Enrique Martínez Celaya's Sugar-Coated Childhood Home Opens at Wende Museum

Enrique Martínez Celaya's new exhibition "The Sextant" at the Wende Museum in Los Angeles features a large-scale recreation of his childhood home in Cuba, covered in nearly 6,500 pounds of sugar. The exhibition is the final installment of a trilogy that began in 2024 at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Havana and traveled to the Hispanic Society in New York. Celaya uses sugar to evoke the industry that shaped his hometown and the turmoil of Cold War Cuba. The artist, who started as a painter's assistant at age 12, often draws from his biography. A forthcoming book, "The Cuban Trilogy: Cuba" from Hatje Cantz, will be released in September, and in October he collaborates with the Los Angeles Opera on its season opener, Carmen. In an interview with CULTURED, Celaya discussed his studio habits, including his stark fridge (Diet Coke, salami, water), his admiration for Diego Velázquez and Piero della Francesca, and a chainsaw accident while working on a sculpture. He also shared that he sings to his paintings, despite being a bad singer, and recalled a collector's tantrum over a sold sculpture. Celaya criticized the art world for its pretense and anxiety about relevance, and cited Moby-Dick as a book that changed his thinking about art. He values advice from friend Leon Golub: "Take yourself seriously, but lightly."