El centro puede estar en todas partes (The Center Can Be Everywhere)

About

The Alberto Cruz Foundation (Dominican Republic), in collaboration with the Complutense University of Madrid and the Centro Arte Complutense – C arte C, and with the support of the Quisqueya Henríquez Estate, presents The Center Can Be Everywhere, a monographic exhibition dedicated to the career of Quisqueya Henríquez (Havana, 1966 – Santo Domingo, 2024), a Cuban-Dominican artist whose work has been pivotal in the development of contemporary art in the Caribbean, Latin America and beyond. Through a significant body of works spanning from the early stages of her practice to her most recent projects—including installations, videos, collages, photographs, paintings, sculptures and performances—the exhibition offers a critical journey through the conceptual core themes that structured her work: the city as a space of friction and representation; a critical revision of Western art history; the modes of production and circulation of images and commodities; the particularities of insular contexts; cultural hybridity; stereotypes associated with the Caribbean; and the need to build ecological and social awareness through art.

Curated by René Morales (guest curator), together with Isabella Lenzi and Alfonsina Martínez, Artistic Director and Curator of the Alberto Cruz Foundation respectively, this is the most comprehensive survey of her work to date presented in Europe. It represents a key opportunity to situate her practice within global contemporary art narratives. The project aims to expand the artist’s international presence, fostering a transnational dialogue around her legacy and consolidating a cultural bridge between Latin America, the Caribbean and Europe, with Madrid as a strategic gateway and platform of access to the European art circuit.

The exhibition, which will coincide with ARCOmadrid 2026, will be accompanied by public and educational activities, including the recreation of historic actions by the artist, guided tours and other activation and mediation formats.

With this project, the Complutense University of Madrid and the Alberto Cruz Foundation strengthen their institutional collaboration and their commitment to cultural initiatives of public interest, contributing to dialogue between academia, contemporary artistic creation and society.

About Quisqueya Henríquez:

Quisqueya Henríquez was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1966. Based for much of her life in the Dominican Republic, Henríquez developed a multidisciplinary practice encompassing media such as installation, video, photography, sculpture, collage and performance. Her work is characterised by an ongoing investigation into notions of identity, gender and visual culture from a Caribbean and postcolonial perspective. With irony and lucidity, Henríquez explored tropical and Caribbean imaginaries, Western art history, and the tensions between the local and the global.

Throughout her career she exhibited at institutions such as the Bronx Museum of the Arts (New York), Pérez Art Museum (Miami), Museo del Barrio (New York), Museo Tamayo (Mexico City), and the Museum of Modern Art of Santo Domingo, among others. She was a central figure in the Dominican and Caribbean art scenes, and one of the most powerful voices in the critique of hegemonic discourses within contemporary art.

About the Alberto Cruz Foundation:

The Alberto Cruz Foundation is a non-profit organisation created with the mission of promoting Dominican art and culture and that of its diaspora through the support, research, preservation and dissemination of the work of its artists and cultural agents. Its goal is to foster creative processes, knowledge exchange, critical thinking and the appreciation of art in the Dominican Republic through exhibitions, public programmes and publications, among other activities.

The Foundation seeks to expand recognition of the aesthetic, educational and social value of artistic practice in the local context, and to promote inclusive access to Dominican art and culture, highlighting its role in transforming society. Internationally, the Foundation works to strengthen and expand the presence of Dominican artists and cultural agents within the global art scene, promoting a profound and diverse vision of their production.