In the recent Art Miami Fair in Miami Beach, there was a piece that stood out over the entire exhibition, and brought the same viewers over and over to it. It was Juan-Si’s The Islanders’ Obsession, with an almost hypnotic power that created its own circle of energy.
There was a certain spirituality evoked, one close to that discussed by Robert Rosenblum in his writings on the sublime. Far from‘religious’ in the conventional sense, it simply struck the viewer at his core in a way that, for example, Nam June Paik, for all his dazzling wizardry, does not always achieve.
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Composed of 36 television sets and videos (36 being the number of years since the Cuban revolution), The Islander’s Obsession measured 12 by 37 by 6 feet, and viewers were shown archival, underground, and invented footage on the building of rafts on the Havana waterfront and in Miami. All these scenes were frenetic glances at intense human activity. What gave the piece further resonance was the mixture of classical music, modern music, and innocuous sounds.
Installation art that successfully connects, that forcefully allows meaning to penetrate, is unusual, but in this work, we have a prime example. Juan-Si refuses to preach. Easily overlooked in the midst of the machines are small, greenish marbleite drawers like those of a mausoleum. These commemorate the thousands who remained in the Strait of Florida. At the base of the entire structure is a small wooden reading stand of the type used in mosques. On it is a diminutive, ancient book titled El mundo de los ciegos (The World of the Blind) by the little-known nineteenth-century writer Pedro Veillez. This object was one of the few salvaged by Juan-Si in his exile. Who is the blind man here?
Rosa Náutica, seen at the Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale in November and January, served as an introduction to the Miami piece. Installed in the Museum’s foyer gallery, it measured 10 feet by 10 feet, trapping viewers in a gray mandala of symbolically rotating arms and legs on a propeller. The movement was generated by the viewer’s eye as it acquired speed and dance-like movement at every moment despite its complete immobility.
Juan-Si’s odyssey culminated at the Andrea Meza Gallery in Coral Gables, in an exhibition titled Nature as Hostage. This was a smaller, more intimate show. It contrasted the bewildering world of the exile with that of those who remained behind. Mi gaveta antes (My Drawer Before) is a sad composition containing the eye of "Big Brother," a tobacco grower’s chair, a broken toy house, and Scrabble pieces referring to the wish of exile. Its companion piece, Mi gaveta después (My Drawer Afterwards), also had Scrabble chips spelling out in Spanglish such thoughts as "Welcome to Mayami." With its cheerful Art Deco interior and teacup inscribed with the words "I Love Florida," it is truly a happy object of light and welcome. A small mirror appears to reflect the artist behind his tripod. Exilio, Open 24 Hours, brings back the whole question of departure. It is a white piece of furniture with an open drawer and containing on its surface a glass jar that reveals a folded Cuban flag. Illuminating the jar is a light globe that says "Exit."
Finally, the metaphoric piece titled Life, with its game-like floor plan showing paths to take or to avoid, some of them containing skeletal feet, others outlines of shoes, had an unresolved Dantesque quality.
It would be unfair to talk of Juan-Si’s future plans at any length, but these involve rafts and the idea of return and the ocean. Once again, with the collaboration of his longtime friend, the noted dissident filmmaker Marco Antonio Abad, he will create what can only be another unexpected conceptual group of objects rich in unexpected images.
GIULIO BLANC