Artist from Cuba

Glenda León: The power of roses and the gods

In Austria for the first time: Glenda León, artist from Cuba

(Bild: Michael Maritsch)

Glenda León has laid out 5,500 roses like a red carpet in OK Linz. "A flower is artificial," says the artist from Cuba. But which one? León is showing her works in Austria for the first time - a good complement to the grandiose show by Pussy Riot founder Nadya Tolokonnikova, which runs until January 6.

"You will only recognize the plastic rose after a week or two, because then the real flowers will start to wither," says Glenda León about her installation entitled "Every Flower is a Shape of Time".

This is just one of a total of 25 installations that the artist, who has already represented Cuba at the Venice Biennale, is showing at the OK Centrum in Linz.

No, she doesn't think of roses as a sign of feminism or revolution, she says in the "Krone" talk. She is much more interested in combining beauty with transience. Or working on philosophical issues with art, including big questions of life.

Blind gods and the dollar bible
In the large ballroom, a piano strums away without a pianist. The names of gods from different cultures are transcribed in Braille and become the score for an automatic piano. "The disappearance of the names is intended to refer to the spiritual blindness of humanity," says the artist. US dollars bound into a bible clearly point to the hypocrisy of some people profiting from religion.

(Bild: Farbwerk, Liz Blur)

León herself lives in Madrid and Cuba. She says that her home country is in a "serious crisis". Cuba is currently experiencing its worst economic crisis in around three decades. There is a shortage of food and medicine, and there are also chronic power cuts, as the media have been reporting for weeks.