Cuban artist opens Miami show today protesting Castro's jailing of colleagues

Havana's protesting "Ladies in White"

Evans Molina Fernandez

 

ArtTraveler’s Cuban arts digest

Pablo Cano, "Gothic Madonnas,” Kelley Roy Gallery, Wynwood art district, Miami: Opening 18 March as a tribute to the “Ladies in White,” the silent protestors in Havana, demanding improved human rights.

Cuban exile and master puppeteer Pablo Cano displays 50 of his drawings.

Cano wants to send Castro a message: Release the 75 “Black Spring” detainees still languishing in Cuban jails. 

Pablo Cano, "Young Cavaletti and Horse" (1998)

Cano lives in Little Havana, Miami.

The Cuban documentary PM revived in Havana after 50-year ban: Eros and the seedy side of Havana, always apparent and appreciated, was once banned in the silenced 60’s of Cuba.

Revived, this black and white 1961documentary by exiled filmmakers, is welcomed in Havana without comment or controversy, according to a recent story in El Pais (a Madrid-based Spanish daily) by Juan Cruz.

The film records Havana’s nightlife, bar crawling, night strollers, prostitutes and drunks.

Umberto Pena

The Cuban cultural thaw continues. 

You can see PM on YouTube in two parts.

“Two Impulses of the Erotic:” Santiago Rafael Armada & Umberto Pena: Open and running to 18 May at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de Cuba in Havana.

Curator Liana Rios showcases 36 works on paper by Armada (1937 – 1995), known as “Chago” in her days fighting alongside Fidel and Che, and by Pena, who lives in Madrid.

According to Rios, instead of showing guerrillas with rifles thrust in the air, this show reveals a darker side, and like PM, fleshes out a third dimension.

Evans Molina Fernandez, “Human Bridge,” 17 March, Providence, Rhode Island: Gallery La Naïve, a gallery focusing on Cuban artists, opened Evans Molina Fernandez's show.

Cuban music and dance group prepares for New York Cuban arts festival: “Los Munequitos de Matanzas,”  (YouTube 4:00 performance video) which heads to New York 5 – 7 May, performing at Symphony Space.

Meanwhile, these Afro-Cuban artists performed to a Havana audience on 8 March.

It is the first such group since 2002 to perform in the US, according to Reuters.

More cross-cultural political thawing.

Cuban group show, “Cuba on My Mind,”­ 12 March – 30 April at the von Liebig in Naples, Florida: von Liebig curator Jack O’Brien, Elizabeth Black and others recently went on a studio crawl in Havana, rounding up artists there and from the exile community—11 of them—to launch “Cuba on My Mind.”

"Ala Negritud Plastica!" by Eduardo Roca Salazar

Artists include: Eduardo Roca Salazar (“Choco”), a printmaker living in Havana; Lydia Rubio, who lives in Miami, a painter; Cirenaica Moreira, surrealism photographer, living in Cuba; Humberto Castro, who left Cuba in 1989.

Co-curator: Carol Damian, art historian, who directs the Frost Museum of Art at Florida International University, Miami.

Humberto Castro

Raul Cordero, Hendrickje, Museum of Contemporary Art & Design San Diego, California: 13 Jan. – 17 April.

Cordero appears one of Castro’s politically correct or at least non-political maestros worth marketing.

Like Carlos Amorales of Mexico and Krispen Gelzis of Latvia, Cordero sees himself an idea generator, a contemporary pioneer with an arsenal of multi-media talent.

Hendrickje takes us on a tour of Corderos’ complex imagery and technical processes, a mixture of oil painting, video graphics and photography. 

All nine of his images in Hendrickje compose one picture.

Lucia Sanroman curated Hendrickje.

Hendrickje is inspired by Rembrandt’s “A Woman Bathing in a Stream” (1654).

Cordero, age 40, who taught new genre art at the San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, California, and the Art Academy of Cincinnati, Ohio, crosses geo-political and cultural boundaries with ease.

Oil & polyester on canvas, Raul Cordero (2007)

He lives in Havana’s “privileged” barrio of El Vedado.

While his San Diego show runs, Cordero lectured at California State University Dominguez Hills on 14 March.

Rock on and practice peace and love.

Stefan, the ArtTraveler™

Come to Andalusia for a walking holiday or week-long sculpture or mosaics workshop. See: www.spanjeanders.nl and www.competafinearts.com.

You may reach me privately at stefanvandrake@gmail.com; please alert me to any arts news tips or happenings you think may interest us all. 

Or, you can call me in Spain at either: (34) 951 067 703 or from the UK at BT landline rates, 0844 774 8349.