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Four ways : a room of her own
2006This exhibition essay explores the works of four contemporary women artists of Cuban descent: Teresita Fernández, María Elena González, Quisqueya Henríquez, and María Martínez-Cañas, each discussed [...]ICAA Record ID: 1344135 -
Ana Mendieta's Iowa Years 1970-1980
2004This exhibition essay charts Ana Mendieta’s artistic trajectory between 1970 and 1980, including her tenure at the University of Iowa (where she completed two master’s degrees: one in painting and one in intermedia), her time in Mexico, [...]ICAA Record ID: 1343975 -
Ana Mendieta : the formative years
2003This magazine article addresses Ana Mendieta’s early work during her graduate studies at the University of Iowa in the early 1970s. The article argues that though Mendieta’s work has been extensively analyzed, this period in her [...]ICAA Record ID: 1343959 -
A town portrait : memory streams
1998This exhibition brochure by guest curator Julia P. Herzberg describes several works included in A Town Portrait, with an eponymous installation and two photographic series, When I Am Not Here/Estoy allá (1996) and Abridor de caminos (1997). [...]ICAA Record ID: 1343927 -
A dialogue with life and death
2006This essay by Julia Herzberg overviews Carlos Alfonzo’s artistic trajectory from 1982 to 1991, outlining the biographical details of his life and analyzing multiple artworks included in the exhibition. Working mainly in a Neo-Expressionist [...]ICAA Record ID: 1343911 -
Marti; Poeta Nuevo
In this essay, Raúl Roa García analyzes José Martí’s poetry, especially his “Versos sencillos,” to highlight their innovative and modernist nature. To begin with, he comments that Martí cannot be placed in any “lyrical school” or “ [...]ICAA Record ID: 1300003 -
Dibujos escolares
1927This brief article published in Revista de avance announces that a set of “studies” by the Cuban artist and caricaturist Rafael Blanco will be included in the exhibition 1927, featuring new art. First praising Blanco as a drawing instructor, the [...]ICAA Record ID: 1299805 -
El futuro artista
1927In “La Nueva Estética,” the lecture by Cuban writer and philosopher Jorge Mañach, he states that the new aesthetic trends followed by members of the art avant-garde resulted from a more widespread need for renewal during this period, which [...]ICAA Record ID: 1299789 -
¿Dónde están las nubes?
1986In this essay, the critic Roberto Guevara discusses the Cuban-born Venezuelan painter Rolando Dorrego’s career and latest work. Guevara begins with a review of the art movement of the early 1970s (in which Dorrego was an active participant), which [...]ICAA Record ID: 1165822 -
Nueva pintura de Cuba
1963In “Nueva Pintura de Cuba,” Cuban cultural scholar Graziella Pogolotti illustrates the importance of a specific generation of Cuban artists who began to paint during the country’s most tumultuous period. In the 1953 exhibition, Homage to Mart [...]ICAA Record ID: 1126501 -
El momento
1927In "El momento," Juan Marinello announces the existence of a new avant-garde movement in Cuban literature and the arts. Marinello prophesizes a coming “battle” between the new Cuban intellectual scene and the outmoded literary establishment who, [...]ICAA Record ID: 1125671 -
Nuestro arte y las circunstancias nacionales
The speech by the Cuban poet and essayist Juan Marinello records his position on Cuban vernacular art at a breakthrough moment in the consolidation of the island’s avant-garde. Marinello raises concerns over the country’s environment, which he [...]ICAA Record ID: 1125430 -
[Chicago Latino]
1992This exhibition catalog, Chicago Latino, was part of an intercultural dialogue initiated by two “socially-minded arts groups,” the 369 Gallery of Edinburgh, Scotland, and the Near Northwest Arts Council of Chicago, Illinois. The exhibition [...]ICAA Record ID: 1056360 -
[Letter] 1976 November 22, Cali, Colombia [to] Lorenzo Homar
1976Cuban Manuel López Olivo thanks Lorenzo Homar for the print Homar sent him. He reports that the Cuban exhibition that just opened in Cali, Colombia, was favorably received by the students and the working class, and per López Olivo, that is what is [...]ICAA Record ID: 861253 -
Arte de "los once": 5 de los mejores abstractos cubanos exponen en "Sardio"
1957This press article announces the exhibition of work by five abstract artists from Cuba (Hugo Consuegra, Tomás Oliva, Raúl Martínez, Antonio Vidal, and Guido Llinás), former members of the Los Once group (Cuba 1953). The exhibition was organized [...]ICAA Record ID: 855498 -
Conversations with Carlos Alfonzo = Conversaciones con Carlos Alfonzo
1997Julia P. Herzberg opens her interview with Carlos Alfonzo by asking him about the period of transition following his immigration to the U.S. from Cuba in 1980. Alfonzo touches on the two- to three-year period in which he did not paint, referring to [...]ICAA Record ID: 848257 -
Cuba of her mind : María Martínez-Cañas' photographic constructions
1994American art critic Donald Kuspit opens this essay on the work of María Martínez-Cañas by asking what meaning Cuba holds for the artist, since she immigrated to the United States at such a young age (three months old). He explains the extensive [...]ICAA Record ID: 848238 -
Humberto Calzada
1991The essay by Ricardo Pau-Llosa on the work of Cuban-born artist, Humberto Calzada, is divided into three sections. In the first one, “The Symbolism of Order,” Pau-Llosa addresses Calzada’s move from painting elements of colonial Cuban [...]ICAA Record ID: 848217 -
Humberto Calzada
1991The essay by Ricardo Pau-Llosa on the work of Cuban-born artist, Humberto Calzada, is divided into three sections. In the first one, “The Symbolism of Order,” Pau-Llosa addresses Calzada’s move from painting elements of colonial Cuban [...]ICAA Record ID: 848198 -
Past Cuba : identity and identification in Cuban-American art
1997This document contains the introduction to the exhibition catalog of Past Cuba: Identity and Identification in Cuban-American Art (1997) by curator and art historian Lynette M.F. Bosch in which she explains that the premise of the exhibition was to [...]ICAA Record ID: 848178 -
Islands in the stream : an introduction
1993The essay by exhibition curator, Lynette M.F. Bosch, discusses the paintings of Luis Alonso, Mario Bencomo, Demi, and Arturo Rodriguez; the photography of Ramón Guerrero and María Martínez Cañas; and the mixed media work of María Brito. Bosch [...]ICAA Record ID: 848150 -
Soriano : la luz como expresión
1992In this essay, Ricardo Pau-Llosa discusses the work of Cuban-born artist Rafael Soriano as a prime example of what he has termed “oneiric luminism,” which is Latin American art’s most original contribution to modernism, according to the author [...]ICAA Record ID: 848129 -
Soriano : light as utterance
1992In this essay, Ricardo Pau-Llosa discusses the work of Cuban-born artist Rafael Soriano as a prime example of what he has termed “oneiric luminism,” which is Latin American art’s most original contribution to modernism, according to the author [...]ICAA Record ID: 848096 -
Nature at the sensual extreme : Mario Bencomo's paintings
1991In this essay, American art critic Donald Kuspit discusses the sensuality of the paintings of Cuban-born artist Mario Bencomo. Kuspit notes that the works are both pleasurable and melancholic (revealing the dialectics of desire). He examines specific [...]ICAA Record ID: 848077 -
Cuban artists of the twentieth century = Artistas cubanos del siglo XX
1993In the exhibition catalog for Cuban Artists of the Twentieth Century, which was on view at the Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale, Florida—from October 1993 to January 1994,—art historian Giulio V. Blanc opens his essay by noting the 50th anniversary [...]ICAA Record ID: 848058 -
Transnational cuban art
1991The prominent scholar Robert Farris Thompson examines in this essay the presence of Afro-Cuban culture in the artworks featured in the 1991–1992 exhibition Cuba-USA: The First Generation. Thompson discusses the photographs of Ramón Guerrero, which [...]ICAA Record ID: 848039 -
Ana Mendieta
1978In this short, early artist statement, Cuban-born artist Ana Mendieta explains that the first part of her life was spent in Cuba from where she believes her interest in primitive art and culture probably originated. As a child growing up in Cuba, she [...]ICAA Record ID: 848020 -
Cuidado, con respeto
1995In this short essay on the work of Cuban artist José Bedia, art historian Judith Bettelheim describes the artist as a “transcultural citizen” who “speaks at the intersection of diverse commentaries.” Bettelheim calls Bedia a postmodern [...]ICAA Record ID: 847999 -
Careful, respect
1995In this short essay on the work of Cuban artist José Bedia, art historian Judith Bettelheim describes the artist as a “transcultural citizen” who “speaks at the intersection of diverse commentaries.” Bettelheim calls Bedia a postmodern [...]ICAA Record ID: 847897 -
Art in exile
1980This article by Ricardo Pau-Llosa focuses on the motif of the human body as the one theme that constantly recurs throughout the work of Cuban-American artists. He notes that this is unique given the distance that they live from one another. So that, [...]ICAA Record ID: 847866 -
Public voices and private transcendence=Voces públicas y transcendencia privada
In this bilingual essay, Cuban-American artist César Trasobares reflects on the work of his late friend and fellow artist Carlos Alfonzo .Trasobares notes that Alfonzo developed different public and private personas, and throughout his life Alfonzo [...]ICAA Record ID: 847846 -
Two currents : the life and work of Carlos Alfonzo = Dos Corrientes : la vida y la obra de Carlos Alfonzo
1997In this bilingual overview of the life and art of Carlos Alfonzo, curator Olga Viso provides biographical information about the artist, with an emphasis on the impact his immigration to the United States had on his life and work. Viso first discusses [...]ICAA Record ID: 847827 -
A conversation
1993In this discussion with Geno Rodriguez, Eleanor Heartney, and Victor Zamudio-Taylor, the three scholars consider the work of Cuban-born artist Luis Cruz Azaceta. They analyze the subject matter of his work, and all agree that it is melancholic and [...]ICAA Record ID: 847806 -
Juan Boza
1996In this essay, Randall Morris contextualizes the production of Juan Boza in relationship to the U.S. urban environment in which he was working. He notes that in contemporary western society religious art is often relegated to the margins but, as an [...]ICAA Record ID: 847786 -
Juan Boza : interview with Ricardo Viera
1996In this interview, Ricardo Viera and Juan Boza discuss the latter’s artistic training in Cuba, including the schools that he attended; the awards that he won; his job as a designer at the Coliseo Nacional de Cultura [National Coliseum of Culture] [...]ICAA Record ID: 847698 -
Juan Boza : reinventing himself
1996In this short text, Ricardo Viera looks at the work of Cuban artist Juan Boza, following his immigration to the United States, and transition from “science fiction” based work to art based on Santería. Viera opens this essay with a discussion of [...]ICAA Record ID: 847679 -
Juan Boza : excerpts from the artist's final statement, January 1991
1996Artist Juan Boza opens this statement by discussing his hometown of Camagüey, Cuba. He mentions that the city has many “magico-religious” legends inherited from its ancestors. Boza also notes the African roots of his religious beliefs stating [...]ICAA Record ID: 847660 -
Cuban art in South Florida
1991Ricardo Pau-Llosa’s chapter focuses on fine art production by Miami’s Cuban-American population. Before discussing the work thematically, he notes that in Miami there has been a “resistance to seeing Cuban and Latin American Art as an equal [...]ICAA Record ID: 847639 -
Finding the lost steps : the principles of art and the art of principles in the cuban revolution (1959-1980)
1996Iván de la Nuez’s entry for the exhibition catalog Cuba siglo XX: Modernidad y sincretismo [Twentieth-Century Cuba: Modernity and Syncretism] focuses on Cuban art made on the island as well as art made in exile from the onset of the 1959 Cuban [...]ICAA Record ID: 847620 -
Al encuentro de los pasos perdidos : los principios del arte y el arte de los principios en la Revolución Cubana (1959-1980)=A l'encontre des passos perduts : els principis de l'art i l'art dels prinipis a la Revolució Cubana (1959-1980)
1996Iván de la Nuez’s entry for the exhibition catalog Cuba siglo XX: Modernidad y sincretismo [Twentieth-Century Cuba: Modernity and Syncretism] focuses on Cuban art made on the island as well as art made in exile from the onset of the 1959 Cuban [...]ICAA Record ID: 847599 -
Pequeña Habana = Little Havana
1993Giulio V. Blanc includes a brief bilingual overview of the different generations of Cuban American artists, and this includes the Miami Generation (those who immigrated to Miami in the 1960s), the Post-Miami Generation (artists born in exile), those [...]ICAA Record ID: 847580 -
Synopsis of the symposium on the Hispanic American aesthetic : origins, manifestations, and significance
1983Art historian Jacinto Quirarte lays a framework for discussing an artwork or body of work by examining the tradition to which it belongs and the reasons for which (and for whom) it was created. Summarizing the conclusions of the 1979 Symposium on the [...]ICAA Record ID: 846381 -
Breaking barriers
1997In her artist statement, Maria Martinez-Cañas states that her photographs enable her to confront herself with personal issues like “belonging, alienation and [her] position in the outside world.” She describes her utilization of maps to “ [...]ICAA Record ID: 845720 -
Breaking Barriers
1997In this brief, bilingual artist statement Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons expresses her belief that art is “The transformation of ordinary things into a vision, a new dimension that wasn’t their original purpose.” Therefore, she explains that [...]ICAA Record ID: 845701 -
Breaking barriers : forty years of Cuban art
1997This essay by Carol Damian begins in the 1950s with the artist group Los Once [The Eleven Ones] followed by a discussion of the 1959 revolution, and the "Miami Generation" of the 1960s. It continues with coverage of the artistic repression in Cuba [...]ICAA Record ID: 845682 -
15 notes for Rosata Q: text for the exhibition quinceañera works, 1984
1984Cesar Trasobares’ essay is broken down into fifteen separate “notes” that describe the exhibited project or the Quinceañera planning process; they are written from the perspective of Rosata Quinceañera, the fictional heroine that is featured [...]ICAA Record ID: 845638 -
Por decisión o por circunstancia : razones de un exilio inevitable
1989This Spanish version of Ileana Fuentes-Pérez’s essay published in Outside Cuba: Contemporary Cuban Visual Artists, the catalogue for the exhibition of the same title held from 1987 to 1989 in six cities of the U.S., focuses on the reasons why so [...]ICAA Record ID: 845256 -
By choice or by circumstance : the inevitable exile of artists
1989Ileana Fuentes-Pérez’s essay published in Outside Cuba: Contemporary Cuban Visual Artists, the catalogue for the exhibition of the same title held from 1987 to 1989 in six cities of the U.S., focuses on the reasons why so many Cuban artists went [...]ICAA Record ID: 845231 -
Introduction = Introducción
1989Graciella Cruz-Taura’s bilingual essay introduces the exhibition, Outside Cuba: Contemporary Cuban Visual Artists (1987-89), and the contributing essayists for the catalogue. She notes that, in Cuba’s artistic production, external influences— [...]ICAA Record ID: 845208 -
Pintando, las minorias ganan la calle
In this text, the Mexican writer Julio Solórzano contextualizes a lecture that the Chicago mural painter and activist John Weber gave while in Mexico and includes a brief history of Latino murals in Chicago. Solarzano explains that the mural [...]ICAA Record ID: 840561