Adrian Melis
(b. 1985) is a Cuban-born artist living in Barcelona.
He is a graduate of Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana and a student of Tania Bruguera. He works mainly in film and video art. His works often touch on social and urban issues such as working conditions in Cuba for example. Recently he had his solo exhibition held at the Kunsthalle Basel (How to Work (More for) Less, 2011). He also took part in numerous group shows such as Temor y deseo de ser devorados (Contemporary Art Center, Girona, 2011), Urban Research Festival 2010 (Director’s Lounge, Berlin, 2010), 2nd edition of Festival Internacional Cine Cubano de Munich (Munich, 2010) or Per Diem (Betonsalon, Paris, 2009). Adrian Melis also participated in a group exhibition curated by Tania Bruguera Bueno,Bonito y Barato, which won the Curatorship Award granted by the Spanish Embassy in Cuba and the Spanish Agency for International Collaboration in 2005.
Auditorium Moscow will feature Melis’ The making of forty rectangular pieces for a floor construction (2011). In this video, Cuban workers of a defunct factory reproduce the noises of machines now idle, using their mouths, voices, and hands.