Ricardo Brey

This book can be seen as and independent editorial project that resume the core of Ricardo Brey's most recent body of works Adrift (2014-ongoing) The publication, developed as a separate undertaking reflects as well on the core of the overall aspiration of Ricardo Brey for his exhibitions in Museum De Domijnen in Sittard, the Netherlands (10 February - 10 June 2019) and Gerhard-Marcks Haus, Bremen, Germany (date tbc, 2019). While it is not an artist book in the traditional sense, it is definitively a project by an artist. The aim of the publication is to create a sense of the artistic space that Brey wants to offer, with a polyphony of voices and an immersive sphere in which a quality of behavior is of prime importance. It focusses strongly on his most recent body of works, Adrift.Ricardo Brey was born in Havana, Cuba in 1955 and has lived and worked in Ghent, Belgium since 1990. From the late 1970s onward, Brey's practice, which spans drawing, sculpture, and installation, has focused on his research into the origins of humanity and humankind's place in the world.A child during the Cuban Revolution, Brey was educated at the Escuela de Artes Plásticas San Alejandro (1970-1974) and the Escuela Nacional de Arte in Havana (1974-1978), at the time the best art school in Cuba. After graduating, he joined a dynamic artistic scene in Havana that included Cuban and international artists who were committed to advancing artistic practice in Cuba. Brey worked briefly as an illustrator and graphic designer before exhibiting in the landmark 1981 group show Volumen I at the Centro de Arte Internacional in Havana. In the 1970s and 1980s he became an active member of the group Volumen I, today synonym for the emergence of a new generation of avant-garde artists in Cuba after the revolution of 1959. The invitation to participate in Documenta IX in Kassel was the starting point for Brey to move to Belgium, were he lives since 1990.