Los Carpinteros has developed a large-scale site-specific installation titled Free Basket for 100 Acres: The Virgina B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park that continues their interest in the juxtaposition of the practical and the imaginary. Free Basket draws on the form of the basketball court, turning it into an aesthetically surprising entity that also offers a site for the community to engage in recreational play. In developing their project, Los Carpinteros chose to draw on the rich history of sports in the city of Indianapolis. Their project seeks to bring together art, culture and sports, providing an interactive platform for the larger community that engages them in art. Free Basket will be Los Carpinteros’s first long-term public commission in the U.S.

Formed in 1991, Los Carpinteros is a Havana, Cuba-based art collective comprised of Marco Antonio Castillo Valdés (b. 1971) and Dagoberto Rodríguez Sánchez (b. 1969). Los Carpinteros’s work combines meticulous craftsmanship with shrewd political and social commentary. Recent projects have repurposed objects with violent connotations for use in daily life, such as Panera (Bread Box) (2004), a replica of a missile with side compartments for storing loaves of bread. Their 2000-2001 work Transportable City evokes Cuba’s crumbling infrastructure through abstract portrayals of Havana’s iconic buildings and installations of portable tents. The collective’s work has been featured in solo exhibitions at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in New York, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the 9^th Havana Biennial, and in group exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney.

Slideshow: Los Carpinteros, Free Basket, 2008 (computer rendering), © Los Carpinteros. Courtesy: Sean Kelly Gallery, New York.