Image: Exhibition banner, ‘Roberto Diago. Hombres libres’, Pabellón de la República de Cuba, Bienal de Venecia 2026 — Galería Artizar, La Laguna
Roberto Diago is representing Cuba at the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia with the installation ‘Hombres libres’ (2025). The Pavilion of the Republic of Cuba runs from 9 May to 22 November 2026 and is installed at Il Giardino Bianco Art Space, Via Giuseppe Garibaldi 1814, in Venice.
The pavilion is commissioned by Daneisy García Roque and curated by Nelson Ramírez de Arellano Conde. It is produced by Galería Artizar, which has spaces in Tenerife and Madrid, in collaboration with Estudio Roberto Diago. The 61st Exhibition itself, ‘In Minor Keys’, curated by Koyo Kouoh, opened on Saturday 9 May 2026.
‘Hombres libres’ is an installation built from found materials that addresses slavery, marronage and Afro-Cuban memory. Jorge Fernández, director of the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de Cuba, has written that the work pays homage to the cimarrones who chose death over slavery, and reads it alongside Wifredo Lam’s Huracán as a reflection on solidarity and endurance in present-day Cuba.
Diago — Juan Roberto Diago Durruthy, born in Havana in 1971, where he still lives and works — is a painter, sculptor and installation artist who trained at the Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes San Alejandro. He is a consulting professor at the Universidad de las Artes (ISA) and a member of the Unión Nacional de Escritores y Artistas de Cuba. He has previously shown in the 47th and 57th International Art Exhibitions in Venice and in the Havana and Dakar biennials, and his work is held by institutions including the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Havana, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Musée des Civilisations noires in Dakar and the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid.
The pavilion is open at the time of writing and closes on 22 November 2026.
