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Mabel Poblet: What does all the blue in the sea have that the sky doesn’t?
Solo Show, curated by Claudia Taboada
March 29 - June 16, 2024
Design District
21 NE 39th Street, Miami, FL 33137
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What does all the blue in the sea have that the sky doesn’t? becomes a “mirror-exhibition” in which the images of all emigrants are reflected. It contemplates the parallels between their physical and mental journey. In the middle of the ocean, everything becomes confusing, immeasurable, and incomprehensible.
What Does All the Blue in the Sea Have that the Sky Doesn’t? is a solo exhibition by Mabel Poblet, a Cuban artist who lives and works between Havana, Miami, and Madrid. The exhibition includes a large volume of works previously exhibited in the show Where the Oceans Meet, held by the artist at Chanel Nexus Hall, an art center in Tokyo, Japan, focused on showcasing contemporary photography.
(...) Deliriums overshadow reason, and misfortune becomes a beautiful and yearned path. The color blue, with its origin in the scattering of light in the atmosphere and its omnipresent prominence in the sea, becomes a powerful symbol of the journeys made across vast bodies of water in search of a new home. For Poblet, whose focus has been migration presented from the perspective of beauty, the blue of the sea represents both the challenges and hopes of the eternal pursuit of dreams and goals. This exhibition will feature works from the series My Autumn, Homeland, and Travel Diary, as well as the video installation “Sublimation” from the series Buoyancy.Mabel Poblet was born in Cienfuegos, Cuba in 1986 and graduated from the National Academy of Fine Arts “San Alejandro” and the University of Art (Instituto Superior de Arte). She apprenticed in a workshop started by Cuban installation artist Tania Bruguera, an opportunity that brought her together with many of the best-known Cuban artists of the day. Since then, Poblet has participated in more than 20 personal exhibitions and over 100 group exhibitions. Poblet’s works are a close examination of her own life – who she is as a Latina growing up in Castro’s Cuba, where she came from, and her relationship to Cuban culture overall.
Mabel Poblet’s work can be seen in public collections worldwide, such as the Contemporary Art Museum of Tampa (FL), the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation in Miami (FL), the Donald Rubin Collections (NY), the Gilbert Brownstone Foundation (France), MOLAA (LA), and the Foundation Ministry of Nomadas (UK). She represented Cuba at the Cuban Pavilion at the 2017 Venice Biennale and was honored with the Noemi Award of the Day at the Brownstone Foundation fellowship in Paris (2014).
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From the Homeland Series
ISLAS, 2022Photograph prints on polystyrene mirror placed on nylon threads
Variable Dimensions
Edition of 1 -
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Migration is seen from the perspective of the subject, the one who leaves, the one who stays, by analysing their psychology, their longings, expectations and frustrations.
In the series Homeland, migration - a theme already tackled in previous series of works - is not approached from an individual point of view but, as a collective phenomenon. It reflects on the yearning of individuals for their origins, their countries but also on their national identity and political consciousness. Their concept of homeland is different from their ancestors as the context in which it has developed is different.
The sea - a curse to some and a salvation to others - is an essential element of this series. Its use through fragmented images, works as a metaphor for the fragility and difficulties we can encounter while moving from one place to another. Furthermore, the use of mirror elements takes the viewers on a utopian trip stimulating self-discovery and self-reflection. Viewers are constantly tempted to disclose their own history. memories and experiences while they see themselves reflected in the artist's work. -
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Mabel Poblet
BLOSSOM, 2022Photographic collage on PVC, hand-pinned photograph fragments
Diam 78 3/4 in
Diam 200 cm -
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