Monterrey/The divergent and challenging style of the artist Flavio Garciandía (Caibarién, 1954) landed this Thursday in an exhibition that brings together the complete work of the Cuban at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Monterrey (Marco), in the Mexican state of Nuevo León.
Garciandía arrived in Mexico in the early 1990s as part of the exodus of artists from the Island and now his retrospective titled Flavio Garciandía: Unauthorized self-portrait It includes a review of his production over the last 50 years, which reflects his position on different artistic and pictorial practices of the 20th century, as well as his rejection of a single style.
The American curator Tobias Ostrander was responsible for assembling the 90 pieces in the exhibition that demonstrate the impact that the artist had during his time living in Monterrey, as well as his first hyperrealist paintings associated with the Caribbean kitschwith which he exaggerates the elements of Caribbean popular culture.
In a tour of the exhibition, Ostrander explained that Garciandía began his career as a hyperrealist and later diversified through experimentation, until he abandoned any label or artistic genre, in tune with his divergent personality.
In the series ‘Tropicalia I’ and ‘Tropicalia II’ he incorporates sickles, hammers and machetes as symbols linked to the communist regime and for which he suffered censorship attempts on the Island.
“There are many changes in forms, in styles. Sometimes, in a period of five or ten years, there are leaps in styles. Flavio always talks about how it is not a leap, but a formal development, but we will see throughout the exhibition that it seems as if it were the exhibition of 15 people,” said the curator.
Among the pieces included in the exhibition are works critical of the geopolitical situation in Cuba, such as the series Tropicalia I and Tropicalia II, in which he incorporates sickles, hammers and machetes as symbols linked to the communist regime and for which he suffered censorship attempts on the Island.
The exhibition also covers paintings such as Swan Lake, white beans either Malevich and Ryman in Havana and the series Ad Reinhardt in Havanathe latter builds a minimalist dialogue with the American painter Ad Reinhardt
Garciandía worked in Monterrey between 1994 and 2004, from there he planned what later became a backbone of his artistic practice.
For this reason, this first exhibition of his work is a gesture of inquiry and tribute to the history of contemporary painting in the metropolis located in northern Mexico.
The exhibition will be open to the public at MARCO from September 25, 2026 to April 18, 2027.
