You can build your own city at your own risk

Join us 15 November at 6pm for You can build your own city at your own risk, a talk by Carlos Garaicoa, introduced by the School of Architecture's Dean, Dr Adrian Lahoud. We are delighted for this opportunity to hear Carlos speak about his artistic practice and career that began in Cuba in the 90’s influenced by the Cuban revolution. The talk will be followed by an in-conversation with Carlos, Adrian, and Piero Tomassoni (curator, critic, and Artvisor founder). This talk is hosted by the School of Architecture, RCA.

Carlos Garaicoa (b. 1967, Cuba) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Madrid. Central to Garaicoa’s broad-reaching artistic program is an examination of structures. Primarily and most visibly the structures that make up our built environment. But also, on a conceptual level, the web of linguistic, political, social and artistic structures on which society itself is ‘constructed.’

Drawing on postmodernist theory and the issues of culture and politics, with his Cuban heritage as a point of departure, he connects aesthetics to meaning within urban spaces and architecture. Tracing the sites—literal as well as metaphorical and temporal—where these structures overlap or diverge, Garaicoa manages to invoke poetry, as well as critique, and suggest intimacy as well as provocation.

The artist’s vast institutional presence includes the collection of many leading museums globally, including several works in Tate Modern’s permanent collection. He has participated in several biennales, including several Venice Biennale, Documenta 14 and 11, and multiple Sao Paulo and Havana Biennales. He recently received the PEM Prize 2021. Garaicoa currently lives and works between Havana and Madrid.

Selected Exhibitions

Notable solo shows include, amongst others: MOCA Los Angeles; Kunsthaus Baselland, Basel; National Museum of Contemporary Art EMST, Athens; Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo; Parasol Unit Foundation, London; Museum Villa Stuck, Munich; Fondazione Merz, Turin; MAAT, Lisbon; Instituto de Arte Contemporaneo Inhotim, Brumadinho; H.F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca; PEM Peabody Essex Museum, Salem; SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah; Lunds Konsthall and Skissernass Museum, Lund.

Group shows include the Venice Biennale (2005, 2009, 2013); Documenta 11 and 14; Havana Biennale (1991, 1994, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2009, 2012, 2015); Sāo Paulo Biennale (1998, 2004); Liverpool Biennale; Shanghai Biennale; Moscow Biennale; Yokohama Triennial.

Selected Collections

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York; Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles; Tate Modern, London; Los Angeles County Museum (LACMA), Los Angeles; The Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York.