7th Havana Biennial -  Home November 2000 - January 2001Home
This is your house, Vicenta: Angel Delgado
Angel Delgado  + zoom in
+ zoom
Written down by Pat Binder and Gerhard Haupt, based on an interview.

Since 1990, my work has been based on my memories, in doing so I employ material that I used in a very difficult phase of my life, more precisely put - when I was in prison. It was there that I learned to carve soap. I also drew on handkerchiefs with colored markers. The works that I did were those one needed in that world, carvings of saints, religious figures. One makes these things for example, in exchange for other articles.

The work I am showing here refers to one of my most concrete memories: the daily meal of a prisoner, but it could also be the meal in a boarding school, a country school or in a workers' canteen. The "food" on the aluminum trays is made of soap.

At the beginning of 1990 I was in prison because I did a performance at the Centro de Desarrollo de las Artes Visuales [Center for the Development of the Visual Arts, part of the Ministry of Culture - trans. note]. The exhibition was called "El objeto esculturado" (The 'Sculptured' Object). I realized an intervention that was not meant in the political sense one wanted to ascribe to it, but rather artistically: namely, to make a "sculptured object" in a biological manner by defecating on a copy of the newspaper "Granma". At that time there were a lot of problems, and they wanted to set a warning example with me, which is why I spent six months in prison. Even though this time really was terrible, I did get to know a world through which I developed all of my later works

Translated from the German version by Rebeccah Blum

© Interview, translation, photos:
Gerhard Haupt & Pat Binder,
Universes in Universe
Angel Delgado
Casa Vicenta - start Zurbrigg

© All rights reserved

contact  |  masthead  |  newsletter  |  search