Artistic Practice as a Challenge to the System
A Cuban-American artist confronts artistic practice and power in an exhibition focused on both the island and its neighboring superpower.
"I have learned to swim on dry land. It’s more advantageous than doing it in water". That’s how the micro-story by Cuban writer Virgilio Piñera begins—also the source of the title of this exhibition. With it, Coco Fusco signals the central role that Cuban poetry and literature play in the show. Discover it in the exhibition "He après a nedar en sec" ("I Learned to Swim on Dry Land". image: still from Coco Fusco’s Your eyes will be an empty word, 2021. MACBA Collection. © Coco Fusco, VEGAP, Barcelona), on view at MACBA from May 23 to January 11.
Coco Fusco was born in New York in 1960 as Juliana Emilia Fusco Miyares and has Cuban roots. She is a writer, curator, and interdisciplinary artist who often works in video and performance. Fusco has worked extensively in Cuba—frequently in clandestine contexts.
At MACBA, you’ll see a video that brings together the lives and imaginations of writers and creators considered dissidents, many of whom were repressed by the Cuban regime: from Virgilio Piñera, Maria Elena Cruz Varela, Heberto Padilla, and Néstor Díaz de Villegas, to Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and musician Maykel Osorbo, among others.
Cuba is a central focus for Fusco, but so are the United States—especially its immigration policies—and the relentless rise of the far-right. These themes run through her performances and works documented in publications such as English is Broken Here (1995) and Dangerous Moves: Performance and Politics in Cuba (2015), or in exhibitions like Only Skin Deep: Changing Visions of the American Self (2001–2003).
Fusco is also known for performances like The Couple in the Cage: Two Undiscovered Amerindians Visit the West, created with fellow artist Guillermo Gómez-Peña, in which they portrayed fictional natives from the island of Guatinau in a critique of colonialist gaze and spectacle.
Power, historical critique, and the questioning of cultural and scientific processes are core themes in Coco Fusco’s work—now brought together in the exhibition "He après a nedar en sec". If you want to explore it, head to MACBA, but be sure to check the website for full details first.