Los Carpinteros

"LOS CARPINTEROS"; MARCO ANTONIO CASTILLO VALDÉS (Camagüey, Cuba, 1971) and DAGOBERTO RODRÍGUEZ SÁNCHEZ (Caibarién, Cuba, 1969).
"Sandals", 2004.
Cast rubber sculpture (pair of flip-flops).
With stamp on the back: "Multiple Flip Flops by Los Carpinteros for the Monogragh commisioned by Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary".
Special edition produced by the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid.
The first edition of 60 copies was produced by Graphicstudio/USF.
Measurements: 28 x 25 cm (each).

The Cuban artist duo Los Carpinteros produced a pair of rubber sandals in a limited edition (60 copies) in 2004. They made it from a rapid prototype model to be cast in rubber. By producing a limited edition with the reproduction of embossed maps of Havana's neighborhoods on the soles, the artists adapted an ordinary mass-produced object into a personalized and poetized icon that speaks of place, identity and culture. "Sandalia" derives from a series of watercolor drawings of mapped sandals. The right sandal represents Old Havana, the left Vedado.

Fascinated by the intersection between art and everyday life, Los Carpinteros fuse architecture, design, drawing and sculpture in extravagant and unpredictable ways. Their carefully crafted constructions advance a humorous visual language of contradiction and transformation, such as utilitarian versus useless and form versus function. Their drawings and studies, which refer to technical drafts and blueprints, mock the early planning stages of artistic creation. Los Carpinteros adopted the name of their collective in 1994 to embrace the guild tradition of craftsmen and skilled laborers.

Marco Antonio Castillo Valdes and Dagoberto Rodriguez Sanchez formed the group Los Carpinteros, along with Alexandre Arrechea, who collaborated with them in the early days. Graduated from the Higher Institute of Art in Havana, their interest is focused on exploring, with sharpness and an acid sense of humor, the traditional notions of architecture, design, space and object-function, among others. Their work materializes, fundamentally, in sculptures, installations and watercolors. During their first years as a collective they worked in a cultural environment marked by the Cuban revolution and the recession on the island. This led them to use recycled materials, especially wood, working with artisanal techniques. Hence their artistic name, Los Carpinteros, which from a subversive sense alludes directly to the world of the artisan rather than the artist. A constant effort to break the frontier that separates art from the object or, even further, from the artifact. In 2003, Arrechea left the collective and Los Carpinteros continued their evolution up to the present day as a duo. Today, Castillo and Rodriguez are not subject to the restrictions or material limitations they suffered in their early days, so their work is enriched with a great versatility of techniques and disciplines. Their international projection is evidenced by the presence of their works in public and private collections such as the Centro Galego de Arte Contemporáneo (CGAC) in Santiago de Compostela, the Museo Extremeño e Iberoamericano de Arte Contemporáneo (MEIAC) in Badajoz, the TATE Gallery in London, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the MoMA in New York, the Daros Lationamericana Collection in Zurich, among others.