Los Carpinteros

Los Carpinteros is a Cuban artist collective founded in Havana in 1992 by Marco Antonio Castillo Valdes, Dagoberto Rodriguez Sanchez, and Alexandre Arrechea (who left the group in 2003).

[1] In 1994 they decided "to renounce the notion of individual authorship and refer back to an older guild tradition of artisans and skilled laborers”[2] in an attempt to emphasize their belief that art always, to some extent, involves collaboration.

[3] Both Valdes and Sanchez were born in Cuba and live and work between Havana and Madrid.

In their work the artists incorporate aspects of architecture, design and sculpture to create installations and drawings that “negotiate the space between the functional and the nonfunctional",[2] where they derive their “inspiration from the physical world”[2] and express their interest in the intersection of art and society in a humorous manner.

Los Carpinteros create a response to places, spaces and objects, how they have been conceived, built, used and abandoned.