Reynier Leyva Novo

Havana, 1983

In sculptures, installations and videos, Reynier Leyva Novo problematizes the history of Cuba without losing sight of its relation with global geopolitics. In his audiovisual output, such as the trilogy El país que soñó ser continente [The Country that Dreamed of Being a Continent], the artist examined his homeland from other perspectives that allowed him to think in terms of a global South—not so much a geopolitical region as a concept under dispute in terms of identities, territories and memories.

At the Triennial, Leyva Novo revisits two installations from his back catalogue that here acquire specific contours. In Arqueologia de una sonrisa [Archaeology of a Smile] (2015/2017) some two and a half thousand toothbrushes were collected through new-for-old trade-ins with the population of Sorocaba. Arranged on a wall, the collection reveals variations of color, size and wear. In El beso de cristal [Crystal Kiss] (2015), seventy wine glasses are laser-etched with the portraits, names and mandates of the 24 Cuban and 44 American presidents (prior to Donald Trump, the 45^th). Completing the set are two blank glasses waiting for the nations’ future leaders (in the US, Trump). While in Arqueologia… the artist evokes subjectivities in the name of collective memory, in El beso… he refers to the maximum symbols of power in Cuba and the US in order to underscore their history of ideological conflict.

[D.M]