National Gallery of Art - Series: More Than Ninety Miles Away: A Dialogue with Cuban Artists

Series
More Than Ninety Miles Away: A Dialogue about Cuban Art

The often-referenced distance between Havana and Miami is 90 miles. Seeking to go beyond this boundary, this series provides a forum for exploring Cuban art and promoting meaningful dialogue. Highlights include distinguished contemporary artists from Cuba discussing their work in their own words. Michelle Bird, curatorial assistant, department of French paintings, National Gallery of Art, moderates. The programs take place at 12:10 p.m. and 1:10 p.m. in the East Building Small Auditorium.

February 6, 2012
Rodolfo Peraza
Image: Image: Born in 1980, a year closely associated with the birth of "new Cuban art," Rodolfo Peraza belongs to the generation of young artists that has inherited a legacy of the hard-fought freedom of individual artistic expression. While questions of isolation, loneliness, and self-identity persist, his work traverses the confines of geographic and personal borders through technology. Using the internet, social media, and animation, Peraza creates a body of work that explores the moral, spiritual, and social modes of conduct governing society. In his For Your Safety series, the human figure is reduced to uniformity by means of a simplified language of symbol. Constantly in conflict with its environment, the figure addresses issues of authority and control.

October 17, 2011
Kadir López Nieves
Image: Image: Kadir López Nieves was born in 1972 in the province of Las Tunas. His talent was recognized at the age of twelve, when he was chosen to receive formal art training in Cuba's educational system. He graduated from the Instituto Superior de Artes (ISA) in Havana in 1995. Kadir came to artistic maturity at a time when the image and illusion of the Cuban Revolution were greatly diminished. Much of his work is inspired by a meditation on time: blurring past, present, and future, he critiques the effects of progress, or lack thereof, in spiritual, economic, and political arenas. In his recent Signs, Kadir repurposes porcelain-lacquered steel advertising signs from prerevolutionary Cuba by fusing black-and-white photographs onto them. The irony of the juxtaposition provides a more complicated reading of the island's history.

June 21, 2011
Sandra Ramos
Image: Image: Primarily a printmaker, Sandra Ramos uses a variety of media to explore issues related to the recovery of both an individual and collective memory. Blending memorabilia from past events, real and imagined, personal and historical, the artist creates a phantasmagorical new world from the "ruins of a utopia." In this world, forbidden topics such as migration, racism, and the political manipulation of history become the quotidian subjects of her art. The main protagonist is a character who fuses her own self-image with that of a print of a 19th-century Dutch princess. Evoking a postmodern Alice in Wonderland, she navigates through the complexities of life on the island. Floating somewhere between the foreground and background, her figure is not fully integrated with her surroundings but exists in the intervening space of her environment and circumstance. As a result, Ramos' art extends beyond the autobiographical to bear the weight and vulnerability of the island and its people. Ramos lives and works in Havana.

February 8, 2011
Los Carpinteros, Dagoberto Rodríguez Sánchez and Marco Antonio Castillo Valdés
Image: Image: The Havana-based collective Los Carpinteros (The Carpenters) has created some of the most important work to emerge from Cuba in the past decade. Formed in 1991 by Marco Castillo, Dagoberto Rodríguez, and Alexandre Arrechea (who departed in June 2003), the group adopted its current name in 1994, deciding to renounce the notion of individual authorship and refer back to an older guild tradition of artisans and skilled laborers. Interested in the intersection of art and society, the group merges architecture, design, and sculpture in unexpected and often humorous ways. For Los Carpinteros, drawing has played an integral role as a mock technical draft of a blueprint that suggests not only a process of artistic elaboration but also a form of architectural or carpentry plans.

November 2, 2010
Yoan Capote
Image: Image: Yoan Capote is a Cuban artist who specializes in a wide range of media: drawing, painting, printmaking, sculpture, and video. His work often merges human organs with inanimate objects, rearranging the human body and reinventing the purpose of everyday life. Using fish hooks, oil paint, canvas, and burlap in the recent series Mental States, Capote created images of seascapes and landscapes that speak to the collective experience of memory, isolation, and desire. While exposing the tension between what is perceived and what is experienced, Capote explores the effect of sensations and reflections upon the body and mind.

October 19, 2010
Jose Toirac and Meira Marrero
Image: Image: The work of Jose Toirac and Meira Marrero explores the political and cultural iconography of the island by referencing images from books, magazines, newspapers, and television produced by the Cuban government. A Brief History of Cuba as Told by Other Things, a series of their work that was banned by the government, was shown publicly for the first time at Art Basel Miami in 2009. In this series, the artists appropriated well-known photographic images of the Cuban Revolution and fused them with logos for Western commercial products, thereby removing the revolutionary images from their original context and altering their meaning.

Related Programs

January 11, 2010
Art Exhibition Strategies at the Tenth Havana Biennial

June 16, 2008
No Rum or Cigars: Permissible Souvenirs from a Cuban Tour 2004-2006

Image credits (top to bottom, left to right): Kadir López Nieves, courtesy of Patti Kelly Photography; Hilton Casino, 2011, mixed media (porcelain on steel, ceramic and oil pigment, digital transfer photograph), courtesy of the artist; Sandra Ramos, courtesy of the artist; Y cuando todos se han ido, llega la soledad (And When All Have Left, Comes Loneliness), 1993, etching and aquatint, courtesy of the artist; Los Carpinteros (Antonio Castillo and Dagoberto Rodríguez), courtesy of Sean Kelly Gallery, New York; Estuche (Jewelry Case), 1999, wood, courtesy of Sean Kelly Gallery, New York; Yoan Capote, courtesy of the artist; Autorretrato (Self-Portrait), 2008, concrete and bronze, courtesy of the artist; Jose Toirac and Meira Marrero, courtesy of the artists; Marlboro from the Tiempos nuevos (New Times) series, 1996, oil on canvas, courtesy of the artist.

	Series *More Than Ninety Miles Away: A Dialogue about Cuban Art* The often-referenced distance between Havana and Miami is 90 miles. Seeking to go beyond this boundary, this series provides a forum for exploring Cuban art and promoting meaningful dialogue. Highlights include distinguished contemporary artists from Cuba discussing their work in their own words. Michelle Bird, curatorial assistant, department of French paintings, National Gallery of Art, moderates. The programs take place at 12:10 p.m. and 1:10 p.m. in the East Building Small Auditorium. February 6, 2012 *Rodolfo Peraza* Born in 1980, a year closely associated with the birth of "new Cuban art," Rodolfo Peraza belongs to the generation of young artists that has inherited a legacy of the hard-fought freedom of individual artistic expression. While questions of isolation, loneliness, and self-identity persist, his work traverses the confines of geographic and personal borders through technology. Using the internet, social media, and animation, Peraza creates a body of work that explores the moral, spiritual, and social modes of conduct governing society. In his For Your Safety series, the human figure is reduced to uniformity by means of a simplified language of symbol. Constantly in conflict with its environment, the figure addresses issues of authority and control. October 17, 2011 *Kadir López Nieves* Kadir López Nieves was born in 1972 in the province of Las Tunas. His talent was recognized at the age of twelve, when he was chosen to receive formal art training in Cuba's educational system. He graduated from the Instituto Superior de Artes (ISA) in Havana in 1995. Kadir came to artistic maturity at a time when the image and illusion of the Cuban Revolution were greatly diminished. Much of his work is inspired by a meditation on time: blurring past, present, and future, he critiques the effects of progress, or lack thereof, in spiritual, economic, and political arenas. In his recent Signs, Kadir repurposes porcelain-lacquered steel advertising signs from prerevolutionary Cuba by fusing black-and-white photographs onto them. The irony of the juxtaposition provides a more complicated reading of the island's history. June 21, 2011 *Sandra Ramos* Primarily a printmaker, Sandra Ramos uses a variety of media to explore issues related to the recovery of both an individual and collective memory. Blending memorabilia from past events, real and imagined, personal and historical, the artist creates a phantasmagorical new world from the "ruins of a utopia." In this world, forbidden topics such as migration, racism, and the political manipulation of history become the quotidian subjects of her art. The main protagonist is a character who fuses her own self-image with that of a print of a 19th-century Dutch princess. Evoking a postmodern Alice in Wonderland, she navigates through the complexities of life on the island. Floating somewhere between the foreground and background, her figure is not fully integrated with her surroundings but exists in the intervening space of her environment and circumstance. As a result, Ramos' art extends beyond the autobiographical to bear the weight and vulnerability of the island and its people. Ramos lives and works in Havana. February 8, 2011 *Los Carpinteros, Dagoberto Rodríguez Sánchez and Marco Antonio Castillo Valdés* The Havana-based collective Los Carpinteros (The Carpenters) has created some of the most important work to emerge from Cuba in the past decade. Formed in 1991 by Marco Castillo, Dagoberto Rodríguez, and Alexandre Arrechea (who departed in June 2003), the group adopted its current name in 1994, deciding to renounce the notion of individual authorship and refer back to an older guild tradition of artisans and skilled laborers. Interested in the intersection of art and society, the group merges architecture, design, and sculpture in unexpected and often humorous ways. For Los Carpinteros, drawing has played an integral role as a mock technical draft of a blueprint that suggests not only a process of artistic elaboration but also a form of architectural or carpentry plans. November 2, 2010 *Yoan Capote* Yoan Capote is a Cuban artist who specializes in a wide range of media: drawing, painting, printmaking, sculpture, and video. His work often merges human organs with inanimate objects, rearranging the human body and reinventing the purpose of everyday life. Using fish hooks, oil paint, canvas, and burlap in the recent series Mental States, Capote created images of seascapes and landscapes that speak to the collective experience of memory, isolation, and desire. While exposing the tension between what is perceived and what is experienced, Capote explores the effect of sensations and reflections upon the body and mind. October 19, 2010 *Jose Toirac and Meira Marrero* The work of Jose Toirac and Meira Marrero explores the political and cultural iconography of the island by referencing images from books, magazines, newspapers, and television produced by the Cuban government. A Brief History of Cuba as Told by Other Things, a series of their work that was banned by the government, was shown publicly for the first time at Art Basel Miami in 2009. In this series, the artists appropriated well-known photographic images of the Cuban Revolution and fused them with logos for Western commercial products, thereby removing the revolutionary images from their original context and altering their meaning. Related Programs January 11, 2010 *Art Exhibition Strategies at the Tenth Havana Biennial* June 16, 2008 *No Rum or Cigars: Permissible Souvenirs from a Cuban Tour 2004-2006* Image credits (top to bottom, left to right): Kadir López Nieves, courtesy of Patti Kelly Photography; Hilton Casino, 2011, mixed media (porcelain on steel, ceramic and oil pigment, digital transfer photograph), courtesy of the artist; Sandra Ramos, courtesy of the artist; Y cuando todos se han ido, llega la soledad (And When All Have Left, Comes Loneliness), 1993, etching and aquatint, courtesy of the artist; Los Carpinteros (Antonio Castillo and Dagoberto Rodríguez), courtesy of Sean Kelly Gallery, New York; Estuche (Jewelry Case), 1999, wood, courtesy of Sean Kelly Gallery, New York; Yoan Capote, courtesy of the artist; Autorretrato (Self-Portrait), 2008, concrete and bronze, courtesy of the artist; Jose Toirac and Meira Marrero, courtesy of the artists; Marlboro from the Tiempos nuevos (New Times) series, 1996, oil on canvas, courtesy of the artist.
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