With respect to Cuba and the art currently being created there and exported all around the world (even to the United States), what gives Cuban art its current indisputable cache? Is it unique, exceptional, one of a kind (perhaps like the island’s music or even its politics?), or is it just another (lesser?) competitor in the multi-billion dollar international art market, its reputation and prices ironically enhanced because of (and thanks to?) our unending, idiosyncratic, and anachronistic embargo?
This first-ever US solo exhibition of new work by the upstart three-man art collective known as Stainless (Alejandro Piñeiro Bello, José Gabriel Capaz, and Roberto Fabelo Hung) is entitled One of A Kind precisely with the aim of playfully and pointedly invoking these kinds of questions and reflections among the public. At the same time, the art in this uniquely immersive exhibition seeks to blur if not erase completely the line that separates the artists from their public, inviting viewers to become co-creators of a joint artistic and conceptual experience or “performance” that subverts the idea of what is unique or precious.
- Ted Henken, August 2014