Cuba Out of Cuba: Through the Lens of Alexis Rodriguez-Duarte in Collaboration with Tico Torres

Cuba Out of Cuba: Through the Lens of Alexis Rodriguez-Duarte in Collaboration with Tico Torres

Cuba Out of Cuba: Through the Lens of Alexis Rodriguez-Duarte in collaboration with Tico Torres features iconic photographs of Cuban figures living outside the island, among them performers, composers, designers, writers, and artists, shot over the last twenty years in Miami, New York, London, Paris, Florence, Venice, and Los Angeles. The exhibition surveys the legacies of Celia Cruz, Bebo Valdés, Gloria Estefan, Cristina Saralegui, Andy Garcia, Cundo Bermúdez, Nilo Cruz, and Paquito d’Rivera, among other Cubans who have influenced the greater culture of their time.

Alexis Rodríguez-Duarte was born in Havana, Cuba. In 1968, he and his parents were among the many Cuban exiles who left the island aboard humanitarian airlifts known as the Freedom Flights. Once arriving in Miami, his family, along with thousands of other Cuban exiles, entered the United States through the doors of the Freedom Tower. From 1962 to 1974, the building served as a processing and assistance center for the exile community. For many, the Tower provided nothing less than their freedom from Castro and the hardships Cuba had come to give them.

Rodriguez-Duarte’s family settled in Miami’s Little Havana community. At the age of ten, he was given his first camera by his grandfather, which led to his love affair with photography. Today, an internationally renowned photographer based in New York and Miami, his work has appeared in The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Town & Country, and Harper’s Bazaar, and he has exhibited his work at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., the Museum of the City of New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and The Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach.

Rodriguez-Duarte and his husband of thirty-one years, Tico Torres, have documented the Cuban diaspora since 1993. Torres, a photo stylist and master of the mise-en-scène, helped Rodriguez-Duarte create the joyous image of Celia Cruz standing amid the towering palms of Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in a traditional ruffled Cuban gown. He was also there to set the mood in the London flat of Guillermo Cabrera Infante, one of Cuba’s most famous authors. Torres and his family were also among the Cuban exiles who settled in Miami’s Hialeah community. Rodriguez-Duarte and Torres are thrilled to be returning together, full circle, to the historic Freedom Tower for this inaugural exhibition, after separately setting foot there as immigrant children so many years before.