Manuel Mendive’s exhibition “La vie devrait être belle” [Life Should Be Beautiful] opened on July 4 and runs until August 24, 2025, at the Clément Foundation [Fondation Clément] in Martinique. Curated by Gilbert Brownstone, the exhibition presents Mendive’s paintings, soft sculptures, bronzes, installation objects, and costumes spanning works from the 1970s to the present day, allowing us “to fully immerse ourselves in the depth and richness of one of Cuba’s most important artistic voices.” Visit the galleries at Habitation Clément (97240 Le François, Martinique).*
Description (by curator Gilbert Brownstone): Presented in the foundation’s three galleries, this exhibition features paintings, soft sculptures, bronzes, installation objects, and costumes spanning works from the 1970s to the present day. This exhibition allows us to fully immerse ourselves in the depth and richness of one of the most important artistic voices in Cuba and the world, undoubtedly comparable to greats such as Wifredo Lam and Agustín Cárdenas.
It is an invitation to discover the maturity of a life dedicated to art and culture, as well as the spiritual and human splendor that endures under the name Mendive. His art is, in my opinion, an art of another time—or of all times—capable of elevating artistic and aesthetic matter to the status of a sacred object, while paradoxically maintaining a humble, popular, and accessible tone, in keeping with his Afro-Cuban beliefs and the pantheon of Orishas that accompany him. With this exhibition, we materialize and make evident not only the importance and value of figures like Manuel Mendive in the ontological construction of a Cuban, Latin American, Caribbean, and mixed-race identity, but also my personal friendship with the Master and the consequences of a fruitful relationship based on absolute respect and admiration.
With this title, taken from his own philosophy of life, we wish to leave a legacy for future generations, to tell them that life has been and will continue to be beautiful, full, and coherent, as long as we are capable of practicing the tolerance, love, and alchemy so necessary in our societies. Life will continue to be beautiful, like the Mendive spirits with their large eyes that levitate and look upon us, making us forget the outside world and leading us to gaze within ourselves, toward the complexities and goodness of the soul. Therein lie beauty and serenity.
Biography [from Faire Monde(s)]: Manuel Mendive, always dressed in white, is a famous Cuban artist. Initiated into the syncretic cult of Santería, he respects its strict rules, which is why he always dresses in white. His work embodies a harmonic ideal: the body as a sacred place, nature as a temple, death as a passage. Nature is neither a landscape nor a resource. It is a living entity, generator of all experience. His paintings, sculptures, and performances express his deep philosophical beliefs and his Cuban identity, yet they retain their mystery. He depicts a universe where the sacred emerges in everyday life. Hybrid and magical creatures, Cuban deities, orishas, give a sense of structure to life and the universe. He blends several techniques, manners, styles, and hues across numerous media and textures. His creations resemble magical objects, but they convey his reflections on the setting, material, format of the work, and performance. Movement animates the forms he painted on the bodies of dancers during processions to the rhythm of Cuban music. Mendive’s multidisciplinary art reflects his syncretic vision of the world and explores questions of creolization and hybridity. Mendive does not create art to interpret the world, but rather to transform our way of being in it.
A graduate of the San Alejandro School in 1963, he studied in the Department of Ethnology and Folklore of the Cuban Academy of Sciences and Art History of the School of Letters at the University of Havana. His work was exhibited at the Mpapa Gallery in Lusaka, Zambia, in 1982, at the 43rd Venice Biennale in 1988, and at the Gary Nader Gallery in Coral Gables, USA, in 2005.
For more information, and photo gallery see https://www.fondation-clement.org/expositions/manuel-mendive/
Biography translated by Ivette Romero. Read/listen to his bio (in French) at Faire Monde(s).
*Habitation Clément (97240 Le François, Martinique). Tél. 05 96 54 87 16