Los Carpinteros

The Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey –MARCO– presents the first solo exhibition in Mexico of Los Carpinteros. This Cuban collective, whose members are Marco Castillo and Dagoberto Rodríguez, produces watercolors, sculptures, videos, and installations that interrogate the functionality of objects and their possible relationship to various ideologies and political positions. With more than twenty years of activity, Los Carpinteros have captured the attention of audiences with works that are often loaded with humor and always prompt multiple interpretations and questions. Their art illuminates the sociopolitical and cultural context that informed the artists' worldview, and invites viewers to reflect on their own ideological convictions. Los Carpinteros emerged in Cuba in 1992, when Castillo and Rodríguez were students at the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana. Initially the group had a third member, Alexandre Arrechea, who in 2003 decided to continue his career as a solo artist. The show includes large-scale installations like Tomates (2013), a wall against which the artists launch hundreds of tomatoes and later place porcelain tomato figurines; Candela (2013), featuring outlines of flames lighted by red-hued LEDs; and 17 m (2015), a coproduction between MARCO an Ivorypress Madrid where 200 black suits, with a star-shaped perforation at the center, hang from a 17-meter metal bar. The exhibition will remain open to the public through Sunday, January 3rd, 2016.