Carlos GaraicoaFrom the series Puzzles: Table and Lyon Mountain, 2022
Carlos Garaicoa’s Puzzles (2018–2022) is a photographic series that explores the fragility of memory, the politics of decay, and the documentary limits of the image. Known for his longstanding engagement with the urban fabric of post-revolutionary Havana, Garaicoa here turns his gaze to architectural ruins in cities such as Havana, New York, and Cape Town. Each work comprises two layers: a vivid photographic print rendered as a jigsaw puzzle (partially dismantled, with fragments collected at the bottom of its transparent casing) and a faded version of the same image forming a spectral backdrop. This layered structure metaphorically stages the tension between permanence and impermanence, memory and erosion. By presenting the photographic image as an unsolvable puzzle, Garaicoa transforms the act of documentation into one of poetic disassembly, echoing the collapse not only of buildings but of utopian ideals and collective certainties.
