The Route

The Cuban artist Juan Andres Benito Milanes paricipates in the annual Høstutstillingen at Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo, Norway with the following work:


The route:

trace of the everyday experiences looked throughout time which are inherited from generation to generation, becoming our tradition and costumes pillar. This subject has a great influence on my work; that’s why investigating and reflecting about it, has been the basis for the construction of this piece.

Time reflexes the signs of physical deterioration in our bodies, shaping the being as a process in movement; metamorphosis which defines reality.
The same thing happens to our daily use objects, eloquent witnesses of this process. A good example is our shoes which show the trajectory of a brief period in our lives, as if they were silent spectators of the path already walked; of our route.


By assembling a certain amount of shoes used by different people we will have a great number of totally different trajectories and experiences witch common denominator would be time. Time will as well show it self during the 12 months in which the shoes are recollected. Any form of assembling or recollection implies a determinate space of time.

The route is a non specified number of used shoes which, gathered together, take the shape of an old American car reminding us the fifties decade. The car per se, as I see it, is also a witness of time.

The route is represented in the emigration phenomenon; in the need of movement and in that sensation of departing in search for something different where seeking, in some cases, takes us to the departing point; where, occasionally, returning is needed to identify with our fellow human beings. Thus, beginning the never ending cycle of the search of ourselves.