Manuel Piña-Baldoquín was born in La Habana, Cuba, in 1958. He is a Cuban Canadian artist based in Vancouver. After a few years working as a mechanical engineer he started his artistic practice in the early 1990s. Piña-Baldoquín’s work is concerned with the tensions between power and individual freedom. Earlier works consisted of cityscapes through which he interrogated the urban environment as both site and embodiment of this relationship. Currently his art projects and pedagogic practice investigate the ongoing impact of technology on contemporary vernacular approaches to the creation and dissemination of images. His works appropriate the visual language emerging from these conditions to investigate their potential as a means for social emancipation.
Piña-Baldoquín’s work has been exhibited in the Americas and Europe, including at the Havana Biennale; the Istanbul Biennale; Kunsthalle Vienna; Grey Gallery, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Daros Museum, Zurich; Dorsky Gallery Curatorial Projects, New York; and the Bronx Museum, New York.
He teaches in the Department of Art History, Visual Arts and Theory at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver.