In Deconstruction, Anthony Goicolea presents a semi-demolished apartment building whose facade has been removed, exposing dingy, barren interiors. Amid the rubble, men and women rest in hammocks attached to the remaining walls, with metal rods and crumbling bits of the facade dangling precariously around them. The swirling storm clouds overhead could have been plucked straight from the skies of Romantic landscape painter Caspar David Friedrich.

Through this work, Goicolea, whose family immigrated from Cuba, illuminates the challenges faced by immigrants in adapting and fitting in. Just as immigrants may seek comfort in uncertain territory, Goicolea’s subjects fit themselves into crumbling industrial wreckage to find temporary respite. Similarly, in the present moment, we are adapting in order to survive a different sort of wreckage inflicted by the pandemic and the U.S. government’s seismic mishandling of it.

Goicolea holds a BA in Art History (1992) and BFA in Drawing and Painting (1994), both from the University of Georgia, Athens, and an MFA in Sculpture and Photography from the Pratt Institute of Art, New York (1997). Goicolea's work has been shown in numerous exhibitions, including those at the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; and Postmasters Gallery, New York, among others. His honors include a Cintas Fellowship, BMW Photo Paris Award, and a Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant. His work can be found in such major public collections as the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Modern Art, and Brooklyn Museum. He recently created the New York City LGBTQ Memorial. Goicolea lives in Brooklyn, NY.