12th Havana Biennial: "Parto a la libertad" project conquers spaces

By: Lisday Martínez

The sculptural intervention of the plastic arts in public spaces, the building of dynamic and creative works of art interacting with the public and carrying of contemporary discourses, they provide other sites and ways of expression in the contemporary creation through attractive representations taking place between the art and the raised work.

It is also important to permeate an artistic-functional purpose into the urban framework, with other meanings and solutions, while it is necessary to propose a plural form of coexistence, and dialogue in this city, reasons that constitute a priority as a cultural perspective at the 12th Havana biennial.

Following this line, Liudmila López brings a new sculptural proposal (an installation) as an exhibition. Liudmila also has joined the project Detrás del muro or behind the wall, which is exhibiting over 50 pieces from the Castillo de la Punta fortress until the Maceo Park, from May 22 June 22, when the arts are flooding closed and open spaces in this capital. The project welcomes outstanding artists such as Roberto Fabelo, Manuel Mendive, the American Duke Riley, and other creators who have brought interesting initiatives.

In the case of Parto a la libertad, it is a piece made of metal by artist Liudmila who invites walkers to join such celebration at the Havana breakwater from and discover its functional nature from the art object and the practical-social object.

The Liudmila´s work brings with it the presumption and the pragmatism of a series of events and consecutive experiences, which put paid to a happy birth. Without straying from her iconography, which we are accustomed to, she uses the women´s shoe once again, but this time, working as a channel of some amusement park as a pretext to retake the fact to pass through the birthchannel. Children and teenagers can slide on it simulating a new birth, but with other meanings. The fact that sculpture is looking at the sea, it seems the fall embodies the fraternal embrace between the one who are sliding on the channel and the well known mother water. In addition, it deals with the presence and the role of the woman in all the spheres of life, the strength and the push to transform their reality, that´s why the use of a kind of some resistant material, but malleable at the same time to work: black steel.

The artist says on the piece:

Parto a la libertad proposes a design of shoe type heel, made with a modern style, which not only articulates its inherent readings associated with glamour, fashion, consumption and comfort, but it allows to associate of the sliding through a useful channel, which promises a happy trajectory at the time of giving life and movement.

Since the link between path and arrival, I try to guide you to the ideological conception that emerged new forms of thoughts and demands of our existence. It is a proposal to homologate with the fact that to truly know this country, you need to be an active being and go through the twits and turns of a society waking up and developing with every smart proposal that its young children offer to it. The piece invites you to enjoy the experiential process, comprising from the effort of climbing to the achievement of the expectations, without losing the ability to recreate the experience of the journey with a different perspective, and always in eternal return to the genesis.

Parto a la libertad, is a piece which creation took me some time, and I did it from different points until I got this project. It has had several versions, as it uses to happen regarding to the birth. It has been cumbersome, complicated, long and sometimes painful. This sculpture is located near the Havana´s breakwater. I felt very happy after my work was opened. , Parto a la libertad is a shoe looking at the sea. This piece is something beautiful to me not only because it is my first work, but also because it has been a very complex creation. It is 4.10 meter long, so I have to join a work team and build this piece with a support and dimensions, in which I had never made incursions before.

Certianly, the Havana´s breakwater has become a great Gallery under the sun and stars, where the artists, works and passers-by are in accord and enrich themselves with each proposal. This way, another space has been opened as well as a new way to the spontaneous communication through the enjoyment of different readings, an option leaving a perishable mark in some cases or permanent in others over the time and in the history of this city, which has beautified since last May 22 and become the capital of the young art in Cuba.

Source: Cubarte