Overview
Alejandro Co
I explore memory as a living territory where matter remembers and time leaves its trace.
Alejandro Co is a young Cuban visual artist based in Madrid whose work delves into the unstable territories of memory and the archive, understood as spaces where the personal and the collective intertwine. Using documentary materials, found objects, and residues charged with meaning, his practice explores the ways narratives are constructed, legitimized, and forgotten. The act of intervening—through burning, fragmenting, or concealing—reflects a desire to question the idea of truth as something singular or permanent. In his work, matter holds the memory of what has been lost, and each piece functions as an open device activated by the viewer’s gaze. Every observer, guided by their own experience, reconstructs a different story; thus, memory emerges as a mutable, partial entity, constantly shifting and in perpetual transformation.
Works
  • Pinturas de archivo abierto I
    Alejandro Co
    Pinturas de archivo abierto I, 2025
    Burnt pages from illustrated dictionaries
    on canvas
    170 x 140 cm
    Series: Pinturas de archivo abierto
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  • Pinturas de archivo abierto II
    Alejandro Co
    Pinturas de archivo abierto II, 2025
    Burnt pages from illustrated dictionaries
    on canvas
    41 x 33 cm
    Series: Pinturas de archivo abierto
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  • Pinturas de archivo abierto III
    Alejandro Co
    Pinturas de archivo abierto III, 2025
    Burnt pages from illustrated dictionaries
    on canvas
    41 x 33 cm
    Series: Pinturas de archivo abierto
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Biography
Alejandro Co

Alejandro Co (Havana, Cuba, 1997) is a Cuban visual artist whose work explores the relationship between memory, the archive, and the legitimization of narratives. Trained at the Experimental Center “José A. Díaz Peláez” (2009–2012) and the National Academy of Fine Arts “San Alejandro,” he specialized in printmaking, receiving the Edition Award in the Albrecht Dürer tribute (2015) and participating in the 3rd National Collagraphy Contest “Belkis Ayón” (2017). That same year, he held his first solo exhibition at the Taller de la Gráfica de La Habana.

 

His second show, Culto a la ceniza (2018), marked the beginning of a research path focused on the manipulation of the archive as a critical tool. He took part in Detrás del muro (13th Havana Biennial, 2019) and in the 8th Contemporary Art Salon (2020). In 2021, he entered the Higher Institute of Art (ISA) and was later awarded a grant from the Antonio Gala Foundation (2022).

 

Since 2024, he has lived in Madrid, where he presented Apariciones discretas (NAVEL) and, in 2025, Viajes de descubrimiento, marking the beginning of his collaboration with Tönnheim Gallery, with whom he participated in the Estampa Art Fair, earning an award.

Exhibitions