Harold Mendez said, “Interacting with the past is an optimism.” Photo: Mike Coppola/Getty Images of Tiffany & Co

In 2017, artist Harold Mendez traveled to Havana from Los Angeles where he lives. He is looking for the grave of the Cuban artist Belkis Ayón who died in 1999. Mendez was born in Chicago in 1977 to Mexican and Colombian parents. In the past ten years, his work in sculpture, photography, printmaking, and installation has touched on the ideas of cultural memory, transnationalism, land, rituals, and ancient history.

His exhibition "Maybe, Here, Between" has just opened at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) in Miami, curated by Gean Moreno. It was designed as a memorial to Ayón and includes revised photos, discovered objects, cast iron sculptures, and a one-ton counterweight from a scrapyard in Captiva, Florida. The exhibition follows Let's get together in a grand way. Mendes’ investigation will open at the Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art in 2020 and will go to the Institute of Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond in 2021.

We met him in his studio in downtown Los Angeles.

The Art Newspaper: Can you tell me about your history with Belkis Ayón and what her work means for you?

Harold Mendez: I study printmaking and photography. Belkis mainly uses collages, constructing images with various textures and surfaces. I am also interested in mediating my images. In 2016, her touring retrospective at the Fowler Museum in Los Angeles revived my interest in her work.

You went to Havana a year later. How did this come from?

The National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago received a grant called the International Links Fund through the MacArthur Foundation. Instead of holding an exhibition, they proposed an initiative for six Chicago artists to travel to Havana for two weeks and interact with six Cuban artists.

Are you going to find the specific intentions of Ayón’s cemetery?

I did it. I don't necessarily expect to work in Cuba. But one thing I want to do is to find her grave. Another thing I do, which I always do when I travel, is to spend time in the library and photo archives.

You have never found a grave. But tell me the cemetery you photographed yesterday was in the sum (2019), showing a sacrificial chicken surrounded by petals.

It is called La Necrópolis de Cristóbal Colón, named after Christopher Columbus. It is one of the oldest cemeteries in Latin America. At the very edge of the cemetery, there is a part dedicated to people who practice this secret religion, called Abakuá, related to Santéria, which Belkis has studied.

What is the relationship between Belkis and Abakua?

Abakuá is a male religious group. So she is not a practitioner, but makes friends with members. Her works express some of their beliefs and religious customs in a visual way.

Can you describe your handling of the photos?

Part of the image will be covered by all these powders-graphite and powdered charcoal and pigments-I will mix them together and then dust or erase them. By doing this many times, I am establishing an atmospheric veil.

I thought of the ideas of fluidity and stillness associated with your work: things that can be handled or removed, and things that you will or never can touch.

Many of my works came from different places, and then slowly merged together in the studio. I might use a piece of marble on the floor, pour water into it in a copper container, or something like petals. There is a kind of accumulation that requires this kind of liquidity. But the important thing is that my practice is not just about being in the studio. This is about participating in the world.

After that, we will read your bones (for Belkis Ayón), a collage photo of Mendez in 2019, a picture of a huge weight that looks like a tombstone courtesy of the artist and PATRON Gallery

How was one ton of counterweight included in this exhibition?

In 2016, I lived at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation in Captiva. I went to the scrapyard where Rauschenberg collected a lot of his materials, and I came across this counterweight. I photographed it-it looks like a yellow tombstone. I didn't have a studio at the time, so I thought, "How do I send this one-ton thing to Los Angeles?" But I've been thinking ever since. I went back there in July. It was gone, but I found something similar.

A major part of your work seems to be not only about death, but also memorial.

Some works are devoted to family members who have recently passed away. But the entire ICA exhibition is a memorial to Belkis Ayón. My works are usually about concepts in between, and have connections with other histories. The importance of remembering. In some works, I feel that I am communicating with the past.

Have you also identified the redemptive or optimistic aspects of your practice?

I think many jobs are very optimistic. It may not always be like this. But interacting with the past is an optimism, a way to move it forward and stay connected with it. For me, there is a kind of reverence that is about repairing or taking care of something.

• Harold Mendez (Harold Mendez): Maybe, between the Miami School of Contemporary Art, until May 1, 2022