of Art of Havana, ISA. Since 1997 she resides between the Dominican Republic and the United States. She is considered one of the most important artists of her generation in the Dominican Republic and of capital importance in the Caribbean region. She has received various awards and scholarships such as South Florida Cultural Consortium, Cintas Fellowship, Eduardo León Jimenes Contest, and the Knight Foundation as an artist-in-residence at the McColl Center for Visual Arts in 2011. Her work is in numerous public and private collections such as the Bronx Museum of the Arts, NY; Museo del Barrio, NY; Perez Art Museum Of Miami, PAMM; Allen Memorial Museum of Arts, AMAM, Oberlin, Ohio; Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, TX; Cintas Foundation, NY; Patricia Phelps Collection of Cisneros, NY; Rosa and Carlos de la Cruz, Miami.
Inaugural talk: Thursday, January 21, 6:00 p.m.
