Decomiso (2021)

after Antes que Anochezca (1992) by Reinaldo Arenas

Muslin sack, white zip ties, metal nails, dirt, blood, eggshell, water, salt, book, 12x14 in. 

Decomiso (2021) is a sculpture investigating an act of shame and censorship. Traveling to Cuba in November of 2018, my copy of Antes que Anochezca (1992) by Reinaldo Arenas was confiscated at the Santa Clara airpot. Using a muslin sack with a white zip tie labeled “Decomiso 0306439”, I place inside my copy of La Vida Entera (1969) by Virgillio Piñera Llera. I then nail the sack to a wall with 18 clavos covered dirt, blood, salt, eggshell, and rain water. One nail for each box of unedited manuscripts found after Piñera’s death.

After providing me with a document contractually stating the book was to be destroyed, it was concealed in a saco with a barcoded zip tie closure. This piece explores the states particular interest in censoring any art accused as antirevolutionary.

I treat this replication not only as container for guilt and the concealment of a queer lexicon, but also as a nkisi nkondi(power figure) object of Cuban Santeria, Palo Mayombe. An object in which you invest your hopes, wishes, and desires. Each clavo nailed into the sack is a desire hammered into the object; crossing borders, a return home, freedom dreaming, liberation, remembrance. nkisi nkondi objects often have human-like characteristics but can also be something simple like a pouch. 

Virgilio Piñera Llera was a Cuban author, playwright, poet, short-story writer, and essayist. After passing, 18 boxes of his unedited manuscripts were found by Antón Arruifat. La Vida Entera (1969) is the last book Piñera saw printed in his life. Piñera’s literary perspective expressed critical concerns of national identity, and especially due to his homosexuality, like Arenas, this led him to be censured by the revolution. He died without any official recognition, it was only posthumously that was he named the father of modern Cuban theater.