Yoan Capote
Cuban, 1977-
Abstinencia (Disentir), 2022
Bronze
SBMA Museum purchase with funds provided by Kandy Budgor; Luria/Budgor Family Foundation
Yoan Capote. Photo: Leandro Feal.
"When I was a student, it was very difficult for me to understand that I had to limit myself to working in a single medium. I liked to experiment with all the different materials and techniques. This remains the case today. I like to work on different types of work at the same time. What gives unity to my work are the themes and content. When I conceive a work, the ideas or meanings are what suggest which material or technique to use." - Yoan Capote
COMMENTS
In Abstinencia (Disentir) (2022), Cuban artist Yoan Capote explores the profound, often stifling limitations placed on self-expression within society. The sculpture, a compelling assemblage of cast bronze hands arranged to spell out the word “Disentir” (“Dissent”) in deaf-mute sign language, captures the universal yearning to speak out against oppression. This silent proclamation of resistance is a continuation of Capote’s Abstinencia series, where he uses physical silence to symbolise social and political silencing. Through these hands, Capote confronts viewers with the ironies and restrictions imposed on individuals in their pursuit of truth and justice, emphasising the limitations on personal and political agency that endure in both visible and invisible forms.
The Abstinencia series, to which this piece belongs, represents various themes critical to the contemporary human experience, with words like “Libertad” (Liberty), “Democracia” (Democracy), and “Religión” (Religion) appearing in previous works. Each word selected by Capote speaks to the human quest for freedom, autonomy, and voice in the face of systemic barriers. The choice of “Disentir” for this piece is significant; while the word embodies the fundamental right to voice divergent opinions, the hand gestures in sign language communicate in silence, underscoring the paradox of muted protest in an environment hostile to dissent. Capote’s cast hands, rendered in an expressive realism, are both powerful and eerily restrained, evoking the dignity and frustration of those who remain voiceless in the face of oppression.
Capote’s exploration of language as both a tool for and a restriction on communication dates back to Abstinencia (Politica) (2011), an earlier work that examined the suppressed avenues for political expression in Cuba. By using deaf-mute sign language in his work, Capote illuminates the constraints of state control over speech and thought, addressing the very real limitations on human rights that prevail in his home country and many parts of the world. Each cast hand in Disentir represents not only an individual who remains anonymous and unheard but a universal struggle against the silence imposed on marginalised communities. The artist’s careful attention to detail in each hand’s unique form reinforces this message, allowing viewers to imagine the identities and experiences behind each gesture and to feel the weight of collective frustration.
One of Cuba’s most innovative artists, Capote has built a reputation for work that delves deeply into the human experience, especially themes of freedom, migration, and expression. His sign-language works are often displayed with an accompanying code that enables viewers to decode the intended word, bridging the gap between silence and understanding, secrecy and revelation. In doing so, Capote engages the audience in an active process of discovery and empathy, inviting them to decode the silent messages and feel the yearning for a voice that resonates through his cast figures. His 2014 work Abstinencia (Libertad), for instance, reflects on the theme of liberty through the hands of anonymous migrant workers spelling out “Libertad.” Conceived after a visit to New York City’s Statue of Liberty, this piece speaks to the enduring struggles faced by migrants seeking freedom and agency – a stark reminder of the complex relationship between promised freedoms and lived realities.
Through Abstinencia (Disentir), Capote once again draws viewers into a profound meditation on societal constraints and human resilience. Like much of his work, this sculpture balances the beauty and power of silent expression with the tragic irony of enforced silence. Capote’s use of sign language as a visual and conceptual medium underscores his belief in the universal desire for self-expression, even when faced with silencing forces. Abstinencia (Disentir) stands as a testament to the resilience of the human spirit, transforming the silent gestures of anonymous hands into a powerful statement of defiance, and making an unspoken plea for a world in which the right to dissent is as natural and unrestricted as the right to speak.
Yoan Capote is a Cuban artist, living in Cuba and Spain with an international reputation and held by a number of American museums, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Pérez Art Museum of Miami; and North Carolina Museum of Art. He represented Cuba in the 2011 Venice Biennale. The son of a mechanic, he was trained exclusively within the Cuban system, studying at the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana. He obtained permission to travel abroad in 2002 to attend an artist residency at the Vermont Studio Center. This visit was transformative for his art. He met the sculptor Louise Bourgeois, attending her famed salons at her home in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood. He never intended to return to Cuba with its political repression and dire economic circumstances, including food shortages, because of the demise of the Soviet Union, which had given extensive aid to Cuba. He changed his mind, however. “I went back to Cuba with another view of my role in the society. I tried to transform and take advantage of what had been very bad for me.”
Capote’s oeuvre and this artwork in particular reflect on the curious paradoxes of what it means to produce art about censorship and political repression in a Communist dictatorship. These hands use sign language to spell out the Spanish verb “desintir,” which means to “dissent” or “disagree,” and this sculpture comes from a series of bronzes called Abstinencia, which is translated variously as “abstinence” but in other contexts as “fasting” or “withdrawal.” In other works in this series, words like “política” and “democracia” are spelled out with bronze hands. Of course, none of these words apply to Cuba with its political repression, and the artist himself doubts that these artworks’ dissatisfaction with the current regime is even legible to people living in Cuba, whom he says do not understand what democracy or dissent might look like.
This is a sculpture with layers of metaphor and contradictions. Dissent itself implies activity—speaking up—or at least opposition to something, yet these are mute gestures. The series title, Abstinencia, contributes to this idea of a silent dissent, one of renunciation and quietude rather than anything active or much less political. Perhaps, the artwork is saying that one realm, albeit narrow, of freedom is the right to say nothing. The safe space of silence. Indeed, each of the hands is obviously cast from different bodies, and the differing patinas suggest human skin tones. These hands, however, do not read as a collective, instead each one seems to exist its own world—the solitude of its own mind—therefore, not yet capable of communal action in public. Perhaps, this is all the dissent that could be hoped for. Such an interpretation is not the final word, and this work will no doubt spark extraordinary conversations about speech, silence, dissent, and how art can negotiate politics.
This artwork is a welcome addition to the collection because it builds our already strong holdings in Latin American artists and continues our work to diversify the works on view. Moreover, Capote is an artist of international significance held by many museums in the United States and abroad, including Arizona State University Art Museum, Tempe, AZ; Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, Miami, FL; Daros Latinamerica AG, Zurich; Kadist Art Foundation, Paris and San Francisco, CA; Montreal Museum of Miami, Miami, FL; and Tate Modern, London. He has been the subject of dozens exhibitions, including a solo museum show at the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA; and group museum shows in Cuba, Europe, and the United including at the Harn Museum of Art, Gainesville, FL; Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar; Patricia & Phillips Frost Art Museum, Florida International University, Miami, FL; Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Ithaca, NY; MCA Chicago, Chicago, IL; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN.
https://www.benbrownfinearts.com/artists/117-yoan-capote/works/67706-yoan-capote-abstinencia-disentir-2022/