Gallery

Artist's Statement

Arturo MONTOTO ECHEVARRIA

THE PAINTING LESSON (Arturo MONTOTO) 

By means of these operative mechanisms of learning the procedures that lead to the pictorial making of a painting, any apprentice can obtain specific visual results. 

If he concludes in a different result, there will remain the need to assemble or build an oeuvre, that is to say, a display of artefacts comprising a block of senses and meanings that could be recognized as someone’s work. 

If on the contrary, he ends up in a result similar to that of the exponent artist, nothing would be won, as there is no sense in repeating an analogue visual experience. Thus both directions are fruitless, demonstrating that the essence of the artistic does not reside in the productive artifice (Poiesis), nor in the capacity (Exis), nor in the knowledge possessed (Episteme), but in all these moments together. 

If the apprentice insists in proceeding anyway, and all these moments would come to converge in him, then he will achieve being a painter, which could again disappoint him when he discovers that he has come to master, with great effort, a means “of expression”, that is currently considered by the institutional spaces of art as not functional, or at least incomplete for producing complex reflections on contemporary art in the great legitimating events and institutions of current art. 

Bio

The painter. 

Born in 1953 , in Pinar del Río, Cuba. 

SELECTED SOLO SHOWS : 

2008 Exhibition of watercolours, Acacia gallery, Havana, Cuba 

2007 Conversación en el huerto, Villa Manuela Gallery, Havana, Cuba 

Agua y Metal, watercolours and sculptures, La Acacia gallery, december-january 2008. Havana, Cuba 

2006 Ciudad para ciegos, installation, collateral Havana Biennial. Museum of Colonial Arts, Havana, Cuba 

La fábula del hortelano, Cultural center and of Missionary Animation, San Antonio María Claret, Santiago, Cuba 

Watercolours and sculptures, El templete Restaurant, Old Havana, Cuba 

Bajo presión, grabados 1999-2004, (travelling 2004-2006) Galería de Arte de Colón, Matanzas 

2005 La lección de pintura (the painting lesson), travelling exhibition, Museum of America, Madrid 

Cultural center Capitol, Càceres, Spain 

2004 Ámbitos silenciosos, Oñate Fine Art, Miami, United States ; Centro de Arte, Santiago de Cuba, Cuba ; 

Engravings, Head office of the Cuban Embassy in Moscow, Russia 

SELECTED COLLECTIVE SHOWS : 

2007 Cuidarte. Arte, Salud y Sexualidad (for the Worldwide day of struggle counters the AIDS), Art center of Boyeros, 1 to 8 of December 2007, Havana, Cuba. 

XVII Muestra of Latin-American Painting and Sculpture, Espacio Gallery, September - October, San Salvador, El Salvador. 

New Millenium, Contemporary Cuban Artists, Galería Alovera, Guadalajara, Spain 

2006 Exhibition of contemporary cuban art, Planet Discovery Hall, Center of Beyrouth. 

Lebanon 

Ici et Maintenant (Here and Now), Intemporel gallery, Paris, France 

2005 Six cuban artists, Toot gallery, Cervantes Institute, Egyptian Center for 

Cooperation, Cairo, Egypt 

Mi cuerpo, mi país, ( My body, my country ) Museum of Virginia University, United States 

Islas, Espacios gallery, Madrid, Spain 

COLLECTIONS (selection) 

Museum of Latin-american art (MoLAA), Long Beach, California, the United States. 

Museum of the University of Virginia, United States 

Museum provincial Emilio Bacard í, Santiago of Cuba, Cuba 

Contemporary art center Wifredo Lam, Havana, Cuba. 

Lowe Art Natural history museum, United States. 

University of Miami, Florida, United States. 

National Museum of Fine Arts, Havana, Cuba. 

Museum of la basilique du Couvent de Saint François d’Assise, old Havana, Cuba. 

Museums of Vatican, Italy. 

PROA foundation, Buenos Aires, Argentina. 

Society of Spanish-American friendship, French Guyana. 

Coca-Cola, Santiago, Chile. 

Private collections in France. 

Private foundations in Spain 

Review