Eduardo Ponjuán González

He was born in Pinar del Río, lives and works in Havana, Cuba.

A painter who is one of the typical cases of early vocation. However, like many others, he came to the plastic arts by chance, a factor of singular influence in shaping his artistic thinking.
His works are found in the collections of the National Museum of Fine Arts in Havana and in the Wifredo Lam Contemporary Art Center as well as in the collections of Peter Ludwig Forum (Aachen, Germany); Jürgen Harten, Dusseldorf, and Nina Menocal, Mexico, D.F.

He studied at the Provincial School of Art, Pinar del Río, from 1970 to 1974, at the National School of Art, Havana from 1974 to 1978 and graduated from the Higher Institute of Art in Havana in 1983. Since then, he has had about thirty personal and collective exhibitions.

Personal Exhibitions
1983 Landscapes. Sala Talía, Havana.
1988 Reading 2 (with René Francisco) Provincial Center of Plastic Arts and Design, Havana.
1989 Melodramatic Artist (with René Francisco). Castillo de la Real Fuerza, Havana.
1992 Come and Give Me a Hand (with René Francisco). Art Center 12 and 23, Havana.
1993 Art and Comfort (with René Francisco). Nina Menocal Gallery, Mexico, D.F. [[1998|
1994 Flight (with René Francisco). I.F.A. Gallery, Berlin, Germany.
1995 Alternating Current (with René Francisco). Wifredo Lam Center, Havana.
1996 Call Malevich (with René Francisco). Künsthalle Düsseldorf and Künsthalle Lingen, Germany.
1997 Utopian territories. New art from Cuba (with René Francisco). OR Gallery, Vancouver, Canada.
1998 Look. Sala Saura, Diputación de Huesca, Spain.
1999 Profane Readings. Central Library of Medellín, Medellín, Colombia.

Collective Exhibitions
1988 It's Not Just What You See. Faculty of Philology, University of Havana, Havana.
1990 The Sculpted Object. Center for Development of the Visual Arts, Havana.
1991 Born in Cuba. Valencia, Venezuela.
1992 From There Out Cuba. Ludwig Forum, Aachen, Germany.
Avant-garde & Campaign. Stadtische Künsthalle, Düsseldorf, Germany.
The Prodigious Decade: Cuban Plastic Art of the Eighties. Museo del Chopo, Mexico, D.F.
Contemporary Cuban Art. Televisa Cultural Foundation, Contemporary Art Center, D.F., Mexico.
International Exhibition of Seville, Spain.
From another place. Benson Gallery, New York, United States.
1994 V Havana Biennial. Convent of Santa Clara, Havana.
1995 One of Each Kind. Ludwig Foundation of Cuba, National Center for Conservation, Restoration and Museology, Havana.
1995-1996 ARCO Fair, Madrid.
Inside/Outside. Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff, Alberta, Canada.
1997 VI Havana Biennial. Castillo del Morro, Havana.
1998 Fragments to Its Magnet. Casa de las Américas, Havana.
Box of Figures. Palacio del Segundo Cabo, Havana.
1999 VI International Painting Biennial. Cuenca, Ecuador.
ART PARIS Fair. Gaymu et Librandi Galerie, Carrousel du Louvre, Paris, France.
Malta Biennial.
II Iberoamerican Biennial of Lima, Peru.
2000 II Salon of Contemporary Cuban Art, Center for Development of the Visual Arts, Havana.
2001 The Multiple Mark. Center for Development of the Visual Arts, Havana.

Awards
1982-1985 First Prize of the Provincial Salon of Plastic Arts, Pinar del Río.
1986 Shared Prize of the City Salon, Provincial Center of Plastic Arts and Design, Havana.
1987 First Prize of the Salon of Award Winners, National Museum of Fine Arts, Havana.
1999 First Prize for Collage, Malta Biennial.
2013 National Prize for Plastic Arts

Collections
National Museum of Fine Arts, Havana.
Wifredo Lam Center, Havana.
Peter Ludwig Forum Collection, Aachen, Germany.
Private Collection of Jürgen Harten, Dusseldorf, Germany.
Private Collection of Nina Menocal, Mexico, D.F.

The Silent Keys of the Cuban (fragment)

By: Héctor Antón Castillo

(...) Eduardo Ponjuán González (Pinar del Río, 1956) is not another of those typical examples of precocious vocation. But as has happened to many, he came to art by chance. Although the fact that in his visual practice he did not give importance to chance is outlined as a first paradox. Over time, this casual outcome will be a factor of singular influence in shaping his plastic thinking. According to his closest accomplices, one of his youthful aspirations was to become a star boxer, an ambition that lasted until the day he received a strong impact on the chin at the hands of a featherweight stylist whose name he does not want to remember. Despite changing gloves and jacket for cardboard and brushes very soon, his passage through the world has not ceased to be a struggle. One only has to exchange a few words with him to sense how many obstacles he has had to dodge to fully enjoy the tragedy of knowledge. It seems that from perceiving that state close to unconsciousness that a knockout between the ropes causes, he wanted to know more and more, even though he soon convinced himself that it is impossible to abandon for even a moment the vast universe of human ignorance. (...)

Considered one of the most prominent figures of Cuban art of the eighties and a creator of our plastic arts, Eduardo Ponjuán is an artist with an incisive vision of reality. His paintings, drawings, sculptures and installations are the ways this author chooses to disturb the public with images.

His works present as characteristics the constant referentiality to fragments of everyday life and the context in which it develops. Loaded with philosophical, literary, artistic or historical data, his pieces refer to the environment from which they were extracted, but form a new imaginary full of meanings given by the artist. With this he provokes the appearance of questions that demonstrate his quality as a nonconformist artist.

With his creation, Ponjuán has attempted to rework the concept of painting and has tested our perception of beauty. He has made paintings that appear to be advertisements dialogue and coexist with objects extracted from the harshest reality.

In the eighties, this artist worked together with René Francisco. From the duo emerged works such as Productivism, To Die for the Fatherland is to Live, Suprematism, The Arrested, The Condemned, The Battery, Portrait of Peter Ludwig, Supply Palette, Cuban Aviation, Art and Comfort, The Flight and Malevich in the Plaza. In them the humor itself and subtle criticism of the conditions of the moment were evident. Among his known individual works, subsequent to those previously mentioned, are For Various Concepts; Sunken on the Horizon Line; Nearby; Yes but No; It's Not the Mind, It's Not Buddha, It's Nothing; The Fixed Idea; Handmade; The Twentieth Century; and Limbo.

Eduardo Ponjuán has participated in numerous collective and personal exhibitions since 1983. His pieces have been exhibited in countries such as Germany, Canada, Colombia, Ecuador, Spain, France, Mexico, Malta, Peru and Venezuela, among others. He has been present at recognized national and international events such as the Havana Biennials, the Second Salon of Contemporary Cuban Art (Havana), the Multiple Mark (Havana), the International Exhibition of Seville, the VI International Painting Biennial of Cuenca, the Malta Biennial, the II Iberoamerican Biennial of Lima, the ART PARIS Fair and the 54 Venice Biennial. Some of his works are part of the collections of the National Museum of Fine Arts in Havana, the Wifredo Lam Contemporary Art Center (Havana), as well as in the collections of Peter Ludwig Forum (Aachen, Germany), Jürgen Harten (Dusseldorf, Germany), and Nina Menocal (Mexico, D.F).