Jose Manuel Fors Cuba, b. 1956
175.3 x 66 x 7.6 cm
In "Palimpsesto," José Manuel Fors transforms discarded echoes of Cuba's turbulent history into a vertical excavation of time—stacking brittle shards of outdated manuscripts, faded periodicals, architectural schematics, torn book passages, handwritten correspondences, and sepia-toned snapshots into a precarious tower of recollection. This deliberate compression mimics the relentless overwriting of personal and national narratives, where suppressed voices bleed through the strata, challenging viewers to peel back the accretions and confront the selective fragility of what endures versus what fades.
Exhibitions
"Palimpsesto," Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de Cuba (Edificio de Arte Cubano, Sala temporal, 3er nivel), Havana, December 22, 2017 – February 2018 (Large-scale solo exhibition prepared by the museum to honor the artist as Premio Nacional de Artes Plásticas 2016. It featured a monumental floor installation of approximately 1.4 cubic meters of accumulated and layered book pages, old manuscripts, and printed materials, together with related works such as “Las prensas.”)
"Beyond Paper Boundaries," Pan American Art Projects, Miami, February–March 2020 (Featured Palimpsesto, 2019, a mixed-media assemblage of book-page strips.)
"Candies: Homage to Felix Gonzalez-Torres," Pan American Art Projects, Miami, 2019 (Included multiple works from the Palimpsesto series, including 2019 assemblages.)
"Archipiélagos Tangentes," 2023 (Featured Palimpsesto I, Palimpsesto II, and Palimpsesto III, 2023, old manuscript and book-paper assemblages.)
Literature
"José Manuel Fors" (décimo volumen, Colección Espiral), ArteCubano Ediciones, Havana, 2017 (Monograph/catalog published on the occasion of the 2017 solo exhibition at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes.)
"Una pica en Flandes: A propósito de la exposición “Palimpsestos” de José Manuel Fors en el Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, La Habana," by Corina Matamoros Tuma, Arquitectura y Urbanismo, vol. XXXVIII, no. 3, septiembre-diciembre 2017 : pages 96-99