Living and working in Havana, Cuba, Francis Acea and Diango Hernandez formed Ordo Amoris Cabinet in 1994. Acea was born in Havana, Cuba in 1967 and Hernandez was born in Sancti-Spiritus, Cuba in 1970. Attending the Havana Superior Institute of Design, Acea and Hernandez received their degrees in graphic and industrial design respectively, and formed an artistic collaboration under the appellation of Ordo Amoris Cabinet, the Latin terms for “order” and “love.”
Ordo Amoris Cabinet has exhibited widely in Cuba, Europe, Costa Rica, and Canada, and made their United States debut exhibition at ArtPace. Solo shows include various installations at the Center for the Development of the Visual Arts and the Center of Art and Design in Havana, Cuba; Museo de Arte Contemporaneo y Diseño, San Jose, Costa Rica; Banff Center for the Arts, Alberta, Canada; Kunsthaus Berlin, Germany; Seventh Havana Biennale, Living la Vida, Sinpalabras Studio, Havana, Cuba; and, the AFW Gallerie, Köln, Germany. Group shows include Champ Libre, Montreal, Canada; Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, Cornerhouse, Manchester, Royal College of Art, London, and Camden Art Center, London, England.
Their sculptural installations evoke a reconsideration of necessity through references to sociology, ethnography, and museology, and pose a thought-provoking statement on the realities of politics and material culture in Cuba.
Since 1994, Ordo Amoris Cabinet has been analyzing and infusing philosophical meaning into unremarkable, ordinary objects. Their sculptural installations are loaded with social and political criticisms and observations, primarily about the economic crisis and political establishment in their native Cuba. Highlighting a fascination with the environment, objects, instruments, and machines, Ordo Amoris’s version of contemporary archeology was made public in 1996 at the Havana Center for the Development of the Visual Arts in their second solo exhibition, Agua con Azucar y La Muestra Provisional (Sugar Water and The Provisional Show). Their display of recycled objects, such as Object (Stove)- a stove constructed from a medicine tin, copper wire, a metal can, and fabric-provoked a reflection on the qualities of material culture in Cuba in the 1990s and the extremes necessary for survival in an environment lacking resources.
