A graduate of Havana’s Instituto Superior de Arte, Estévez cultivated his rich, multimedia practice through early and ongoing studies of science and alchemy, cosmic beings and objects that transcend the Cuban condition. “Creating is an act of faith, an attempt to project this world inhabiting us,” he once explained. “We are all making our own history while also making reference to every other person” (quoted in A. Grant, “Ebullient Cubans Make a Lot out of a Little,” New York Times, 11 June 2000). Among the breakout stars of the Seventh Havana Biennial in 2000, Estévez is represented in major public collections, including Yale University Art Gallery, the Denver Art Museum, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Estévez began a revelatory series of assemblages in 2005 that ponder the vagaries of chance and fate, time and agency. “The theme of inevitability” percolates through El juego de la eternidad ilusoria, notes curator Irina Levya Pérez, drawing an apt comparison to Joseph Cornell’s signature box constructions. “Based on Albert Camus’s idea of the absurdity of life, the piece is a chess game in which the contenders are invisible. It is a metaphor of life seen as a strategic game, the way each person designs his own tactic to survive. He included elements that imply time such as a sand clock. Other symbols are more related to spiritual guidance, like the lantern for inner light and a miniature telescope, all tools to help in seeing what lays ahead” (“Between Dimensions: Universe of Carlos Estévez,” Art Nexus 90, September-November 2013, p. 92).
Abby McEwen, Assistant Professor, University of Maryland, College Park