Nelson is installed in his nature

He had announced hours earlier that it would be «an unusual thing: a retrospective of installations as I conceive the installations: as if they were a painting, with the same characteristics and durability that they should have. It will be around ten, I did not have time to repair them all, some are pieces that are already known, and others will be known now ». The truth is that the retrospective of facilities inaugurated by the 2009 National Plastic Arts Award, Nelson Domínguez, at its Los Oficios Gallery in the Historic Center of Old Havana as part of the XIII Biennial of Havana, seemed a «new package» show.

There are the works La marcha (2008, wood), La ratonera (2014, wood, metal and ceramics), Umbral (2011, coal and canvas), Descenso en la escalera roja (2018, mixed fabric and wood), Brindis de Salas, el Paganini negro (2017, wood, paper and metal), El mundo: un punto negro (2010, resin and plastic), El tiempo bebido (2015, wood and glass), El trono del carbonero (2012, coal and wood) and Perseverancia (2014, wood).

The amazement becomes daily fact before his ability to work and give birth to projects. More than a year ago, in an exclusive interview for our Arte por Excelencias magazine, Nelson invited our chief editor, Alexis Triana, to inaugurate the country's only rural art gallery in El Jobero, Cumanayagua, with the complicity of Theatre of the Elements, in a concept that overflowed «the traditional idea of ​​the gallery of plastic arts» and included «a ceramic workshop, a house of culture and a place of social gathering to celebrate until birthdays, or to project films and to make concerts». He also talked about the donation of works to set up a hospital center, and gave him some advancements of Flamenco Pocket, a project that has its achievement as part of the exhibition opened in the Los Oficios Gallery, where more than seventy Cuban artists of different generations welcomed the idea of ​​promoting popular collecting and «authorized their work to be reproduced in long editions, through printmaking, and commercialized at affordable prices, so that our art can visually and spiritually enrich Cuban homes».

The critic and curator Virginia Alberdi highlighted in the inaugural words of this exhibition that Nelson Domínguez is an artist «who has known how few to grasp the essence of contemporary art and at the same time create an identifiable work, rich in novel nuances, and in which Cubans and ingenuity are appreciated ». The director of the Villa Manuela Gallery also added: «Product of that constant research effort that has led him again and again to experiment with traditional techniques, but always in that search that allows her to reach new forms, assimilates his environment to make true poetry with the most diverse elements. The installations of Nelson possess a touching lyricism, with an unusual perspective». And he concluded: «We are looking at the work of an artist who has taken up one of the favorite phrases of the poet Oscar Wilde: “The most difficult condition to maintain in life is naturalness”».