The Art Pledge
Portrait of Diana Fonseca

Diana Fonseca

Born in
1978
From
Havana, Cuba
Lives and works
Havana, Cuba
Represented by
El Apartamento

UN goals

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My work involves the meticulous construction and transformation-almost obsessively- of simple and ordinary things surrounding me.

Biography

Fragments of falling buildings from Havana, books connected through fine threads or a video showing a woman stitching her hand. Diana Fonseca’s body of work is constructed with metaphors evoking her country’s reality. Using sculpture, paintings and video, Fonseca’s work stages scenes from everyday life so as to reveal the struggles Cubans have to face on a daily basis. 


Fonseca’s interest in failing political systems, particularly in socialist regimes, evokes Emilia and Ilya Kabakov’s work which explores the fall of the Soviet Union through architecture and space.


Her criticism towards the Cuban system is not blatant, but rather subtly suffused with her unmistakable poetry. By collecting scraps of buildings, fragmenting books or bus tickets, she transforms ordinary objects into testimonies of a failed political system, conferring them a deeper meaning and even an emotional property. 

The same poetry can be found in Marcel Broodthaers body of work as the two artists play with language and images to touch upon themes like national identity. 

Career highlights

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