In Somos Libres! (1981), the Dutch-Colombian artist Miguel-Ángel Cárdenas (1934-2015) explores the question of how truly free queer people really are. After leaving the repressive context of Latin America in search of freedom and hoping to find a “gay paradise” in Europe, Cárdenas discovers that the tolerant cities of Barcelona and Amsterdam do not offer the liberation he expected. Instead of a utopian ideal, he encounters a much more complex and less emancipating reality.

 

Through theatrical and symbolic scenes, Somos Libres!? blends critique and irony with humor and personal reflection, examining the complexities of freedom for queer people and questioning the expectations of liberation.

 

After his arrival in Amsterdam, Cárdenas quickly became one of the pioneers of the Dutch performance and video art. In 1972, he co-founded the In-Out Center, an artist-run space in Amsterdam that played an important role in the Dutch artscene of the early 1970’s.

 

The presentation takes place in dialogue with Mikolaj Sobczak’s soloexhibiton Prophet Machine.

 

Nice to know: Somos Libres!? was also featured in Warming Up, ROZENSTRAAT’s opening exhibition in 2017, which was organized in close collaboration with Corinne Groot and Rob van de Ven, and focused on the work of Cárdenas.

This presentation has been made possible in collaboration with LIMA.

About the artist

Miguel-Ángel Cárdenas’s work engages with the concept of human warmth in its many forms. From social, cultural, and culinary warmth to explicit erotic and sexual heat, his art sought to activate the senses. Through his work, he aimed to transform the (Dutch) rational and cold culture into a warm, tropical (Colombian) spirit. His practice of heating often involved various techniques that reappear throughout his oeuvre: thermal heat, warmth provided by food, alcoholic drinks, bodily contact, and the use of pornographic texts and sexual imagery.

 

Miguel-Ángel Cárdenas’s work was born in El Espinal, Colombia, in 1934 and passed away in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, in 2015. In Bogota he studied at the Universidad Nacional (1952-1953) and the Academia de Bellas Artes Bogota (1955-1957). He continued his studies at  the Escuela de Artes Gráficas in Barcelona (1962). Cardenas later moved to the Netherlands, where he lived for the remainder of his life and adopted the artist name Michel Cardena.

 

His work is held in the collections of major institutions including the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Guggenheim Museum, New York, Tate Modern, London, Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York.