Flying Apartment Flotilla (variation b)

Artist Maria Elena González American, born Cuba 1957

Date2002

MediumFiber cement

DimensionsDimensions variable

ClassificationsSculpture

Credit LineGift from the collection of Drs. Carlos Garcia-Velez and W. Kent Davis, Chapel Hill, NC

Object number2007.10/a-j

On View

On view

Label Text
Flying Apartment Flotilla comprises ten modules representing four apartment layouts recalled from González’s youth in Havana. Floor plans imprinted in industrial fiber cement appear to lift themselves from the floor in different states of flight. One of several works related to flying carpets, the series emerged at a time when González frequently traveled by plane. Following a trip to Turkey years ago, she fantasized about magic carpets, having faced countless carpet vendors in Istanbul.

The conditions of travel and movement resonate more generally with the artist’s experience of relocating repeatedly during her lifetime, beginning with her family’s emigration from Cuba. González states that “once one is uprooted, one devises methods of rooting oneself.” Rather than leaving home, she prefers to say she is always coming home. She takes this idea a step further, considering the possibility of taking one’s “home” wherever one goes, and refers to the flying carpet flotilla as “a relocatable city.”ProvenanceCreated United States, 2002; collection of the artist; [The Project, New York]; Carlos Garcia-Velez, Raleigh, NC; given to NCMA, 2007.
Published ReferencesKinsey Katchka, "Global Artists Exploring Identity Far From Home," in Preview: The Magazine of the North Carolina Museum of Art (Winter 2008), illus. (color), 11.

Kinsey Katchka, "Far from Home," in Preview: The Magazine of the North Carolina Museum of Art (Spring 2008), illus. (color) 9.Exhibition HistoryHouston, TX, DiverseWorks, "UN Real Estates," November 1-December 14, 2002; Memphis, TN, Art Museum of the University of Memphis, March 18-April 9, 2003; New York, NY, Art in General, September 6-December 30, 2003.

Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, "Far from Home," February 17-July 13, 2008.

Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, "The People's Collection Reimagined," April 21, 2025-present.
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