Continuing the line of lyrical minimalism of Félix González-Torres, the Cuban-Spanish artist Glenda León (Havana, 1976, residing in Madrid since 2011) symbolizes the renewal of Cuban art, becoming one of the most prominent Hispanic American artists with an extensive and international projection.
She began her career in the late 90s, being the first Cuban artist to work with sound art, as well as to combine a solid and ongoing practice of video art. She graduated in Art History from the University of Havana (Cuba) and in New Media from the Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln (KHM) in Cologne (Germany). Her artistic practice is predominantly installation-based, handling a wide variety of languages: photographic, pictorial, or digital in sync with various arts such as music, literature, or dance.
Her works delicately and decisively explore issues of great political or environmental significance, always articulated from a minimalist grammar. She combines scientific exploration and empirical observation—rationality and spirituality—attempting to challenge our perceptions of the world. Her reflections, framed in a line of work that we could call “sensitive conceptual,” present a change of perspective on reality and time and speak of sensory searches and mystical visions in which there has been a total disintegration of the self.
She has represented Cuba at the 55th Venice Biennale and participated in the Dakar Biennale (Senegal), the Havana Biennale (Cuba), and the Aichi Triennale (Japan). She has been awarded the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Prize, the Pilar Juncosa and Sotheby’s Biennial Prize for Artistic Creation, and recently, the Cifo Prize for mid-career artists. Her work is part of major public collections such as the Centre Pompidou (Paris, France), The Museum of Fine Arts (Houston, USA), and the Musée des Beaux Arts (Montreal, Canada)