“The Promised Land”

Promised Land

Date

March 8 – 22, 2019

Curated by

Alexis Mendoza

Gallery

Boricua College Gallery

Location

New York, United States

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Curatorial Statement

For the last 15 years, Naivy Pérez has based her work on the concept that art may exist solely as an idea and not in the physical realm — the message is what’s important, the idea is everything. While studying at the Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA, The University of the Arts) in Havana, Cuba, Naivy conceived her work as a reaction against formalism and commodification. She believed that art was created when the analysis of an art object surpassed the object itself, considering artistic knowledge to be as important as artistic production.

Promised Land is a survey exhibition of the last 15 years of Naivy Pérez’s artistic production; it provides a retrospective look at the artist’s works from 2004 to the present. Naivy Pérez (Ciego de Ávila, Cuba, 1986) graduated from the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana. Her artistic process spans radical, lyrical performances and minimalist installations that integrate new technologies. For years, she has worked on a series of performances in which she embodies various social roles associated with Cuban women (housewife, brave soldier, prostitute, etc.). Additionally, she employs and gathers objects (ready-mades), manipulating or transforming their traditional uses.

The centerpiece of the exhibition, titled Promised Land, is a microscopic grain of sand. It serves as a clear example of the theory behind Naivy’s conceptual debates. Visitors will need a magnifying glass or superhero vision to appreciate these miniature works of art. She challenges conventional notions of art, society, politics, and media with her theory that art is more than representational expression. In works such as Genesis 3:16, she explores the biblical passage that addresses the dual aspects of a married woman’s life as both wife and mother. She rejects the idea that women are condemned to sorrow and subjugation as punishment for sin — I will greatly multiply thy sorrow. Through this piece, Pérez seeks to convey concepts to viewers, rejecting the traditional emphasis on the creator or talent in forms such as painting and sculpture.

Her works are often grounded in objects and their transformations or manipulations, as in La disputa del nuevo Mundo (The Dispute of the New World), a white-painted globe. Pérez views the work primarily as a concept, allowing the physical piece to remain untouched, unpainted, or even refabricated. This reflects her vision of a purified dream planet with all of humanity inhabiting it. During this period, Pérez not only questioned the importance of artistic traditions and materials but also raised questions about the nature of art itself — whether artworks should be proactive rather than static. From the beginning, Pérez expressed her understanding of art through installations, digital works, and performances.

Many of her pieces carry a political undertone, addressing ongoing international debates about identity, culture, and the legitimacy of artistic discourses tied to being a Cuban artist. Her works reflect the modern age’s rapid consumption of messages: fast, disposable, and fleeting. However, they aim to break through superficiality, generating fissures that destabilize structures of control. Her minimalist visuals flow before the viewer’s eyes, immersing and influencing them with a deeply analytical approach. Each piece is created as an aesthetic catharsis, exorcising the stimuli that shape human experience.

When an artist like Naivy Pérez uses these diverse art forms and methods of expression, it signifies that all planning and decisions are made beforehand, turning execution into an almost mechanical process. The idea becomes the engine that gives life to the artwork. Promised Land challenges the validity of traditional art and the established structures for creating, publicizing, and viewing it. It asserts that the materials used, and the final product are secondary to the idea itself, which holds the greatest significance. Her body of work consists of information, including photographs, written texts, and displayed objects, encompassing non-traditional art forms such as installations, video art, and performances.

Her work demands a more active response from the viewer, as it engages the mind rather than the eye or emotions. It could be argued that the artwork only truly exists in the viewer’s mental participation. “It doesn’t really matter if the viewer understands the artist’s concepts by seeing the art. Once it leaves her hands, she has no control over how a viewer will perceive the work. Different people will understand the same thing in different ways.” Pérez deliberately produces works that are difficult, if not impossible, to classify within traditional formats. She consciously creates works that evade specific art categories or result in no tangible art object, emphasizing the idea over the artifact.

Her approach is not necessarily logical. Artworks like Baby Don’t Cry and 00:00:00 transform the object into a discourse — a simple analysis of a current issue or social subject. These pieces do not need to be complex; most of them are intentionally simple. Echoing her difficulty in classification, her vision cannot be defined by any specific medium or style. Instead, it is defined by the way it questions the very nature of art.

Traditionally, an ordinary object such as a rock shaped like a heart (Sacred Heart or Sagrado Corazón) would not be considered art because it is neither created by an artist nor unique. It lacks the traditional visual properties of handcrafted artwork. However, Pérez places these objects in unexpected contexts — museums, public spaces, or written texts — creating an intervention that sparks awareness of the surrounding context. Through videos, maps, charts, notes, or photographs, her work often exists only through documentation.

When encountering Naivy’s work, one is often led to ask: What is this? What is she trying to express? Her work is completed by the viewer’s interpretation. “This could be art” — “this” being anything from an object or image to a performance or an idea revealed in an unexpected way. Naivy Pérez’s proposal is therefore reflexive: the object refers back to the subject, representing a state of continual self-critique.

Alexis Mendoza

New York, United States