호세 마누엘 포르스
(Jose Manuel Fors)

José Manuel Fors graduated from the Academy of Art San Alejandro in 1976. He then studied at the Institute of Museology in Havana from 1983 to 1986 and, at the same time, worked as museographer in the National Museum of Baux-Arts.

In 1981, Fors participated in one of the most important shows in Cuban artistic renewal, called Volume I. Subsequently, he switched from material abstraction to installations as his primary art form. His first personal exhibition, "Accumulations" (1983), thus set the stage for some of his most recurrent topics and methodologies as an artist.

Fors is often considered a photographer, despite the fact that he infrequently engages in photographic work and, in some cases such as in the early versions of "Fallen Leaves", it is merely documentary support. Furthermore, the photographs he usually uses in his installations are employed to reveal his interest in memory as topic in his work. In addition, their creations are inspired by the literature of some of the most important Cuban writers, mainly Eliseo Diego and Dulce Maria Loynaz, whose verses title some of Fors' artworks.