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Glenda León

Cada respiro [Every Breath]

Artist

Glenda León
Born in Havana in 1976

Title

Cada respiro [Every Breath]

Date

2003

Materials

Colour video, 3/10

Dimensions

Running time: 1 min 50 s

Duration

Running time: 1 min 50 s

Credits

Purchase, Guy de Repentigny Fund, inv. 2010.125

Collection

International Contemporary Art

The multidisciplinary artist Glenda León transposes our seemingly ordinary reality into a site of poetic coincidences and imaginary and intimate moments. She owes her success to her discerning observation of the human condition. In Cada respire, the artist is stretched out on the grass by the seaside. As the camera gradually moves away from her, a flower detaches itself from the pattern of her dress and grows up to the rhythm of her breathing. Drawing inspiration from Flavio Garciandia’s masterpiece All You Need is Love (1975) – itself a reminder of Fidel Castro’s ban against playing Beatles’ music on the island – León pays tribute here to a generation of artists who had the courage to take action, but she empties this reference of its political content in order to praise its formal beauty; we all breathe the same air.

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