Hasta la Victoria Siempre - Økseskaft

I have a very ambiguous relationship to Cuba - on the one hand I have a great passion for the music and have been wanting to go there for many years. On the other hand it has dawned on me what tremendous asshole Fidel is and what a cruel dictatorship he is running.



Recently a friend of mine brought to my attention the Cuban installation artists Los Carpinteros (The carpenters). Their stuff is really nice, beautiful, on the border between art, design and architecture. But I can't help wondering how artists like that can work under strict censorship from the state. Is what we see just a faint shadow of what they would produce under other circumstances. There is however a lot of bridges, crumblings walls, even some watchtowers among their drawings and installations. And then, there's this drawing, Floatable Pool.



I believe it must be inspired by Rem Koolhaas' swimming pool, described in Delirious New York, powered by Soviet dissidents and constructed to escape to New York. With the cruel twist to the story that, for some reason which I don't remember at the moment, New York is not so alluring when they finally arrive. So they turn the pool around and head back.



Enjoy the weekend.