CubaPLUS Magazine

Lidzie Alvisa Jiménez (Havana, 1969), whose original work is created with much experimentation and constant renewal, has traveled through photography, sculpture, installations and performance, from perspectives where limits are diluted and the concept takes center stage.

A graduate of the San Alejandro National Academy of Fine Arts and the Superior Institute of Art, her pieces have been appreciated in numerous personal and collective exhibitions in countries such as Cuba, the United States, France, Mexico, Chile, Germany, Belgium, Peru, Honduras, China, Russia, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Lebanon, Israel and Canada.

In order to get to know her creation process, CubaPlus approached this artist, who is not incased in trends or themes, and is constantly searching.

How and why do you create your works?

For me the most important thing is to record any event that is interesting to me. My goal is to capture the idea and shape it, with all the necessary resources and without limitations.

I generally use only two elements in my photographs and works; on the one hand our thoughts are becoming more and more complex and, contradictorily, my work is increasingly minimalist.

In most cases I use photography as part of the work - I introduce it in sculptures and installations. In some cases, it forms the complete installation. For example, in the piece Estados (from the series of the same name) I create a new edition of history books, from different nations, print the covers and support, like an electrocardiogram, as a metaphor of the situation in which the countries are. For me it is a photographic sculpture or a three-dimensional picture.

I introduce any element in the photograph that supports the idea well, the concept, which is the most important thing for me. Another example is the piece Incomunicación, from the same series, where I stick cell phones of different models and times together, leaving them useles, incommunicado.

With the Rodapiés series I tried to get away from the usual type of photograph presentation (eye level) as seen in galleries and other spaces. I create photos of different types of feet, different nationalities, races, ages, printed on ceramic, placed at floor level, like the baseboard of a home. I try to find other points of interest, sometimes forgotten, and give them importance – points that are key to any displacement and which allow us to leave the race of life.

What subjects do you prefer?

I am interested in turning daily life into a piece of work, all kinds of experiences, selecting moments that are insignificant for some and that I want to magnify and make amends, because I consider them vital. Topics of conversation among friends and family, news, readings … I have worked with countless topics during the last 25 years.

With a vision from the inside to reach a social magnitude of each issue I want to address – that is what I consider as bringing a soft and strong criticism without trying to impose any of the criteria. I introduce an idea and provoke different reactions, because rather than imposing, what interests me is that my work reaches the viewer, who can do his own discerning – I want to activate the brain.

What projects do you have planned?

I have been invited to an exhibition of Cuban photography for the Fotomuseo de Cuatro Caminos, in Mexico City, which will take place in August 2017, and my personal exhibition is pending at the Gallery of Nina Menocal in Mexico, DF. In addition, I am looking at an exhibition with CO GALER&IáA, in Chile, and as of now, I am also working on my personal exhibition that will take place at the Gallery Artis 718, planned for December 2018 in Havana.

A the same time, I have my daily projects, which I always manage in the studio and that are being chosen for different fairs and collective exhibitions that will take place during the year with the galleries that I work with and other invitations.

I am working on new photographs and other drawing projects with different themes and materials that I have not applied so far.