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| BIBLIOGRAPHY | view PDF: |  |
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| PRESS QUOTES | view PDF: | |
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| SELECTED TEXTS | view PDF: | |
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TANIA'S TEXTS ABOUT HER WORK:
XXD11. La generazione delle immagini. Racconti d´identitá # 7. Extreme Existence. (catalogue). Boundary 2 -an international journal of literature and culture- A Little bit of History repeated. (catalogue). Cityscape on New Feminism. Cuba: los mapas del deseo.(catalogue). Cityscape Havana. Corpus Delecti -Performance Art of the Americas. Lo que me corresponde. (brochure) Tania Bruguera: descenso del performance. Art in America (the dream). 1990´s Art from Cuba.
BOOKS:
Mythologies personnelles - L'art Contemporain et L'intime -
Espacio C. Con el cuerpo por delante: 47882 minutos de performance Art Cuba - The New Generation - Fresh Cream -Contemporary Art in Culture-. Performance Live Art since 1960. New Art of Cuba.
CATALOGUES:
Esercizio di resistencia. The real Royal Trip. Poetic justice. 8Th Istanbul biennial. Pulse: Art, Healing and Transformation. Documenta 11_Platform 5: Exhibition, Documenta 11_Platform 5: Ausstellung/Exhibition. F.A.I.R. Fusion Cuisine ZOO 09. Short Stories, new narrative forms in contemporary art.
SPAN2. International Performance Art. (brochure). La isla en peso. Cuba. Los mapas del deseo. The Garden of forking paths. Contemporary Artists from
Latin America. La dirección de la mirada. 23 Bienal de Sao Paulo. (Brochure). New Art from Cuba. (Brochure).
REVIEWS & PERIODICALS:
Auerbach, Ruth: Sexta Bienal de La Habana: La rebelión de las contradicciones. Bayliss, Sarah: Best bets. Art News, Summer 2000. Betz, Gertrude: Bruguera. Kunst+Medien. (Ilust). (Profile). Breerette, Genevieve: Tania Bruguera, le corps, la societe et la politique. Camhi, Leslie: Verse into video. The Village Voice, Vol. XLVI, no. 43, October 30, 2001. (Review). Camnitzer, Luis: Memoria de la postguerra, Art Nexus, no. 15, Jan- March,
1995. Carlozo, Lou: Cuban performance artist on a mission of cultural healing. The Chicago Tribune, March 20, 1997. (Review). Castellanos, Lázara: Discurso de mujeres: una reflexión dentro de las artes visules cubanas. Revista Arte Cubano, No. 2/ 1998. (Essay). Cembalest, Robin: Where Rube Goldberg meets Kafka, ARTNews, February,
2001. Chambert, Christian: The 7th Havana Biennial, The Nordic Art Review, 2000. (Review). Christmann, Holger: Kuba-jenseits von Castro, Format, no. 11, 15 März,
1999. Cotter, Holland: Tania Bruguera - la isla en peso-, The New York Times. Nov. 2, 2001. (Review). Cotter, Holland: A New latino Presence, remixed and redistilled. The New York Times. Nov. 28, 2003. (Review). De Cecco, Emanuela: Con Altri Occhi: Tania Bruguera, David Hammons, Alfredo
Jaar. Flash Art, April-May 2003. Dumpfe Schritte, Klackendes Gewehr. 4 Juni, 2002. (Profile). Eligio (Tonel), Antonio: A tree from Many Shores: Cuban Art in Movement.
Fadraga Tudela, Lillebit: Fragmentaciones y otros vicios secretos en
la obra de Tania Bruguera, La Gaceta de Cuba, no.6, Noviembre-Diciembre,
2000. Faulkner, Tamara: Critic's Choice. Chicago Reader, March 5, 2004. (Review). Fischer, Jack: Cuban brings a disturbing 'behavior art', San Jose Mercury, January 24, 2002. (Review). Ghezzi, Rosella: Una generazione allo specchio. Corriere della Sera. Anno 15, Numero 3. (Ilust.) p. 37. (Review). González, Magda Ileana: Obsesiones. Revista Arte Cubano. Ruta Crítica. No. 1 / 1999. (Ilust.) p. 22. (Review). Heartney, Eleanor: Tania Bruguera at LiebmanMagnan. Art In America, March
2002. (Review). Helguera, Pablo: Tania Bruguera explora la relación entre dejar
la patria y no tener casa. Exito, 13 de marzo, 1997. Hernández, Erena: Para no alvidar a Ana. Revista Mujeres, Año 31, No. 2, Abril 1992. (Ilust.) pp. 66-67. (Essay). Herrera Ysla, Nelson:Arte cubano a vuelo de pájaro, entre dos siglos. Revista Arte Cubano No. 2 / 2000. (Ilust.) (Essay). Hinchberger, Bill: XXIII Bienal International de Sao Paulo. Art News,
Dec. 1996. Israel, Nico: VII Bienal de La Habana, Art Forum Internacional, February,
2001. Kunstforum International: Tania Bruguera. Levin, Kim: The CNN Documenta. The Village Voice. Levin, Kim: Art and Contradiction at the Havana Bienal: Cuba Libre, Village Voice, December 26, 2000. (Review). L'eco di Bergamo: Bruguera: un gesto al posto dell'arte o delle parole. Gennaio 27, 2001. (Review). Milroy, Sarah: The sly politics of Cuban art, The Globe and Mail, April 5th, 1997, C5. (Review). Mosquera, Gerardo. "Resucitando a Ana Mendieta", Poliéster, vol.4, no.11,
Invierno, 1995. Molina, Juan Antonio: Revista de arte Cubano, Ruta Crítica. No. 1/1997. (Ilust.) pp. 68 - 70. (Essay). Negrín, Javier: Una tribuna. La gaceta de Cuba, No. 1, 2004. Enero-Febrero. (Review). Negrín, Javier: En la piel del cordero. Noticias de arte cubano. No. 7, Año 2, Julio 2001.(Review). Ottmann, Klaus: Kwangju Biennale 2000, ARTnews, June, 2000. (Review). Ottoman, Klaus: Man and his environment at the Kwangju Biennial, Domus
827, June, 2000. Pearlman, Ellen: The fallacy of utopia: the art work and current dialectic
in Havana, Cuba, The Brooklyn Rail, Summer, 2002. Phillips, Jen: Tea with Tania. Girlfriend Magazine, july 2002. (Profile). Pozo, Alejandra: Cuerpos de artistas en plena acción. Performances durante
y alrededor de la Bienal, Art Nexus, no.26, Octubre- Diciembre, 1997.
Pozo, Alejandra: La Habana, mayo de 1997. Arte off-icial, Estilo, año
8, no.32, diciembre, 1997. Ribeaux, Ariel: Silencio en el MuNAM. Noticias de Arte Cubano, no. 1, Año 1, Marzo 2000. Ribeaux, Ariel: Work in Progress, Tania Bruguera y los que nos corresponde. Heterogénesis, Julio 1999. (Essay). Rockwell, John: Who're you calling minimalist? The New York Times, Aug. 5, 2003. (Review). Scholette, Gregory: Affirmation of the curatorial class. Suárez, Ezequiel: Lo que no vemos (coronografia paroscopica). RevistaLo que venga,. Año 2, No. 1, 1995. (Essay). Thin, Von Ute: Kubas rebellische tochter. Art Magazine. 6/02. Turner, Grady: Sweet Dreams. Art in America. Valdés Figueroa, Eugenio: Reviva la revoltaire. Conjunto, Revista de Teatro Latinoamericano, Casa de las Américas, n. 112-113. Enero - Junio 1999. p. 55. (Essay). Valdés Figueroa, Eugenio: Art of Utopia.The mask: Utopia and ideology, Flash Art, vol.xxx no.192, January-Febrary, 1997. (Essay). Wessel, Von Thomas: Hey, ich hab'ne Pistole! Bruguera-performance: Die
angst des statisten vor dubiosen machtfantasien. 28 juni, 2002. Wood, Yolanda: La aventura del silencio en Tania Bruguera, en Artecubano,
no.3, 2000. Zeyer, René: Musik als Kraftwerk der Gefühle, Profil no. 11, 15 März
1999.
SELECTED TEXTS:
TEXTS IN FULL: Untilted (Havana, 2000). Tania Bruguera. ARTE O MUERTE: SOBREVIVIREMOS. Edmundo Desnoes. Tania Bruguera: Art as a gesture. Kevin Power. 729092 bags of History. Suset Sánchez. Postwar Memories. Tania Bruguera.
PRESS QUOTES:
"(...) Autobiografía, es un environment sonoro. En un principio, parece que el espectador vuelve a asumir el rol del poder en la pieza (...) Desde esta perspectiva, la obra sería el recuento memorístico de un pasado que, por las peculiaridades del caso cubano en las últimas décadas, ha estructurado la vida del sujeto a partir del prisma político. Y para que el ejercicio mnemotécnico sea más efectivo, el catálogo, a modo de periódico, recopila en sus titulares las consignas que salen por las bocinas y así sirve de partitura previa para el receptor dispuesto a hacer uso del micrófono. (...) Sin embargo, dos cosas llaman la atención. La primera, que el micrófono está instalado de modo tal que el orador da la espalda a su público virtual y, por lo tanto, convierte su arenga en un diálogo estéril con la pared. La segunda, que la repetición obsesiva de la misma consigna por los altavoces, más que acentuar su contenido y potencial movilizador, los desvirtúa. La saturación convierte al lema patriótico en un puro sonido, una letanía que ha perdido todo el poder de convocatoria inherente a la frase en sus orígenes (...). De esta manera resulta que el eventual happening del receptor sobre la tribuna es falaz en más de un sentido: quien sube a la tarima no juega a ser el poder, sino a actuar en los espacios que el poder reserva para crear la ilusión de participación en la gestión de gobierno. (...) no hay que olvidarlo, en ese mismo museo en que se exponía Autobiografía, descansaban, silenciosas pero no menos acusadoras, las otras tribunas, las de Antonia Eiriz, a las cuales, tal vez inconcientemente, la obra de Tania rendía tributo." Negrín, Javier: Una tribuna. La gaceta de Cuba,
No. 1, 2004.
"(...) But it is Tania Bruguera's brutal and thrilling installation that provides the ultimate visceral summation of this Documenta. Blinded by the lights, stunned by a barrage of stomping jackboots and hair-trigger clicks, it takes a minute for you to realize that the sounds issue from alive sentry pacing back and forth on a catwalk overhead, endlessly reloading his gun." Levin, Kim. The CNN Documenta. The Village Voice.
"(...) In Bruguera's world, concepts like freedom, liberty and self-determination are not abstract ideals, but achievements that write their effects on our physical forms." Heartney, Eleanor. Art In America, March 2002. (Review).
"(...) astonishingly powerful. It was as Bruguera were presenting a philosophy of (national) history, in which people journey through a collective experience that can only be comprehended once they've reached its end." Israel, Nico: VII Bienal de La Habana, Art Forum Internacional,
February, 2001. (Review).
"(...) A long line formed outside the installation on opening day, as word quickly spread that Bruguera was among the Biennial's most impressive artists." Turner, Grady: Sweet Dreams. Art in America.
"(...) (Bruguera's) decision to explore her home terrain, physical and psychic, from the inside is surely what gives her art its intensity." Cotter, Holland. Tania Bruguera - La Isla en Peso-, The New York Times. Nov. 2, 2001.
"Bruguera's installation in a tunnel at la Fortaleza formely used as a penitentiary cell, Untitled (Havana 2000), was even more conceptually stunning. You entered at one end of a guarded, cave like space that emitted a powerful odor of fermentation; the floor was covered with layers of bagazo, milled sugarcane, which made each step difficult. disoriented by the darkness, the smell, and the effort of walking / trudging, you were drawn toward a blue light emaning from the hard-to-discern distance that turned out to be a television screen, silently projecting looped video images of Fidel Castro in what are for Cubans famous scenes of their "maximum leader" displaying his heroism and humanity. Only on looking back from the end of the tunnel could you see that you were being watched by men -nonprofessional actors from Bruguera's neighborhood- standing naked in two rows of two and making a series of repetitive gestures: One bowed rhythmically; another rubbed himself as if trying frantically to remove a taint (like the Lady Macbeth figure in Kurosawa's Throne of Blood). The effect of seeing their silhouettes in conjunction with the video was astonishingly powerful. It was as though Bruguera were presenting a philosophy of (national) history, in which people journey through a collective experience that can only be comprehended once they've reached its end, whereupon "the past' reveals itself as having consisted of repeated rituals and empty gestures. Israel, Nico: VII Bienal de La Habana, Art Forum Internacional,
February, 2001.
"(...) Depuis une dizaine d'années, Tania Bruguera n'a cessé de conduire avec rigueur une mise à nu socio - politique de son pays, dans une relation de l'individu au corps social. Cela lui a valu des ennuis, mais ne l'a pas empêchée de, ou peut-être même l'a aidée à peaufiner son langage, à faire du sens avec rien, des matériaux pauvres et éphémères, à réussir √ susciter l'interrogation de la part du spectateur, qu'elle oblige à ne pas rester passif." Breerette, Genevieve. "Tania Bruguera, le corps, la societe et la politique", Le Monde. Dec. 5, 2000.
"(...) Bruguera scored a knockout with her work. It is rare that anyone, with such exact artistic means and such courage, exposes a difficult political and social situation from the inside." Chambert, Christian. The 7th Havana Biennial, The Nordic Art Review, 2000. (Review).
"Tania Bruguera´s performance/installation in a pitch-black tunnel was the most memorable piece. Treading blindly for what seemed aeons in oppressive darkness on an instable mush of fermenting sugar cane stalks, nearly overcome by the sickly sweet smell, you approached a faint ray of hope: the dim glow of a TV hanging overhead. On it was a video collage of Castro's life. And as you turned back, all senses on total alert, you faintly perceived the presence of bare living bodies, endlessly rubbing their mouths or slapping their thighs. Some viewers saw a man and a woman, others insisted there were four males. Like Cuba itself, it was a total sensory experience-contradictory, illusive, and hard to fathom. It summed up the invisibility, the toxic presence, the history of exploitation, and the heart of darkness. "It's like Cuba", said the artist. "It's sweet, it can be dangerous, it's intoxicating". Levin, Kim: Art and Contradiction at the Havana Bienal: Cuba Libre, Village Voice, December 26, 2000. (Review).
"(...) Bruguera's work transcends specific time and place to signify the human condition in general." Fresh Cream
"The South American section, organized by the Korean American independent curator Yu Yeon Kim, featured a chilling new performance-and-video installation by Cuban artist Tania Bruguera titled "El peso de la culpa IV" (The Burden of Guilt IV). For the performance, which took place during the first three days of the Biennale, Bruguera sat on the floor in the center of a room that was covered which lambskins. Naked, which her hair shaved, her eyes and ears covered by pieces of lambskins, and a rope around her naked that held her left arm tied behind her back, the artist compulsively rubbed a sharp rock with her right hand (...). In an adjoining room, the floor was covered with several inches of sugar, and a monitor suspended from the ceiling broadcast televised news clips of Fidel Castro. With these works, Bruguera focuses on words, or the lack of them, as a way to impose and resist power. The Cuban revolution, in the artist's view, has been particularly adept at using words to mythologize events and the bitter social conditions. More than any other work, Bruguera´s performance the curatorial courage that prevails throughout this Biennale." Ottmann, Klaus: Kwangju Biennale 2000, ARTnews, June, 2000. (Review).
"(...) el sujeto en la obra de Tania es un explorador de sentimientos agónicos, asumidos más desde lo trascendente que de la circunstancia, por eso las piezas se instalan en un discurso humanista más allá de lo cotidiano, y es eso quizás lo que permite el diálogo de las obras con públicos de diferentes latitudes. En realidad creo que lo que ocurre es una transferencia de experiencias perceptivas que se contextualiza en el receptor a partir de sus propias referencias culturales. (...) En ese sentido la obra de Tania cumple estrategias de provocación en el plano estético-cultural." Wood, Yolanda: La aventura del silencio en Tania Bruguera,
en Artecubano, no.3, 2000. (Essay).
"La acción de trabajar la obra de Ana Mendieta se tornó un gesto de reflexión sobre la emigración, sobre qué era lo que nos hacía "cubanos", sobre la pertenencia. Ana había estado en la búsqueda de la Cuba que había perdido, yo estaba en la búsqueda de lo que Cuba estaba perdiendo." Tania Bruguera
"(...) cada plano o imagen de Tania reclama un profundo respeto por la acción, la sobriedad pausada del gesto provoca la aflicción, incluso el sollozo silencioso. La mimesis se yuxtapone al texto de Virgilio y cada fotograma actúa como una palabra, con la solemnidad de un poema bíblico. Sabe liberarse de la anécdota banal e inmediata, priorizando otros artilugios, la precaución es sinónimo de muerte. Tania es de las que asume dignamente cualquier acto suicida, sólo de esta forma logra sobrevivir" González Mora, Magda Ileana.
"Tania Bruguera recently astounded audiences with a stunning political images -- perhaps the most awe inspiring piece ever made by a visual artist from the island." Mosquera, Gerardo.
"For Kcho and Bruguera, the mythology of the objects -be it a raft or an artefact conceived as a means of flight- is rooted in the stratagem of escape. It has always been man's dream to live on through objects he makes and to fabricate his own transcendence in a bid to resolve his own finiteness in the fatal cycle of birth and death. Many of Kcho and Bruguera´s objects cast doubts on the idea of perpetuality. (...) The material and the symbol -the very supports of transcendentalist vanguard discourse- are plunged into crisis by these artists´ works by means of a conflict between an awareness of mortality and an aspiration to eternity." Valdés Figueroa, Eugenio: Art of Utopia.The mask: Utopia and ideology, Flash Art, vol.xxx no.192, January-Febrary, 1997. (Essay).
"Entre el recuerdo de una ciudad que hoy se transita sobre las ruinas barrocas de atmósferas pasadas finaliza este recorrido con el performance que ejecutó Tania Bruguera en su casa taller. El peso de la culpa, una obra profunda, y terrible a la vez estremecedora en la cual la artista, ataviada con una piel de cordero decapitado, símbolo de protección, se arrodilla para ejercer lentamente la acción: de un pequeño recipiente toma la tierra, del otro, el agua con sal que le permite formar pequeñas bolas de barro que luego ingiere en actitud serena. La ofrenda se realiza frente a una gran bandera cubana como telón de fondo, tejida minuciosamente con pelo humano. Estadística (como se llama este objeto), es información numérica, pero también visual. Tierra, lágrimas y sacrificio se constituyen en obra funeraria, comentario social, una relación sobre el sentido de culpa con respecto a lo que acontece. Metáfora no sólo de la obra, sino de la rebelión que exige esta Bienal." Auerbach, Ruth: Sexta Bienal de La Habana: La rebelión
de las contradicciones.
"Take Bruguera´s witty sculpture Daedalus or The Empire of Salvation (1995-96), a kind of dysfunctional Duchampian flying machine suspended elegantly in the Belking Gallery at UBC. Exquisitely constructed of balsa wood and paper, the device is doomed to failure, its wings set vertically rather than horizontally. (.) The tone of Daedalus is typical of the sly political wit that permeates these exhibitions, revealing a generation (most of the artist are in their 20s) that looks back on its country's political history with knowing eyes." Milroy, Sarah: The sly politics of Cuban art, The Globe and Mail, April 5th, 1997, C5. (Review)
"Cuando Tania define su obra como una experimentación
de las diferentes funciones del arte se está refiriendo en verdad a las
diferentes funciones del arte cubano, funciones que forman parte de una
"memoria estética" que ella va reconstruyendo. Su periódico Memoria de
la Postguerra era una obra dirigida a la reestructuración de esa memoria,
no exactamente por que constituía el documento gráfico, sino por el gesto
sociológico en sí mismo. Como gesto el periódico-performance era una reconstrucción
de la estética que comenzó a desarrollarse en los años 80 y que conforma
una parte importante del arte cubano actual. 23 Bienal de Sao Paulo. (Brochure)
"(...) for this biennial, Latin America made a stronger showing than in earlier editions, offering the best work from this part of the world to appear here in recent memory. There is the deeply affecting performance - installation work by Cuban Tania Bruguera, who straps herself to the wall with strips of metal - visitors, as they pass by on their way to her installation, can see her wrists almost imperceptibly trembling." Hinchberger, Bill: XXIII Bienal International de Sao Paulo. Art News, Dec. 1996. p. 128. (Review).
"(...) Tania, un poco a la manera de Pierre Menard, repitió obras de Ana, e hizo otras de las cuales ésta sólo había dejado el proyecto. Como posesionándose de Ana, reactuó uno de sus performances, algo que, por coincidencia, hizo después también Nancy Spero. Tania se "apropió" de Ana no sólo en cuanto a volver a hacer o reinventar sus obras, sino en el acercamiento mismo hacia el arte como actividad ritualística, ligada con una experiencia personal. (...) Tania se identificaba con Ana para volver a atraerla a la isla, y al presente, para rematerializarla con el fin de mostrarla a los más jóvenes y recolocarla en el imaginario colectivo. Con eso fomenta su mito mediante un ritual artístico semi-religioso, que a la par se basa en Mendieta como mito multicultural. (...) Pero con los héroes trágicos se construyen dioses, y estos regresan a la tierra posesionándose de sus adeptos, según ocurre en las religiones afrocubanas, que fueron una fuente principal para el trabajo de Ana. Su conflicto se resolvió en un retorno vicario que manifiesta una presencia del lado de acá, al unísono imaginaria y viviente: Tania Bruguera desplazó la silueta de la muerte y es ahora su última silueta, caminando por La Habana Vieja. La transubstanciación que tiene lugar queda también cual utopía de una posible unión transterritorial de los cubanos." Mosquera, Gerardo. "Resucitando a Ana Mendieta", Poliéster,
vol.4, no.11, Invierno, 1995. (Essay)
"Memoria de la postguerra halfway between an art journal and a newspaper - not in terms of its presentation, which is economic and textual, but at the conceptual level, Memoria is an unusual event in the cultural life of Cuba of the last thirty years. (...)What is noteworthy is the fact that at a time of unprecedented economic crisis in which distances have grown almost at infinitum due to the lack of transport and the international dispersion of artists, Memoria has not only assembled ideas but has helped maintain a sense of coherence. (...) Memoria acts as a magnet for ideas. it is, over and above the gossip and correspondence, a primary vehicle for communication. (...) Over and above all this, Memoria may well be a new proposal which brings together the writer and the visual artists in their dommon concerns. (...)In the meantime, Memoria is also a free enterprise satire, not only because of the fact of its actual appearance, but because of the devices applied to self-mythification. (...) in its first two issues, has become an essential source of documentation for anyone wishing to learn about Cuba culture at these critical times on the island. Thanks to this little publication, the diagnosis of the country's health is good, despite the enormous lack of material resources (...). Memoria.is one of the necessary vehicles which an entire generation of artists need if they are to maintain their cultural coherence and mental health throughout this period of anxiety." Camnitzer, Luis: Memoria de la postguerra, Art Nexus, no.
15, Jan- March, 1995. (Review)
"Tania Bruguera´s work should be understood as an open-ended activity; a platform from which to explore a wide range of possibilities, rather than an attempt to build an apparently coherent body of work. She sets out to examine possible links between apparently unrelated problems: emigration, a sense of physical and spiritual displacement and problems of communication, compounded by social conditioning and misinformation.
New Art from Cuba. (Brochure)
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