Contemporary Art from Cuba:
Irony and Survival on the Utopian Island
Catalogue Information
Available Late May 1999
A scholarly catalogue published by DGE, New York, documents the work, which is cohesive and distinct from that of the decade preceding it. The 17 artists in the exhibition are of a generation born since the Revolution (the oldest is Tonel, born in 1958, and the youngest, Jacqueline Brito, is 24). Unlike the artists who preceded them, who launched a frontal attack against official Cuba, and who soon found that exile was the best alternative to silence, the artists in this exhibition have developed a visual language for commenting upon the Cuban reality. The catalogue presents an array of points of view from three writers. Gerardo Mosquera, a Cuban, places Cuban art in the twentieth century in an international context. He elucidates the special richness of the Afro-Cuban content of the work. Mosquera, who divides his time between Havana and New York and was a commissioner for the Johannesburg Biennial, is one of the most knowledgeable and widely respected critics of Latin American art today. Tonel, an artist in the exhibition who is also a writer, is regarded as the spokesperson of this generation of artists. He addresses the shift between the generations of the 80's and the 90's and the particular issue of why the artists of this generation choose to remain in Cuba. As the curator, Marilyn A. Zeitlin writes specifically about the work in the exhibition and the ways in which it reflects the contemporary Cuban reality.
The catalogue includes documentation of several works by each artist, biographies of each artist, and an extensive bibliography.
All text is bilingual in English and Spanish.
The catalogue is published by:
DGE
223 E. 12th Street
New York, NY 10003-9157
tel (212) 674-7053
fax (212) 777-3629
ISBN # 0-929445-05-8 softbound
$35
ISBN # 0-929445-04-X hardbound $60
188 pages
This website document, including images and text, may not be reproduced, either mechanically or electronically, without permission in writing from the ASU Art Museum. ©1999, the artists, the writers, and the Regents of the State of Arizona.
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