Gustavo Pérez Monzón
b. 1956, Cuba
Gustavo PÉREZ MONZÓN is one of the most important Cuban artists of his generation, mostly lauded for introducing Conceptual art to his native country, yet his story remains untold. He first emerged in the early 1980s as part of a generation of artists loosely known as Volumen Uno, whose exhibition at Centro de Arte Internacional (1981) is considered a watershed in the history of Cuban art. In 2015 his work was re-discovered by Ella Fontanals-Cisneros, who organised a major retrospective, Tramas (Frames), at Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de La Habana. The exhibition later travelled to the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO) in Miami, Florida, USA (2015–2016). Following the retrospective, Pérez Monzón returned with Rosa de Cancio (2018), a solo show at Richard Saltoun Gallery, which marked the first exhibition of the artist in London.
Drawing influence from conceptualism and minimalism, Pérez Monzón has honed a unique sensibility towards organic materials and geometrical forms. He is recognised predominantly for his vast works on paper of dots and lines made from mixed media; large scale line drawings carved from aluminium powder and pigment, and immersive installations of wire, stone and thread. Recently, Pérez Monzón was included in the 2019 Havana Biennial and his work was the the subject of the solo exhibition WEFTS at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico (2018), where the artist currently lives and works. Pérez Monzón represented Cuba at the Paris Biennial in 1982 and his work featured in the first Havana Biennial in 1984.