“Everybody is in historical time, but most of us don’t see its contours until it’s much too late. The story of modern Cuba, in a way, runs parallel with my adult life (I was 10 years in 1957).
As a teenager I learned Spanish, an accident of education, which led me to Barcelona in the early 1970s where the young filmmaker Bigas Luna offered me guidance and friendship. Having a key to another language can make one’s heart beat faster, so it seems absurd that I was in my 60s when I finally made it to Cuba. Perhaps this visit benefited from a failed visit 15 years ago, making my arrival all the more exciting.

What I hadn’t grasped was the intense feeling of leaving one island to visit another, and how many times I saw things which were attached to the pride which comes from the absurdity of being separated from others by water.

My days in Cuba were unbelievably special and extraordinarily confirming. Like a lot of English people I feel exhilarated to depart my own island, especially to travel ‘towards the light’. What might be a dumb description of climate was, for me, a real metaphor. I hope that my two visits in 2015, and my many encounters, will not be the last of my Cuban connections.

The news of the last month made me particularly wistful since I was a security guard at the Stones in the Park in 1969.”

RW April 2016, London.

Richard Wentworth participated in the Havana Art Biennial in May 2015.

Richard Wentworth has played a leading role in New British Sculpture since the end of the 1970s. His work, encircling the notion of objects and their use as part of our day-to-day experiences, has altered the traditional definition of sculpture as well as photography.

More about his art here http://www.lissongallery.com/artists/richard-wentworth