Reynier Leyva Novo Cuba, b. 1983
45 x 33 x 33 cm
Further images
Novo's material here is the most reproduced object in Cuba's civic landscape: the José Martí bust modeled by Juan José Sicre, cast in quantity and installed in nearly every school, state workplace, park, and public building on the island. Working from a cast pulled from the surviving original molds, the artist set the bust before a fixed camera in a Havana gallery and painted it, roughly ten coats a day for a month, until 382 layers of gesso had accumulated. Every layer was photographed. The 382 exposures run as a stop-motion sequence that compresses the month into a continuous act of effacement, the features thickening, softening, and finally sealing over, leaving a head still recognizably Martí in profile but drained of face.
The procedure is borrowed rather than invented. Cuban institutions repaint their Martí busts white for each anniversary of his birth and of the Revolution, so the objects accumulate their own erasure at a rate of a coat or two a year as an act of maintenance and reverence. Novo, watching this as a child, asked what a century of upkeep would leave behind, and the work is the answer given at speed: what the state does across a hundred years, done in thirty days. The result is a portrait of a national hero buried under the labor of honoring him, and a fairly exact object lesson in how veneration operates as suppression.
The argument extends past the object. Martí is the figure through which the Cuban state authorizes itself, his writing lifted from context and rebuilt into ideological instrument, so the accreted white surface reads as a physical record of that use: the thinker preserved as a shape and voided as a mind. The title supplied the name of Novo's final exhibition in Cuba, at El Apartamento in Havana in 2020, shortly before he relocated to Houston. The bust has since been shown against the Martí of Juan Francisco Elso's Por América at El Museo del Barrio, one 1980s Martí facing one from 2020, and the monumental restatement of the work, milled from a 3D scan of the painted bust, took the Pommery Prize at the Armory Show's Platform section in 2022.
Some read Castro's Martí as manufactured, others as a real inheritance from a genuine anti-imperialist strand. What is not in dispute is that both governments have repainted him, and that the man himself is no longer visible under it. Novo's contribution is to make that literal.
Exhibitions
“Lo que es, es lo que ha sido: Capítulo 1. Ni mármol ni suspiros (Los fundamentos de la nación),” El Apartamento, Havana, Cuba, December 2020–March 2021.
“Art Miami 2021,” Pan American Art Projects, Booth AM306, One Miami Herald Plaza, Miami, Florida, United States, November 30–December 5, 2021.
“The Armory Show 2022,” Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino, Booth 228, Javits Center, New York, New York, United States, September 9–11, 2022.
“Reynier Leyva Novo: Methuselah,” El Museo del Barrio, New York, New York, United States, October 27, 2022–March 26, 2023.
“White Layers,” Pan American Art Projects, Miami, Florida, United States, September 23–November 4, 2023.
“Juan Francisco Elso: Por América,” Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, North Miami, Florida, United States, November 1, 2023–March 17, 2024.
What it is, What it has been, 2020–2022
Robot-carved Styrofoam/polyfoam generated from a digital 3D scan, with painted Aqua-Resin and fiberglass shell
Approximately 12ft high
“Monumental Change,” Platform, The Armory Show, presented by El Apartamento, Javits Center, New York, New York, United States, September 9–11, 2022.
“What it is, What it has been” (monumental installation), Phoenix Art Museum, Katz Wing, Phoenix, Arizona, United States, presented concurrently with “Juan Francisco Elso: Por América” and “Lo que es, es lo que ha sido / What It Is, Is What Has Been,” May 6–September 17, 2023.
“Reynier Leyva Novo: What it is, What it has been,” POST Houston, Skylawn, Houston, Texas, United States, September 16, 2023–May 16, 2024.
Literature
Camacho, Jorge, “José Martí, su (des)mitificación en el arte cubano contemporáneo,” Hispanic Studies Review, vol. 10, no. 1, June 2026, pp. 104–125. Illustrated p. 116, fig. 7; discussed pp. 116–119. Discusses the editioned work and monumental version.
Piniella Grillet, Isabel J., “Sopesar la historia: Materialidad y memoria colectiva en el culto a José Martí,” Aletheia, vol. 16, no. 30, June–November 2025, e210. Illustrated, figs. 1–4; extensive discussion of the editioned work and monumental version.
Piniella Grillet, Isabel J., “(Ab)usos de la memoria: ¿Héroes de Cuba y Venezuela?,” Epistemological Others, Languages, Literatures, Exchanges and Societies Journal, no. 13, November 2023, pp. 1–8. Discusses the editioned work.
Juan Francisco Elso: Essays on América / Ensayos sobre América, Phoenix Art Museum and El Museo del Barrio, 2023, p. 371, illustrated.
White Layers: A Collective Exhibition, exhibition dossier, Pan American Art Projects, Miami, 2023, p. 9, illustrated.
Migration Stories: Arizona Collects Cuban Art: Focus Page Checklist and Extended Labels, Phoenix Art Museum, March 27, 2023, pp. 1–2. Discusses the monumental version.
Ariel, Edgar, “Expurgo de la memoria. Glosas a ‘Lo que es, es lo que ha sido’, de Reynier Leyva Novo,” Rialta Magazine, June 8, 2022. Illustrated; extensive critical discussion of the editioned work and complete exhibition project.
Llópiz-Casal, Julio, “El hombre de las dos patrias: José Martí y el encanto en las maneras de verle,” Espacio Laical, nos. 1–2, 2021, pp. 36–40. Illustrated and discussed pp. 39–40.
Moya, Daleysi, “Capítulo 1. Ni mármol ni suspiros (Los fundamentos de la nación),” El Apartamento, Havana, December 2020. Online curatorial text; illustrated.
Press
Llópiz-Casal, Julio, “Reynier Leyva Novo o el arte para desafiar las estructuras de poder,” YucaByte, May 15, 2024. Interview; illustrated with the editioned work.
Markowitz, Douglas, “MoCA North Miami Measures a Major Cuban Artist’s Impact,” Artburst Miami, November 13, 2023. Discusses the editioned work in Juan Francisco Elso: Por América.
Pohl, Marie, “Juan Francisco Elso: Por América,” Studio International, March 13, 2023. Editioned work illustrated and discussed.
Santana, Andrés Isaac, “DOS en UNO,” Plataforma de Arte Contemporáneo (PAC), January 12, 2023. Includes and republishes Edgar Ariel’s critical essay on the work; illustrated.
Abdessamad, Farah, “Double Fair Report: The Armory Show and Art on Paper Pack a Punch in 2022,” Observer, September 11, 2022. Illustrated; discusses the small and monumental formats.
Gural, Natasha, “Rare Finds by Asian, Black, Indigenous, and Latinx Artists at the Armory Show,” Forbes, September 11, 2022. Illustrated; discusses the monumental version and Pommery Prize.
Cassady, Daniel, “The Armory Show, ‘New York’s Art Fair,’ Is an Increasingly Global Juggernaut,” The Art Newspaper, September 9, 2022. Illustrated; discusses the monumental version and Pommery Prize.
Harpaz, Beth, “The Armory Show Shocked the Art World in 1913. Here’s What to Expect This Year,” The Forward, September 9, 2022. Discusses the monumental version and Pommery Prize.
Gaskin, Sam, “Armory Show to Exhibit Monumental Works That Question Monuments,” Ocula Magazine, July 21, 2022. Preview of the monumental presentation in The Armory Show’s Platform section.
Ariel, Edgar, “The Parable of an Ideal: An Interview with Reynier Leyva Novo,” No Country Magazine, April 7, 2021. Illustrated interview concerning the exhibition, Sicre’s Martí and the artist’s treatment of national heroes.
Escobar, Luz, “‘En la lucha por la libertad los mambises tenían machetes, nosotros teléfonos y pinceles’,” 14ymedio, April 5, 2021. Interview conducted during the El Apartamento exhibition.
Ley MA, “‘Lo que es, es lo que ha sido’: Reynier Leyva Novo propone repensar la figura del héroe en Cuba,” Diario de Cuba, March 24, 2021. Illustrated review and discussion of the editioned work.
Bravo Guerra, Abram, “Claves para el discurso de nación,” Artcrónica, January 10, 2021. Illustrated review of the El Apartamento presentation.
Ariel, Edgar, “‘Lo que es, es lo que ha sido’: Reynier Leyva Novo expone en El Apartamento,” Rialta, December 27, 2020. Illustrated exhibition review and detailed discussion of the editioned work.
Project Publications
“Reynier Leyva Novo: What It Is, What It Has Been,” POST Houston, 2023. Extensive illustrated publication covering the editioned work, production process and monumental version.
“Lo que es, es lo que ha sido / What It Is, Is What Has Been,” Phoenix Art Museum, 2023. Discusses the monumental version and its relationship to the museum exhibition.
Taboada, Claudia, and Ross Karlan, “White Layers,” Pan American Art Projects, Miami, 2023. Curatorial text discussing the editioned work.
“Reynier Leyva Novo at POST Houston,” Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino / Project High Art, October 6, 2023. Illustrated discussion of the monumental version.