Born in Havana in 1986, Alfredo Sarabia is the son of Cuban photographer Alfredo Sarabia (1951–1992). A graduate of the Academia San Alejandro in Cuba and the Higher Institute of Art in Havana, he took part in a number of group exhibitions at the Ludwig de Cuba Foundation.
The Fototeca de Cuba gave him a solo show in 2009. Despite his youth, Alfredo Sarabia’s work is driven by anxiety and a need to plumb his identity and his uncertain future. One of his series – still in progress – is a meditation on the omnipresence in Cuba of the bust of José Martí: writer, theoretician and founder in 1891 of the
Cuban Revolutionary Party, Martí enjoys national hero status as one of the fathers of Cuban independence. Busts made of plaster, concrete and white plastic can be seen all over the island, from primary schools to Parliament, from village centres to town squares. Their condition, however, is deteriorating, and faced with the ravages of time, Sarabia has set himself the task of drawing up a black and white compilation, a kind of endless inventory.
His most striking series – the one in which he challenges himself most directly – is the one on display here. Keeping a delicate balance as he walks along the wall of the Colón cemetery in Havana – the largest in all Latin America – he simultaneously photographs the domain of the dead and the living city around it. A man drags a cross through the cemetery while in the street another man talks on the phone. And we follow Sarabia’s progress thanks to his shadow, which he catches on each side of the wall, like a tightrope walker in danger of falling.
Christian Caujolle, curator
Text from the catalogue-book “Photoquai”, co-edited by Musée du Quai Branly- Actes-Sud
