By Biennale of Sydney
23rd Biennale of Sydney: rīvus
Requiem (Plegaria) (2022) by Yoan CapoteBiennale of Sydney
About the participant
Yoan Capote
Born 1977 in Pinar del Río, Cuba
Lives and works in Havana, Cuba
Yoan Capote’s practice is the result of a constant attempt to translate internal psychological conflicts into physical experiences. His works connect this individual awareness with the collective political or social environment.
For Capote, art is like a psychoanalyst’s couch, a place where thousands of lived moments, fragments of memory and reasoning emerge.
Although his works develop from deeply personal and and daily experiences, they often reference Cuba’s layered and complex history and point to universal experiences of power, geopolitics and migration.
Requiem (Plegaria) (2022) by Yoan CapoteBiennale of Sydney
Requiem (Plegaria), 2019-2021
Yoan Capote's vast seascape features black, choppy waves made from fish hooks, and covered in 24k gold leaf.
Requiem (Plegaria) (2022) by Yoan CapoteBiennale of Sydney
For Cubans the sea represents a double isolation, geographic as well as political. To this day people are not free to leave the island country, which has been embroiled in an ideological struggle with its powerful neighbour, the U.S., for more than 60 years.
Requiem (Plegaria) (2019–2022)Biennale of Sydney
Thousands of Cubans have died trying to cross in precarious, overcrowded vessels the relatively short stretch of sea that separates the island from the coast of Florida.
Requiem (Plegaria) (2022) by Yoan CapoteBiennale of Sydney
Hence, a seascape can be also understood as the barrier that keeps people imprisoned against their will, choppy waters becoming the ominous image of a graveyard.
Tap to explore
Navigate around Yoan Capote's Requiem (Plegaria), 2019-2021 in Pier 2/3 to get a sense of the artwork's scale.
