Quentin Shih: Dreaming In Cuban

The exhibition title is lifted from a 1993 novel by author Cristina García, recounting the experiences of three generations of restless, clairvoyant del Pino women navigating their passionate spirits in a rapidly changing physical and political landscape. Just as García allows the simmering passions of Cuba and its characters to surface, Shih’s photographic series (titled La Habana In Waiting) explores the unwritten tensions and melancholy residing in Cuban citizens who quietly sit for an artist’s lens.

La Habana in Waiting examines of the polarities between expressive individuals struggling for identity within a Communist regime. The photographer, himself, hails from a similarly body in China; drawing parallels between both experiences living in a creatively constricted environment is essential for Shih. Through the process of envisioning and creating these photographs, Shih is asking himself – and viewers – a series of questions about the nature of representation, and how our imagination influences that representation.  “Is the Cuba of propaganda photographs more authentic?” he says.  “Or are the waiting and restless teens who grew up after the revolution more representative of reality? Both of these exist in my experience.”  His silent stages are populated by actors with no scripts, no direction: they exist in a kind of temporal limbo, captured in a film still.

 “I greeted and shook hands with each sitter but I was more interested in the process. We were both inquisitive of the other, wondering what exactly we were doing together.” Shih writes so on his tourist identity in Cuba.

 Shih’s work takes on a new, more intriguing dimension as diplomatic ties between the United States and Cuba have been reestablished after a nearly 50-year impasse: a period of “cold war” waiting has ended, while a more volatile, delicate period of waiting for international interaction with the island begins.

 Quentin Shih is recognized worldwide for his theatrical, large format photographs which are subject to a rigorous composition and complex post-production process. His international breakthrough came in 2008 with his series Stranger In The Glass Box, a collaboration with haute couturier Christian Dior. Fashion models wear Dior haute couture and are sealed in glass boxes, inspected by small groups of identically-dressed Chinese bystanders. They resemble stereotyped characters from Communist propaganda posters, photographed against the backdrop of gritty industrial settings in northern China. The results are haunting juxtapositions contrasting harmonious uniformity against the fundamental beauty of uniqueness; a powerful response is triggered, where predictability proves to be both attractive and grotesque. His photographs are provocative manifestations rife with cross-cultural turbulence.