Tonel (Antonio Eligio Fernández)
Birthdate: 1958
Birthplace: Cuba
Based location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Social profiles
Tonel Artist Profile at Habana Cultural (in Spanish)
Tonel Artist Profile at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de Cuba
Tonel Artist Profile at Casa Daros
Tonel Artist Profile at Mónica Reyes Gallery
Tonel Artist Profile at the Cuban Art Database
Tonel Artist Profile at Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery
Tonel Artist Profile at Artnet
Tonel Artist Profile at MutualArt
Tonel Artist Profile at Massimo Ligreggi Gallery
Tonel Artist Profile at Rus Art Net
Tonel Artist Profile at ArteInformado
Biography
Tonel (Antonio Eligio Fernández) (b. Cuba, 1958)
Antonio Eligio Fernández “Tonel” is a Cuban artist, art critic, curator and educator based in Vancouver, British Columbia. He has a degree in Art History from the University of Havana (1982) and has taught at the Havana’s Higher Institute of Arts, San Francisco Art Institute, California (2001), the Center for Latin American Studies and at the Department of Art and Art History in Stanford University, California (2001-2003), and at the at the Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver (2007-). Tonel’s books and articles on Cuban and Latin American contemporary art have been published in Art Journal, boundary 2 and Cuban Art News, and his work has been featured in the New York Times, Cuban Art News, and Art Nexus. He has also had an extensive practice as an illustrator and caricaturist for several Cuban magazines, festival posters, and children’s books. He was awarded the Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship in the Humanities (1997-1998), with residency at The University of Texas, Austin, and the John S. Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship for Painting and Installation Art (1995).
Tonel’s playful drawings, sculptures and installations conflate ambivalence, irony, tenderness and humor in affects present in the everyday. At the same time, the combination of words, images and symbols present in his artworks also speak to Cuba’s situatedness in Latin America and the global sphere in a post-Cold War context. His solo exhibitions include Between the Moon and a Golf Ball (Massimo Ligreggi Gallery, Catania, Italy, 2022); Ajústate al tema: Obras 1973 - 2018 (Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de Cuba, Havana, 2018-2019); El Viaje (Paredes que Hablan) (Factoría Habana, Havana, Cuba, 2012); and Lessons of Solitude (Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC, 2000). His work has been part of the collective exhibitions Exercises to be Happy: Ephemeral Practices in 1980s Cuba ([NAME] Publications, Miami, USA, 2022); The infinite possibility: Thinking about the nation (Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de Cuba, Havana, 2019-2020); The Recipe: Making Latin American Art in Canada (Sur Gallery, Toronto, 2018); Climate Change: Cuba/USA (USF Contemporary Art Museum, Tampa, Florida, USA, 2018); Overseas: Cuba and the Bahamas. Contemporary Art from the Caribbean (Halle 14 Art Space, Leipzig, Germany, 2017); Cuban Artists: The Prodigious Decade (Sagamore Hotel, Miami, Florida, USA, 2017); The Object and the Image (This is not a chair either) (Concrete Space, Doral, Florida, USA, 2017), among many others.
Tres Besos
Silkscreen
1988
27.5 x 19.5 inches
Invaluable.com, Google Images 2024, accessed 2024
Solo exhibitions
Tonel Solo Exhibition Between the Moon and a Golf Ball, Massimo Ligreggi Gallery, Catania, Italy, 2022
Tonel Solo Exhibition Ajústate al tema: Obras 1973 - 2018, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de Cuba, Havana, 2018-2019
Tonel Press Release Solo Exhibition El Viaje (Paredes que Hablan), Factoría Habana, Havana, Cuba, 2012 (photo gallery link)
Tonel Solo Exhibition Lessons of Solitude, curated by Scot Watson and Eugenio Valdes, Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC, 2000
Collective exhibitions
Tonel Press Release Collective Exhibition Exercises to be Happy: Ephemeral Practices in 1980s Cuba, [NAME] Publications, Miami, USA, 2022
Tonel Collective Exhibition The infinite possibility: Thinking about the nation, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de Cuba, Havana, 2019-2020
Tonel Collective Exhibition The Recipe: Making Latin American Art in Canada, curated by Analays Alvarez Hernandez and Daymi Coll Padilla, Sur Gallery, Toronto, 2018
Tonel Collective Exhibition Climate Change: Cuba/USA, curated by Noel Smith, USF Contemporary Art Museum, Tampa, Florida, USA, 2018
Tonel Collective Exhibition Overseas: Cuba and the Bahamas. Contemporary Art from the Caribbean, co-curated by Tonel and Holly Bynoe, Halle 14 Art Space, Leipzig, Germany, 2017 (in German)
Tonel Press Release Collective Exhibition Cuban Artists: The Prodigious Decade, curated by Adriana Herrera, Willy Castellanos and Sebastien Laboureau, Sagamore Hotel, Miami, Florida, USA, 2017
Tonel Press Release Collective Exhibition The Object and the Image (This is not a chair either), curated by Aluna Curatorial Collective (Adriana Herrera and Willy Castellanos), Concrete Space, Doral, Florida, USA, 2017
Tonel Collective Exhibition Adiós Utopia: Dreams and Deceptions in Cuban Art Since 1950, curated by Gerardo Mosquera, René Francisco, and Elsa Vega, Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, USA, 2017
Tonel Collective Exhibition 12425 NE 13th Ave #4 North Miami FL 33161, curated by Rafael Domenech, Under the Bridge Art Space, Miami, USA, 2017
Tonel Collective Exhibition Chaotica: An Approach to Chaos from the Perspective of Cuban Fine Arts, curated by Luis Pedro Miret Perez, Österreich Galerie Ernst Hilger, Vienna, Austria, 2016
Tonel Collective Exhibition Cuba: Tatuare la storia, curated by Diego Sileo and Giacomo Zaza, Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, Milan, Italy, 2016 (in Italian)
Tonel Collective Exhibition Things Fall Apart, Calvert 22 Foundation, curated by Mark Nash, London, UK, 2016
Tonel Press Release Collective Exhibition Cuban Contemporary Perspectives #1, Galleria Bianconi, Milan, Italy, 2016 (photo gallery link)
Tonel Collective Exhibition Entre Nos, Cuban Art Space, New York City, 2015
Tonel Press Release Collective Exhibition Ficción y Fantasía––Art from Cuba, Casa Daros, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2015
Tonel Press Release Collective Exhibition Crack, Galería Habana, Havana, Cuba, 2015
Tonel Press Release Collective Exhibition Cuba Libre! Works from the Shelley and Donald Rubin Private Collection, The Bronx Museum, New York City, 2015
Tonel Press Release Collective Exhibition Miradas, Factoría Habana, Havana, Cuba, 2014
Tonel Collective Exhibition Nationhood and Identity in Cuban Art, Center for Cuban Art Studies, New York City, 2013
Tonel Collective Exhibition 55th Venice Biennial, Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Venezia, Venice, 2013
Tonel Collective Exhibition 11th Havana Biennial, 2012
Tonel Collective Exhibition Press Release The Marco Polo Syndrome, Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas, 2012
Tonel Collective Exhibition Cuban Visions, Metropolitan Pavilion, New York City, 2011
Tonel Collective Exhibition The End of Money, curated by Juan A. Gaitán and Amira Gad, Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam, Netherlands, 2011
Tonel Collective Exhibition Cuba Avant-Garde: Contemporary Cuban Art from the Farber Collection, curated by Kerry Oliver-Smith, Lowe Art Museum, Miami, 2010
Tonel Collective Exhibition Face to Face, Daros Latin-America AG, Zürich, Switzerland, 2007
Tonel Collective Exhibition 7th Havana Biennial, 2000
Tonel Collective Exhibition New Art from Cuba: Utopian Territories, curated by Juan Molina, Scott Watson and Keith Wallace, Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver, 1997
Interviews
Tonel Interview “I’ve never stopped feeling Cuban”, Cuban Art News, 2013
Tonel Interview “5 Artists + 1 Curator on Climate Change: Cuba / USA”, Cuban Art News, 2018
Tonel Interview “Climate Change: Cuba/USA”, USF Contemporary Art Museum, 2018
Tonel Interview “In Aachen, Cuban Art Comes Full Circle”, Cuban Art News, 2017
Tonel Interview “Serious side of history: Tonel in conversation with Jade Yumang”, Artfile magazine, 2014
Tonel Interview “Conversando con Tonel: Espacios Intermedios”, Cuban Art News, 2014 (in Spanish)
Presentations
Tonel Curator Tour, "The Spaces Between: Contemporary Art from Havana", Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC, 2014 (video)
Tonel Artist Talk “Objects of Necessity and Their Incarnations in Cuban Art and Culture: From the street to the gallery and vice-versa”, co-presented with Ernesto Oroza, Center for Cuban Studies, New York City, May 4th 2011
Published work by Tonel
Tonel Book Art x Cuba: Contemporary Perspectives since 1989, Wienand Verlag, 2019
Tonel Article They look at us when we see: from/to the camera in Adrián Fernández's photograph, 2018
Tonel Article Tonel in Germany: Curating Overseas. Shaping a show in Leipzig, from idea to inspiration, Cuban Art News, 2017
Tonel Article The Art of Luis Miret, Cuban Art News, 2017
Tonel Book The Spaces Between: Contemporary Art from Havana, Black Dog Publishing, 2014
Tonel Book Loss and Recovery of the City (in the Cinema), Smart Art Press, 2010
Tonel Article The Island, the Map, the Travelers: Notes on Recent Developments in Cuban Art, translated by Kenya Dworkin, boundary 2, Duke University Press, Vol. 29, No. 3, Fall 2002
Tonel Article A Tree from Many Shores: Cuban Art in Movement, Art Journal, vol. 57, 1998
Published work about Tonel
Tonel Article “Today’s Cuba is a place of paradoxes, contrasts and inequalities that are increasingly better outlined”, written by Carlos Batista, On Cuba News, 2024
Tonel Article The Object, the Image, and Equipo Hexágono: Rediscovering an Influential ’80s Collective, written by Elvira Rosa Castro, Cuban Art News, 2017
Tonel Article The Cuban Pavilion at Venice, Part 2: Tonel and Sandra Ramos:Two of the island’s most noted artists describe their work at the Venice Biennale, Cuban Art News, 2013
Tonel Article La Casona, written by Caridad Blanco de la Cruz, ArtNexus, 2004
Tonel Book “Art Cuba: The New Generation”, written by Holly Block, Harry N. Abrams, 2001
Tonel Article "Tonel -- 'Lessons of Solitude'." Written by Roberta Smith. New York Times, 16 Mar. 2001
Press release
Tonel Press Release Collective Exhibition Climate Change: Cuba/USA, USF Contemporary Art Museum, Tampa, Florida, USA, 2018
List of Grants, Awards and Projects
Tonel Collective Exhibition Curation Art x Cuba: Contemporary Perspectives since 1989, Ludwig Forum, Aachen, Germany, 2017
Tonel Collective Exhibition Curation Signos: Arte, Industria y Vice-versa, co-curated by Concha Fontenla, Factoría La Habana, Havana, Cuba, 2016
Tonel Collective Exhibition Curation The Spaces Between: Contemporary Art from Havana, Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC, 2014
Tonel Grant Recipient, John S. Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship for Painting and Installation Art, 1995