
Reinaldo Cid
Capital, 11th Havana Biennial, 2012Installation, variable dimensions

Capital
That was the title given to the astonishing installation by the Cuban young artist Reinaldo Cid, which was exhibited in one of the domes of the University of Arts during the 11th Havana Biennial in 2012. This exhibition was possible thanks to the support provided by the art collector José Busto and his project Avistamientos (Contemporary Cuban Art Gallery).
The work was further exhibited in the 4th edition of the event Visualarte in Cienfuegos City. It portrayed a hundred of compact ingots produced with the fuel wastes that Reinaldo had previously extracted from the polluted Havana Bay. These black colored bars were accommodated in various perpendicular levels over wooden pedestals similar to the traditional gold ingots. This gesture of the artist, with high doses of irony, denounces the pollution of the Havana Bay, and consequently, the global pollution. On the other hand, he proposes a critical reflection on the dark side of the vertiginous material development of human civilization and the excessive consumption of current societies.
Reinaldo Cid’s committing, shrewd and farsighted action about this work is undoubtedly indebted to the ethic precepts of the ecological art, something that, unfortunately, is not common in the current Cuban artistic context. Hence, the audience, and the Havana Bay itself, are appreciative of the risk both the author and the producer ran, in terms of market, and of the new, fresh and free aspects of an artistic proposal of this kind.
Capital leads us to formulate some disturbing questions: Are those nasty fuel waste ingots the possible heritage of our future? Is pollution the capital of these times?, while it causes us to be alarmed about their probable answers.
–Ariadna Cabrera