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Duvier Del Gado, residency January to June  2005

Born in 1976 in Zulueta, Cuba, he lives and works in Havana.

Duvier del Dago's works seem to float completely in space. In front of the sculptures of this artist, the spectator is projected into a virtual and poetic world. Based on the model of a children's game that consists of connecting several points to reconstruct an image, Duvier del Dago's "hologram" installations are hung on a weft of taut threads. The artist elaborates 3D installations from his drawings using a craft technique, without computer support, they truly constitute a spatial setting of his drawings.


Thanks to a plan with dots to be connected, cotton thread, usually white, and hooks fixed on wooden boards, the Cuban artist gives birth to sculptures of knotted threads, sometimes accompanied by video projections.

From the sum of these knots is born a form, an aerial construction of fragile appearance, but whose image rests on a network of links so complex that a single connection would not be enough to define it, nor could the isolated rupture of one of these knots destroy it. The thread as a guiding thread in these projects is more than a material, it is a self-affirmation of identity.

A figure of entanglement, the human body in its nodes and chains is dematerialized, a floating body, becoming a disturbing ectoplasm when the video image becomes entangled between these threads. Through the artisanal nature of his technique, he enters a temporal process: Duvier del Dago traces the outline of the body on the support that will allow him to install his threads, to weave his canvas.

The artist claims the ephemeral quality of his works and insists on the almost immaterial, dreamlike characteristic of his representations of the spirit: "the thread is the material that comes closest to the world of ideas".


Heir to Renaissance drawing, Duvier del Dago finds himself more involved in the creation of a universe than in its representation.
He questions the viewer's gaze and his awareness of the world without neglecting plastic beauty.

At the Atelier Calder, Duvier del Dago has created several installations that correspond to the scale of the Atelier Calder, including an oversized table above which floats an acrobatic motorcyclist and his machine, which seem to hover above the table. Duvier del Dago captures a moment of pure freedom. The subjects chosen by Duvier del Dago are very often related to mechanics and movement. Just like this second installation, representing an artwork transport crate, placed in a trailer attached to a vehicle. This device represents the mobility of works of art, while offering a poetic and mysterious video to the spectator through an eyecup, the moving image of shadows of tree branches, contributing to the mise en abyme of images, of the concept developed here by the artist.

Finally an outdoor installation, retro-futuristic, a real appearance in this context, these mannequins representing archaeologists discovering a site entirely covered by the sea. This installation resembles a theatrical set, with gigantic characters flying in the air, playing with lights, creating an atmosphere that is both magical and disturbing.

Duvier del Dago has participated several times in the Havana Biennial. In 2011, he represented Cuba at the Venice Biennale, he participated in the exhibition Artistas cubanos en NY, Magnan projets, in New York in 2011. He exhibited at the Hôtel de Ville de Paris during the exhibition "Latitudes" in 2009. He was invited in residence at the Pavillon du Palais de Tokyo in 2007.

 

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