Tonel
b. in Havana, Cuba, 1958. lives and works in Cuba and Canada.
In addition to being an art historian and the author of indispensable texts on contemporary Cuban art, Tonel has contributed to a revival of thought-provoking conceptual humour in Cuban art. Tonel’s creations draw inspiration from the countercultural comics of the 1960s, including the work of R. Crumb; 1970s conceptual art, as well as from the international “new image” art of the 1980s. His early formation as an artist included regular publication of his drawings and cartoons, notably in DDT, a bi-weekly humour magazine published in Cuba in the 1970s. His works address a viewer who can accept complicity in Tonel’s caustic vision of humanity, his detailed exploration of bodily functions, and his anti-romantic concept of sexuality and sentiment: Sex and the City minus the credit cards, sweating in the tropical heat.
In Tonel’s works the human (Cuban) body seems to become conscious of its own odors and fluids, with a compelling sensory intensity. Unlike some of his compatriots, Tonel is not interested in deconstructing historical narratives. He is a visceral explorer who ventures into territories that are taboo in art, setting his gaze on inconsequential, everyday moments.
Unlike some contemporary artists, who freeze instants of their lives by incorporating real objects into their works, Tonel employs the same old-fashioned tool used by the archaic artists of Lascaux and Altamira: the simplicity of line. It is an essential trace that defines the boundaries, the limitations, of the paper, and projects itself into three-dimensional space through sketches of sculptures and installations. In this fashion, Tonel demonstrates the integrity and complexity of his conceptual thought, an inexhaustible well from which he “extracts” his artworks, which are then fleshed out in various formats as he finds technical solutions that satisfy him.
Tonel (Antonio Eligio Fernández) graduated with a degree (Licenciatura) in Art History from the Facultad de Artes y Letras, The University of Havana, Cuba in 1982.
His latest solo exhibition titled The Journey (Talking Walls) opened on December, 2012 at Factoría Habana Center for Contemporary Art, in Havana, Cuba. His most recent one-person shows include Nothing to Learn, at Galería Habana, Havana (2010); The Parts Of Me That Sweat The Most When I Get Nervous, Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery in collaboration with Walter C. Koerner Library, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada; Cosmos. Feeling the pull of gravity, Chelsea Gallery, Miami, U.S.A. (2009); and Some information is now available, Teck Gallery, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada.
In recent years he has contributed to the following group shows: The Berlin Biennale (2014), La perversión de lo clásico: anarquía de los relatos, Cuban Pavilion, 55th Venice Biennial, Venice, Italy (2013); Las metáforas del cambio, Factoría Habana, Havana, Cuba (2012); The End of Money, Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam, The Netherlands (2011); Story Book / Story Board (Libro de cuentos), Sala Naos, Santander, Spain (2010), and Cuba. Art and History from 1868 to today, Groninger Museum, Groningen, The Netherlands (2009) and Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Canada (2008).
He has taught at the San Francisco Art Institute (Community Education Program, 2001) and was a visiting artist and lecturer at the Center for Latin American Studies and at the Department of Art and Art History, Stanford University (2001-03).
Among his projects as a curator, in 1990 he co-curated Kuba o.k. at the Stadtische Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Germany. In 2004 he co-curated Rogue Nations. Cuban and Chinese Artists at MACLA, San Jose, California. He is currently a co-curator of an exhibition of contemporary art from Havana that will open at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery on January 2014.
His articles and essays on Cuban and Latin American contemporary art have been published regularly in catalogues, magazines and books in Cuba and abroad, and have been translated into English, German, Dutch, Portuguese and French.
His artworks have been collected by Havana's Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes; Museo de Arte Moderno La Tertulia, Cali, Colombia; Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, Aachen, Germany; Van Reekum Museum, Apeldoorn, The Netherlands; Daros Collection, Zurich, Switzerland; University of Northumbria at Newcastle, Department of Fine Arts, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK; Lehigh University Art Galleries, Bethlehem, U.S.A.; Arizona State University Museum, Tempe, U.S.A.; Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale, U.S.A.; Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries, U.S.A; Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, U.S.A. among other institutions.
In 2003 Tonel received the Cuban Artists Fund Award (Cuban Artists Fund, New York, U.S.A.). He is the recipient of a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship in the Humanities (1997-98) with residency at The University of Texas, Austin, and a John S. Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship for painting and installation art (1995). Also in 1995 he was an Artist in Residence at West Walls Studios and Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery, Carlisle, Cumbria, U.K. In 1992 he was an Artist in Residence at the Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, Aachen, Germany. He was awarded the prize for art criticism by the Cuban Section of the International Art Critics Association (AICA) in 1988. He received the Rafael Blanco Honorary Mention in Drawing at the First Havana Biennial (1984).
Exhibitions @ Back Gallery Project
Robert Kleyn | Manuel Piña | Tonel | Naufragio (2016)
In addition to being an art historian and the author of indispensable texts on contemporary Cuban art, Tonel has contributed to a revival of thought-provoking conceptual humour in Cuban art. Tonel’s creations draw inspiration from the countercultural comics of the 1960s, including the work of R. Crumb; 1970s conceptual art, as well as from the international “new image” art of the 1980s. His early formation as an artist included regular publication of his drawings and cartoons, notably in DDT, a bi-weekly humour magazine published in Cuba in the 1970s. His works address a viewer who can accept complicity in Tonel’s caustic vision of humanity, his detailed exploration of bodily functions, and his anti-romantic concept of sexuality and sentiment: Sex and the City minus the credit cards, sweating in the tropical heat.
In Tonel’s works the human (Cuban) body seems to become conscious of its own odors and fluids, with a compelling sensory intensity. Unlike some of his compatriots, Tonel is not interested in deconstructing historical narratives. He is a visceral explorer who ventures into territories that are taboo in art, setting his gaze on inconsequential, everyday moments.
Unlike some contemporary artists, who freeze instants of their lives by incorporating real objects into their works, Tonel employs the same old-fashioned tool used by the archaic artists of Lascaux and Altamira: the simplicity of line. It is an essential trace that defines the boundaries, the limitations, of the paper, and projects itself into three-dimensional space through sketches of sculptures and installations. In this fashion, Tonel demonstrates the integrity and complexity of his conceptual thought, an inexhaustible well from which he “extracts” his artworks, which are then fleshed out in various formats as he finds technical solutions that satisfy him.
Tonel (Antonio Eligio Fernández) graduated with a degree (Licenciatura) in Art History from the Facultad de Artes y Letras, The University of Havana, Cuba in 1982.
His latest solo exhibition titled The Journey (Talking Walls) opened on December, 2012 at Factoría Habana Center for Contemporary Art, in Havana, Cuba. His most recent one-person shows include Nothing to Learn, at Galería Habana, Havana (2010); The Parts Of Me That Sweat The Most When I Get Nervous, Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery in collaboration with Walter C. Koerner Library, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada; Cosmos. Feeling the pull of gravity, Chelsea Gallery, Miami, U.S.A. (2009); and Some information is now available, Teck Gallery, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada.
In recent years he has contributed to the following group shows: The Berlin Biennale (2014), La perversión de lo clásico: anarquía de los relatos, Cuban Pavilion, 55th Venice Biennial, Venice, Italy (2013); Las metáforas del cambio, Factoría Habana, Havana, Cuba (2012); The End of Money, Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam, The Netherlands (2011); Story Book / Story Board (Libro de cuentos), Sala Naos, Santander, Spain (2010), and Cuba. Art and History from 1868 to today, Groninger Museum, Groningen, The Netherlands (2009) and Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Canada (2008).
He has taught at the San Francisco Art Institute (Community Education Program, 2001) and was a visiting artist and lecturer at the Center for Latin American Studies and at the Department of Art and Art History, Stanford University (2001-03).
Among his projects as a curator, in 1990 he co-curated Kuba o.k. at the Stadtische Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Germany. In 2004 he co-curated Rogue Nations. Cuban and Chinese Artists at MACLA, San Jose, California. He is currently a co-curator of an exhibition of contemporary art from Havana that will open at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery on January 2014.
His articles and essays on Cuban and Latin American contemporary art have been published regularly in catalogues, magazines and books in Cuba and abroad, and have been translated into English, German, Dutch, Portuguese and French.
His artworks have been collected by Havana's Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes; Museo de Arte Moderno La Tertulia, Cali, Colombia; Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, Aachen, Germany; Van Reekum Museum, Apeldoorn, The Netherlands; Daros Collection, Zurich, Switzerland; University of Northumbria at Newcastle, Department of Fine Arts, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK; Lehigh University Art Galleries, Bethlehem, U.S.A.; Arizona State University Museum, Tempe, U.S.A.; Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale, U.S.A.; Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries, U.S.A; Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, U.S.A. among other institutions.
In 2003 Tonel received the Cuban Artists Fund Award (Cuban Artists Fund, New York, U.S.A.). He is the recipient of a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship in the Humanities (1997-98) with residency at The University of Texas, Austin, and a John S. Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship for painting and installation art (1995). Also in 1995 he was an Artist in Residence at West Walls Studios and Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery, Carlisle, Cumbria, U.K. In 1992 he was an Artist in Residence at the Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, Aachen, Germany. He was awarded the prize for art criticism by the Cuban Section of the International Art Critics Association (AICA) in 1988. He received the Rafael Blanco Honorary Mention in Drawing at the First Havana Biennial (1984).
Exhibitions @ Back Gallery Project
Robert Kleyn | Manuel Piña | Tonel | Naufragio (2016)
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