Cuban Pavilion 2026: Hombres Libres

Hombres Libres (Free Men) is the project by artist Roberto Diago for the Pavilion of Cuban Republic at the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, curated by Nelson Ramirez de Arellano Conde and the commissioner of Daneisy García Roque. About The exhibition, open from May 9 to November 22, is located at Il Giardino Bianco – Art Space, at Via Garibaldi 1814, between the Giardini and the Arsenale. Roberto Diago’s work stands as a perpetual reminder that freedom is not given, it is conquered; it is not a passive state, but a continuous practice—a constant tensión that demands keeping memory sharp and dignity intact. The installation ‘Hombres Libres/Free Men’ consists of a group of sculptures (heads) of various dimensions that advance toward the viewer, receiving and confronting them. They display scars that rise in relief from oxidized metals, wood, plastics, and salvaged materials —a tactile memory that refuses to be flattened by oblivion. In this poetics, freedom does not imply hiding a history of pain under the makeup of assimilation, but rather exhibiting it like a medal. This reclamation begins in the very epidermis of the piece, confronting us with black skin not as a smooth, docile surface, but as a geographical map of trauma and resistance. The keloid thus becomes an assertion of identity: the irrefutable proof of having survived punishment and that the flesh, though marked, remains sovereign. Through this lens, the concept of a “free man” transcends the legal definition of one unshackled; for the artist, a free person is one with the courage to acknowledge their marks, to dignify their precarity, and to hold their gaze before a history that attempted to erase them. It does not represent victims, but rather constructs a genealogy of survivors who have crowned themselves. Read more Toggle Installation