Q & A: Nine Contemporary Cuban Artists
November 30, 2016–January 15, 2017
Museum of Art and Design at MDC
Q & A: Nine Contemporary Cuban Artists
The work of nine contemporary Cuban artists in various media reflects a polyvalent vision of Cuban reality today. Rather than a complacent view, Q & A: Nine Contemporary Cuban Artists emphasizes these artists’ critically aware point of view, acknowledging the existence of a line between art and political activism that they cannot cross without the risk of reprisal from Cuban authorities. Deliberately eschewing familiar tropes, the exhibition provides us with an opportunity to examine the questions of how Cubans see themselves and how they think the world sees them.
Q & A includes artists Alexandre Arrechea, Alejandro Campins, Javier Castro, Humberto Díaz, Fidel García, Alejandro González, Lorena Gutiérrez, Tony Labat, and Fernando Rodríguez, the majority of whom live and work in Cuba. Addressing their country’s national and political myths, they examine history, failed ideologies, corruption, censorship, and the manipulation of public opinion.
Organized by the Inter-American Development Bank Staff Association Art Gallery in Washington, D.C., this exhibition is curated by the Havana-based Cristina Vives.
Alexandre Arrechea, The Fact (Lo real), 2014, painted wood, acrylic, and metal, 108 1/4 x 359 7/8 x 144 1/8 inches (275 x 914 x 366 cm).
Alejandro Campins, Empatía, 2015, oil on canvas, 153 1/2 x 256 inches (388.6 x 650.2 cm). Courtesy of the Jorge M. Pérez Collection, Miami.
Fidel García, Colectivización (Collectivization), 2015–16, computer software and projections, dimensions variable.
Alejandro González, De la serie Re-construcción: Quinquenio Gris, 1971, 1972, 1974, 1975 (From the Re-Construction Series: The Gray Five-Year Period, 1971, 1972, 1974, 1975) (installation view), 2015, Chromira prints on Komatex.
Lorena Gutiérrez, Upperworld (detail), 2015, single-channel video, 34 seconds; white fabric shirt collars; vitrine; and Chromira prints mounted on gatorboard, dimensions variable.
Tony Labat, Estrella Labat…The Potential Danger of the Analyst´s Counter-Transference (installation view), 2016, three single-channel videos, three display stations (photo table, elephant table, fashion line), and two wall stations (plates, patterns), dimensions variable.
(To all of those mothers that worked in a “factoría” for so many years.)
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