Carlos Garaicoa at the Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno – CAAM

Carlos Garaicoa is showing “Toda utopía pasa por la barriga” (Every utopia goes through the belly) until September 1st of this year, at the Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain. The exhibition, curated by Lillebit Fadraga, brings together works that explore the coexistence of human beings and the environment.
Architecture and ruin have been the leitmotiv of Garaicoa's work. However, the pandemic gave him a moment of introspection, in which the artist returned to drawing and to artworks in which elements of nature were recurrent.
For this show, Garaicoa proposes that the physical roots and origins of large cities are based on the appropriation of a territory and natural resources, taking into account the animals and plants that inhabited that same place. Likewise, elements such as air and water, now polluted, are part of the resources overexploited by human beings. Thus, viruses are understood as forms of natural resistance to defend and survive the catastrophic impact of mankind on nature.
The exhibition questions the preservation of nature and the place of humans within this order. In pieces such as the installations of constructions and products from the earth, it is assumed this concern for the human being and the environment to suggest a point of confluence that allows the harmonious coexistence of human beings with nature.