Consuelo Castañeda

Consuelo Castañeda (born 1958, Havana, Cuba) is a Cuban artist, professor, and art critic whose work includes painting, installations, photography, graphic art, architecture, and print. She was a major part of a movement of the relationship between art and politics in the 1980s avant-garde scene and revolutionized how women were treated in the art world. Castañeda is also credited with helping to catapult the cultural production of the Cuban avant-garde onto the international stage and shifting the popular understanding of the relationship between art and politics in Cuba, as well as in broader Latin America. Castañeda was living in Miami, Florida until 2016, where she moved back to Havana, Cuba.

Biography
In 1977, Castañeda attended the San Alejandro Academy of Fine Arts in Havana, Cuba. She then attended the Advanced Institute of Fine Arts in Havana, Cuba in 1982 where she would then teach and add contemporary discourse to the curriculum.

As a professor at the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana, Castañeda was a champion for performance art in the academic setting. She was a pivotal figure in Cuba until her emigration to Mexico, and then Miami in the 1990s. Her work as a painter, photographer and multimedia installation artist, has recently shifted to social media and digital format. Her focus is on creating interactive works that anyone with a modem and a computer can readily access.

In the 1980s, she was a member of the artist collective Equipo Hexágono ( or Hexágono Equipo de Creación Colectiva) alongside artists Humberto Castro, Sebastián Elizondo, Antonio Eligio Fernández (TONEL), Abigail García and María Elena Morera. Equipo Hexágono was active in Havana between 1982 and 1985 and later in the United States, as their work was exhibited as late as 2022 in Miami.

After relocating to the United States, and following her interest in internet art, she presented the installation Cybernetic Information Center at the Miami Art Museum, which is now known at Pérez Art Museum Miami.

Collections
Her workis housed in public and private collections such as the Pérez Art Museum Miami, Florida, the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College, Ohio, Lowe Art Museum at University of Miami, the Museum of Art and Design (MoAD), at Miami Dade College, and is featured in the Rodriguez Collection housed at the Kendall Art Center, Miami.

Awards
She was awarded with the Cintas Fellowship as an installation and multidisciplinary artist in 1997–1998.

Exhibitions
The artist participated in the three following editions of the Havana Biennial, Cuba, 1984, 1986, and 1991, and the Miami Biennale.

Her work was included in the group exhibition Killing Time: An exhibition of Cuban artists from the 1980s to the present curated by Glexis Novoa, Elvis Fuentes, and Yuneikys Villalonga in New York City in 2007.

The solo show and mid-career retrospective For Rent: Consuelo Castañeda, curated by Gabriela Rangel, and presented at the Americas Society, New York, in 2011. The exhibition alluded to the work of Venezuelan artist Gego and provided social commentary on Fidel Castro's political regime in her native Cuba.

In 2016, the artist returned to Cuba to present her first solo exhibition and career retrospective after 30 years without showing new work in her home country. The exhibition was held at Gran Teatro, Havana.

In 2020, Castañeda's work was included in Isolation, a virtual show reflecting on social distancing pushed by the covid-19 global pandemic, organized by an art venue in Miami. In 2022, Consuelo Castañeda's work was featured in the group exhibition and publication Exercises to be Happy: Ephemeral Practices in 1980s Cuba curated by Glexis Novoa in Miami.

Solo exhibitions

 * 1987¿Quien la presta los brazos a la Venus de Milo?, Teatro Nacional de Cuba, Havana
 * 1989 La Historia reconstruye la Imagen, Castillo de la Real Fuerza, Havana
 * 1992 Consuelo Castañeda, Centro de Cultura, Mexico City
 * 1995 To Be Bilingual at the Fredric Snitzer Gallery, Coral Gables, Florida
 * 1996 Consuelo Castañeda and Quisqueya Henríquez Collaboration, Morris-Healy Gallery, New York
 * 2001 New Work Miami at the Museo de Arte Moderno (MAM), Miami, Florida.
 * 2008 Finding the Self, Art@Work, Miami, Florida
 * 2011 For Rent: Consuelo Castañeda, Americas Society, New York
 * 2015 Walls on Walls, Faena Art, Miami
 * 2016 CCC 2016, Gran Teatro Alicia Alonso, Havana
 * 2018 Consuelo Castañeda: Instants, Dot Fiftyone Gallery, Miami

Group exhibitions
Consuelo Castaneda's work was and continues to be included in numerous group exhibitions across Latin America, the United States in countries like Cuba, Mexico, and Australia.