b. 1971, resides in Cuba
To express the tragedy of New York, Abel Barroso felt compelled to impose upon himself a meticulous thought process and a radical change in technique. At the time of September 11, he was leading . . .
b. Havana 1964, resides Miami, Florida
Adriano Buergo is among those Cuban artists ambidextrous enough to integrate his art into the dynamics and aesthetic itinerary of a collective . . .
Matanzas, Cuba 1927–Havana, 2001
Considered the most important Cuban sculptor of the 20th century, Agustín Cárdenas studied at the San Alejandro Academy in 1943-1949, and worked in the ateliers of his instructors, Juan José Sicre and Jesús Casagrán. ...
b. Matanzas, Cuba, 1972. Resides in Havana.
Aimeé García belongs to a lineage of women artists who, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, began to articulate a distinctive vision of their place in society. ...
b. 1968, resides in Cuba
In the works of Alexis Esquivel and several other artists (as well as curators and critics), attention is focused on vital conflicts that are not publicly discussed, and on questioning the cultural stereotypes about . . .
b. 1963, resides in Miami, Florida
Ana Albertina Delgado became known in Cuba in the mid-1980s as a member of art collective Grupo Puré (together with Adriano Buergo, Ermy Taño, and Lázaro Saveedra). Later, her work grew closer to that of other female artists like . . .
1948-1985, resided in the United States
Mendieta assigned a healing role, both at the personal and symbolic level, to the ephemeral interventions that she staged and photographed: silhouettes traced on the ground, ancestral marks made on sand or trees . . .
Havana 1929-Miami, USA 1995
Antonia Eiriz was born in Juanelo, a humble community in the Havana municipality of San Miguel del Padrón. She graduated from . . .
Havana, 1904–Massachusetts, 1980
Antonio Gattorno was one of the most gifted students at the San Alejandro School of Arts in the opening years of the 20th century. All who knew this young Cuban artist praised his accomplishments as an academic painter. ...
b. 1968, resides in Spain
Beginning with his solo exhibition, Des-colon-izando el entorno (De-colon-izing the Environment, Wifredo Lam Center, 1996), Mariño’s art has revealed a unique take on the practice of parody and . . .
b. 1955, resides in the United States
Arturo Cuenca’s Che brings a personal accent to this thematic lineage in Cuban art. Considered one of the main leaders of the “new Cuban art” of the 1980s, Cuenca moved from conceptually based hyperrealism to . . .
b. 1965, resides in Cuba
The date: May 4, 1990. The event: the opening of the group exhibition, El Objeto Esculturado (The Sculptured Object), at the Center for the Development of the Visual Arts in Havana. The artist Ángel Delgado slowly unfolds a copy of . . .
1967-1999, resided in Cuba
While studying at the San Alejandro art school in Havana, Belkis Ayón discovered the writings of Lydia Cabrera and Enrique Sosa about the secret society of the Abakuá. . . .
b. 1962, resides in the United States
Carlos Cárdenas is one of the most active artists working within the “demythifying” or critical trend that distinguished Cuban art in the 1990s. His entry into the contemporary art spotlight came . . .
b. 1969, resides in the United States
Initially considered a disciple of the artist Elso Padilla because of his use of natural materials and a preference for iconic representations of humanity, Estévez has developed a coherent personal mythology . . .
b. 1967, resides in Cuba
Curator, with Esterio Segura, of the important 1993 exhibition Las metáforas del templo (Metaphors of the Temple), Carlos Garaicoa has created an exceptional body of work on the themes of architecture, ruins, and utopia. From his initial subject, the city of Havana . . .
b. 1958, resides in the United States
Described by Joseph Kosuth as a post-postmodern artist, Consuelo Castañeda undoubtedly left her mark on the Cuban art of the 1980s, the so-called “prodigious decade.” Castañeda is gifted with . . .
b. 1972, Cienfuegos, Cuba
Around the mid-1990s, the art catalogues of the Italian Trans-Avant-Garde—led by art critic Bonito Oliva—and German “sauvage” painting introduced new frames of reference for painters in Cuba. ...
b. 1976 Zulueta, Villa Clara
During his formative years at the Graduate Institute of Art (ISA), Duvier del Dago established himself as a draughtsman. His work in this medium, and in video, came to be decisive in the inception of the projects done with Omar Moreno as the artistic team Omarito & Duvier ...
b. 1966, resides in Cuba
The acknowledgement and tracing of homoerotic themes in contemporary Cuban art is a relatively new process (Santana, 2000). The few investigations into this marginalized but inalienable facet of Cuban national culture have focused on literature or . . .
Eduardo Ponjuán González (b. 1956, resides in Cuba)
René Francisco Rodríguez (b. 1960, resides in Cuba)
In 1988, in the relaxed setting of a bar in Havana, two students at the Superior Institute of Art in Havana (ISA) decided to form a creative duo, based on an already well-established friendship and a similarity of ideas about . . .
b. 1971, resides in the United States
Elsa Mora’s works have earned their own niche in the artistic production of the last decade. Like some of her female compatriots (María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Belkis Ayón, Gertrudis Rivalta, Marta María Pérez Bravo, Alicia Leal, Aymeé García), Mora does not align herself with . . .
b. 1970, resides in Cuba
When Cuban film director Tomás Gutiérrez Alea decided to include Esterio Segura’s paintings as a plot device in his 1994 film, Strawberry and Chocolate, the young artist had already participated in . . .
b. 1970, resides in Cuba
Rodríguez’s sculptures, drawings, canvases, and short digital films deconstruct—with a healthy serving of Cuban humor—the labels of primitivism, local color, and popular identity frequently imposed on Latin American and Cuban art. Sueño Nupcial (Nuptial Dream) depicts the wedding of Cuban leader Fidel Castro and . . .
Camagüey, 1895–Havana, 1949
Fidelio Ponce is a unique figure in the context of modern Cuban art. At a moment when common interests among various groups gave the Cuban modernist movement a particular coherence, Ponce remained isolated ...
b. 1954, resides in Mexico
Flavio Garciandía was an indispensable figure in the Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA). His encyclopedic knowledge of art, his straightforward criticism of students’ work, the energy he invested in redesigning the . . .
b. Camagüey, Cuba, 1971. Resides in Havana.
The works of Franklin Álvarez Fortún—who graduated from the Instituto Superior de Arte in 1998—exemplify trends in Cuban art that emerged in the wake of the 1993 exhibition Las Metáforas del Templo (Metaphors of the Temple), and were granted a certain legitimacy with the 1996 Primer Salón de Arte Contemporáneo (First Salon of Contemporary Art). ...
b. 1964, resides in the United States
Cuban art in the 1980s made an unprecedented contribution to the relationship between culture and society in the “popular democracies” [known in the West as Communist nations]. While the cultural bureaucracies in the U.S.S.R. had imposed. . .
b. Havana 1953
The 1981 exhibition Volume One marked the takeoff of the “Cuban Renaissance” in visual arts (Camnitzer). Among the artists participating in that exhibition was Rogelio López Marin (Gory), one of the main practitioners of . . .
b. 1958, resides in the United States
Gustavo Acosta has been identified as an artist of “individualistic” tendencies (Camnitzer, 1992, 264) by virtue of his aesthetic position, which defines painting and its conventions as basic...
b. 1957, resides in the United States
Humberto Castro’s art takes place within the framework of violence. Initially inspired by the mass extermination of the aboriginal population of Cuba, his work later absorbed more contemporary connotations, such as . . .
b. 1969, resides in Cuba
When Ibrahim Miranda graduated from the Superior Institute of Art (ISA) in 1993, his works had already been shown in such important exhibitions as Kuba O.K. in Germany, Nacido en Cuba (Born in Cuba) in Venezuela and Mexico, and . . .
23 February 1883 Tarragona, Spain–31 October 1955 Havana, Cuba
In 1901, Catalonian Jaime Valls arrived in Havana with his family. It was a far from casual trip. The island, freshly freed of Spanish domination, had become a destiny sought by numerous immigrants fleeing a crisis-ridden Spain, ...
b. 1959, resides in the United States
As the son of a sailor who used to describe the wonders hidden beyond the horizon with the enthusiasm of a Marco Polo, Bedia has periodically taken on the subject of the island, and each time . . .
b. 1958, resides in Argentina
José Franco, a “tropical” artist, chose Henri (Le Douanier) Rousseau as his interlocutor. In the context of 1980s art, Franco, together with Eduardo Rubén and Carlos A. García, set out to recover . . .
b. 1956, resides in Cuba and Spain
Although José Manuel Fors has been cast as a photographer, or “artist of the lens,” his creations belong to the genre of post-photography. By appropriating images from others . . .
b. 1966, resides in Spain
Better known for his decisive participation in the collective Angulo-Ballester-Toirac-Villazón (or ABTV, per Camnitzer, 2003, 188), since 1992 Ballester has produced, on his own, images that reject the . . .
b. 1970, resides in Cuba
The son of a carpenter and a visual arts teacher who rigorously taught him his first notions about drawing, Kcho obtained his degree in Painting and Drawing at the National School of Art (ENA), founded in 1961. In 1991, he was included in the influential exhibition . . .
b. 1964, resides in Cuba
Oval or rectangular in shape, industrially printed in garish color, the Sacred Heart was one of the most popular icons in a Catholic land that also revered African deities in the guise of Christian saints. It invariably depicted a young man . . .
Dagoberto Rodríguez Sánchez (b. 1969, resides in Cuba) and
Marco Antonio Castillo Valdés (b. 1971, resides in Cuba) and
Alexandre Arrechea (b.1970, resides in Cuba). (Arrechea left the group in 2003.)
In the 1990s, Dagoberto Rodríguez, Alexandre Arrechea, and Marco Castillo were christened “Los Carpinteros” (The Carpenters) for the paintings and sculptures they made using . . .
b. 1942, resides in the United States
Exiled in the United States since 1960, Cruz Azaceta, as well as his art, is rooted in his condition as a Cuban New Yorker. Other Cuban artists working from the perspective of exile may take on . . .
b. 1968, Havana. Resides in Havana.
Luis Gómez started exhibiting his works in the early 1990s as part of a new generation of artists. He studied under Juan Francisco Elso Padilla (1956-1988), a central figure in Cuban art of that decade, ...
b. 1944, resides in Cuba
Mendive’s art cannot be separated from his identity as a Santero. He is a loyal practitioner of a religion that, in 1990s Cuba, ceased to be regarded solely as a refuge for poor blacks and mulattoes and assumed a multiracial . . .
b. 1958, resides in Cuba and Canada
The Volumen I generation came into the public spotlight after the Mariel experience in 1980, when intellectuals such as Carlos Alfonzo and Reinaldo Arenas emigrated. This migratory process and its connotations . . .
b. 1959, resides in the United States
The late 1980s witnessed the emergence of several women artists, virtually all of them graduates of the national system of art education. Cuba already had Amelia Peláez (1896-1968) in the 1930s and . . .
Havana, 1912-1990
Mariano Rodríguez was one of the figures who emerged with uncommon force in the late 1930s. A member of the so-called second generation of modern painters, he was one of the artists who brought to Cuba the aesthetics of Mexican mural painting...
Havana 1913–Santiago de Chile 1999
Mario Carreño was one of the young talents to emerge in the world of Cuban visual arts in the 1930s....
b. 1959, resides in Mexico
Marta María Pérez’s works make a distinct and original contribution to the history of female representation in Cuban art. In a field historically dominated by the male perspective, Pérez introduces her own body into the discourse through the use of staged photography. Her relationship with the photographic medium . . .
1967-2004, resided in Cuba and Spain
Pedro Álvarez studied at the Havana University’s School of Artistic Education in a feverish era. Street performances of Arte Calle, fleeting art exhibitions . . .
The creative coordinates of Pedro Vizcaíno’s art stem from the late 1980s. The explosion of the Volumen I exhibition and the subsequent emergence of a “Cuban avant-garde theory” steeped in the contributions of Western postmodern thought—boldly defying official cultural models from the Eastern bloc ...
Ciego de Ávila 1927-Havana 1995
Raúl Martínez is one of the most important figures in the history of Cuban art. His energetic, multifaceted career was not limited to painting, ...
b. 1943, Havana. Resides in Paris.
A self-taught artist, in 1960 Alejandro went into voluntary exile in search of the treasures of European art. After stays in Argentina and Brazil, he finally arrived in Paris. ...
b. 1957, resides in Cuba
In September of 1931, Social magazine, founded by the Cuban humorist and publicist Conrado Massaguer, published a photo of the boxer Kid Chocolate, who later won the world featherweight title. Considered one of the most elegant men of his day, a friend of Argentinean tango sensation Carlos Gardel . . .
1912-1985 Havana
René Portocarrero’s body of work still awaits a study that will confirm him as one of the most magnificent artists in the history of Cuban painting, ...
b. Niquero, Cuba, 1968
Reynerio Tamayo’s art has been commanding attention since the late 1980s, touched by the all-inclusive, postmodern vocation that permeated Cuban art in that era. From the start, humor has been one of the real foundations of his painting ...
b. 1951, resides in Cuba
Roberto Fabelo is a member of “the generation of sure hope” whose art was reinvigorated by the creative environment of the 1980s. A printmaker, illustrator . . .
b. Las Villas, 1955. Resides in Havana.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, the female form became one of the central themes in Cuban painting and photography. A study of the artistic work by Cuban women of that period, however, is yet to come: the degree of adherence to, or deviation from, the canons set by the mostly male establishment of artists, trends, and critics. ...
b. 1980, Camaguey, Cuba
b. 1957, resides in the United States
After graduating from the San Alejandro Art School in 1976 and the Superior Institute of Art (ISA) in 1981, Rubén Torres Llorca participated in the influential exhibition Volumen I (Volume One). Its presentation represented a break with . . .
Guantánamo, Cuba 1961
Ceballos’s poetic decision to delve into the the universe of the scatological, the morbid, the grotesque, the forbidden, and the ill joins her to a Cuban tradition fostered by such outstanding artists as Antonia Eiriz and Santiago (Chago) Armada....
b. 1969, resides in Cuba
The image of Cuba as the terra firma described by José Martí as “where the palm tree grows” (Valentín Sanz Carta, Domingo Ramos, Tomás Sánchez) had been replaced by navigational charts, with which the island broke its ties and was set adrift like a boat or a pneumatic raft. By means of prints, installations, sculptural objects, and drawings, Sandra Ramos . . .
b. 1965. Resides in the United States.
Segundo Planes’ work could be categorized as belonging to the surrealist vein of Latin American art. Like an iceberg, this artistic style has surfaced in different countries and moments to become a “tradition” in the course of the 20th century. ...
1923-1981, Havana
Servando Cabrera Moreno was not only a great painter and draftsman who mastered various subjects, genres, visual languages, materials, and techniques. He was also astoundingly prolific, and his fecundity in creating art . . .
b. 1968, resides in Cuba and the United States
Given that Bruguera is internationally renowned as one of the most active practitioners of performance art, it’s no coincidence that her art was originally an homage to the memory of Ana Mendieta. In the early 1990s, while many artists . . .
b. Havana 1963, resides in U.S.A.
Tomás Esson Reid is one of the most significant artists to have emerged in Cuba during the 1980s. Creator of provocative works, and something of a controversial figure himself ...
b. 1948, resides in Costa Rica
Closer to the paintings of the Hudson River School than to the technological avant-garde, Tomás Sánchez’s imaginary landscapes do not bear the labels of rebellion, irony, postmodernism, or kitsch imposed by American . . .
b. 1958, resides in Cuba and Canada
In the early 1980s, the publication of Tonel’s “caricatures” in humor magazines led to his being erroneously classified as a humorist. Nevertheless, with the 1989 exhibition . . .
b. Havana 1937, resides in Salamanca, Spain
Umberto Peña spells his first name the Italian way, like his famous namesake, the Futurist painter, sculptor, and theorist Boccioni. Peña, however, is Cuban, ...
b. Batabanó, Havana, 1971. Resides in Cuba.
In the mid-1980s, the Facultad de Educación Artística (School of Art Education)—newly established in the old Columbia military camp, now Ciudad Libertad—became, together with the High Institute of Art and San Alejandro Academy, one of the most intensive sources of creativity in Cuban art for that decade. ...
b. 1902 Sagua La Grande, Las Villas–d. 1982 París
In the 1970s, Wifredo Lam was working on a series of paintings in small and medium formats. It was a more intimate approach to his art, and at the same time a mature synthesis of his aesthetic ideas.
b. 1977, resides in Cuba
From his first exhibition, Yoan Capote has shown a peculiar sensitivity toward everyday objects. This is not an “archeological” interest in the improvised technologies of a Cuba in the midst of an epic shortage of . . .
