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ExhibitionApertura: Photography in Cuba Today

Mar 6–Jun 21, 2015

digital print of a delicate teapot

Apertura: Photography in Cuba Today explores the way photography is used, understood, and experienced in Cuba in times of transition. It includes photography-based installations, digital photomontage and “intervened photography” by eight contemporary Cuban artists. The premise of the exhibition is to explore how photography and photographic practice have changed on the island over the last two decades and how it creates meaning in light of the technological, philosophical and aesthetic changes of the last decades. In contrast with the highly stylized documentation of the young Revolution, the new Cuban photography aims to shape reality by creating a syntax of expressive artifacts, one in which the printed image becomes one element in a complex discursive practice. New Cuban photography-based art creates an imaginary space of aesthetic openness—apertura in Spanish—against or in play with what is perceived to be an artificially stagnant political reality.

Featured Artists
Angel Delgado
José Manuel Fors
Carlos Garaicoa
Liudmila + Nelson
Reynier Leyva Novo
René Peña
Rafael Villares

Above: René Peña, (Cuban, b. 1957), Untitled from the series Untitled Album, 2007, digital print, 19 3/4 x 27 1/16 in., gift of the artist, 2015.17.2