Glenda León

The power of the intangible in the work of an artist who connects nature, technology, and poetic experience.

The Cuban artist has developed a body of work that merges installation, photography, drawing, and sound art. Living between Havana and Madrid, she recently presented her installation Only Lovers at Galería La Cometa Miami. Her works invite us to rethink how we perceive time, space, and human connection.

A Practice Between Poetry and Listening

With early roots in classical dance and a background in art history, Glenda León (Havana, 1976) has built a consistent and disciplined path in contemporary Cuban art. Her work is known for establishing sensitive relationships between the visible and the invisible, between sound and material. Through installations, objects, drawings, and videos, León invites viewers to pause and perceive the in-between of the everyday and the transcendental.

Trained in New Media at the Kunsthochschule für Medien (KHM) in Cologne, her work has been featured at major international venues including the Venice Biennale, Dakar, and Santa Fe. Her pieces are held in leading collections such as the Centre Pompidou, Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

Listening as an Aesthetic Act

One of the core concerns in León’s work is exploring sound as an artistic material. In Cada sonido es una forma del tiempo (Each Sound is a Form of Time), she transforms visual elements into imagined scores, suggesting that everything in nature—a leaf, a star, a tear—vibrates in ways that can be interpreted. This is not merely poetic metaphor; it is a tangible sensory proposition: to see sound and hear the image.

Projects such as Visual Instruments and Metamorphosis feature deconstructed musical objects—pianos, harps—reassembled as silent sculptures that retain the latent potential of sound. Art here is not representation but an invitation to other forms of knowledge.

Only Lovers: The Intangibility of Home

Her recent installation, Only Lovers (2024), presented at Galería La Cometa Miami, is composed of real windows, soft curtains, and a mechanism that channels the wind of both Miami and Havana in real time. These are two cities divided by politics but united by memory and longing. The piece pays tribute to Félix González-Torres, particularly his iconic air curtain Untitled (Loverboy), using breeze as a metaphor for what cannot be captured in images—absence, memory, belonging.

The work does not attempt to illustrate migration but rather communicates the emotional state of being in two places at once—or in none. Through the sensation of moving air, León speaks of affective memory, dislocation, and the realization that “home” is ultimately an internal construct.

Language as Scar

Another fundamental element in León’s work is her investigation into language. In Cada palabra tiene la forma de una cicatriz (Each Word Has the Shape of a Scar), she uses modified typewriters to speak about the power of words—their ability to wound, mark, and transform. Writing becomes visual matter and performative gesture.

In her series Intervened Typewriters, language is shown as a system to be questioned and remade. Keys are fused with sharp objects or textiles, suggesting that writing is never neutral, but always embedded with ideology, emotion, and history.

Nature, Artificiality, and Time

In works like Forbidden Sky (2012), León uses chemical formulas to draw constellations, subverting our perception of illegal substances. In Bad Grass and Natural Mechanics, she questions the exploitative logic of modern economies and how human creativity is co-opted for productivity.

Her critique is never didactic; it emerges through form. In Wasted Time, a giant hourglass sculpture critiques society’s obsession with productivity. What does it mean to do nothing? León proposes that in the refusal to produce, new forms of artistic insight emerge.

An International Trajectory with Local Roots

Though her work has been shown widely across Europe, Asia, and the Americas, Glenda León remains deeply connected to her native Cuba. Many of her pieces reflect the complexity of the Latin American context, without relying on clichés or exoticism. Whether channeling the air of Tokyo, the stars over Havana, or a strip of synthetic grass in Habitat, her work always questions how—and where—we live.

A Final Note: Transforming Perception

Glenda León’s work challenges how we see, hear, and engage with the world. In an age saturated with noise and imagery, her art offers space for pause, listening, and active contemplation. Her installations don’t scream truths—they whisper questions.

With Only Lovers and other recent works, León reaffirms that art is not only a reflection of the world but also a tool to imagine it differently. Between the whisper of wind and the silence of a leaf, she reminds us that what truly matters often goes unnoticed.