Cold War Christmas in July

Enrique Martínez Celaya, El Trineo, 2019, as shown at 13th Havana Biennial

The Wende Museum will display Enrique Martínez Celaya's sculpture El Trineo (The Sleigh) in its garden starting July 13, 2024. Celaya wrote of the piece,

"On Christmas of 1967, my parents bought me a toy sleigh. In the Cuba of my childhood, where snow was as imaginary and foreign as Santa Claus, the sleigh represented the Land of Otherness. This land of Otherness was a place where people would go to and never come back, and where we would someday go as well. As such, the sleigh was a symbol of both our hope for a brighter future and a rejection of who we were. This duality between feeling-not-enough and hoping to be that other is a pervasive Caribbean ailment."

A reception with the artist is planned for 2 PM; free tickets are available. The Wende Museum is organizing a Celaya exhibition for next year. "Enrique Martínez Celaya: The Sextant" will run Apr. 26 to Oct. 19, 2025.