ORDO AMORIS CABINET
(Francis Acea & Diango Hernandez)
4 May – 30 June 2001
Presentation of the extended installation: 1 June, after 7.30 p.m.

Since 1994 the two artists of ORDO AMORIS CABINET from Havana, Cuba have been examining the 'Culture of the Provisional' using found and constructed everyday objects as well as installations composed of these items. In their work elements of sociology, ethnology and museum work mix with the methods of the fine arts.

One of the original sources of their work was the economic crisis and the political special position of their native country. Another was their training as designers: in their version of contemporary archaeology, design is always described as a social experience. A well-known work by OAC from the last few years is "Taxi-Limosina" (1998), a 10-metre long 'Stretch Limousine' made of three Lada cars welded together, loaded with luggage.

More recent works by OAC (e.g. their antenna installation at the Havana Biennial, 2000,) form a more universal link with references to the global, networked and rapidly accelerating society. Antennae, on the one hand, represent the specific Cuban isolation, on the other they are symbols of every form of networking: OAC insist on the necessity of communication between different systems. Using identical dual productions in their current projects they take a critical look at the promise of equality through digitalisation and biotechnology, which – as already in communist Cuba – always means renouncing the individuality propounded in the consumption-oriented culture in the West.

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