Related 3b

2008 - Photography (Photography)

Goicolea has made drawings based on a family album of relations that he did not know but who in one way or another contributed to his history and to the predicament in which he now finds himself as a Cuban in America. He then mounted the drawings on trees, telegraph poles or buildings and photographed them. Taken in these situations the drawings appear like advertisements for lost people or even posters for wanted criminals that of course conjures up images of loss not only of boat people but those who perished in other disasters, whether natural catastrophes or 9/11. The representation of the drawing in a photograph mirrors the distancing of Goicolea from his ancestors, for the drawing is translated and placed in an anonymous location from which, after photography, it is removed. The photograph is a witness to a past act, as the album is a witness to Goicolea’s own past. Together, the drawing and the photograph set up a interesting dynamic that invokes notions of past and present, the concept of reproducibility, memorialisation, and fact and fiction.

Goicolea, a first generation Cuban-American living in New York, makes work that explores his conflicted identity and the recent history of the Cuban people. While some of his earlier work was playfully narcissistic, the body of work called “Related” explores his roots and personal history. He makes photographs, drawings, videos and installations that explore the relationship between the media as well as social and historical issues.

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