Cuba – Ficción y Fantasía

Cuba – Ficción y fantasía [Cuba – Fiction and Fantasy] presents around 130 works belonging to Daros Latinamerica Collection, located in Zurich, Switzerland, by 15 renowned Cuban artists: Ana Mendieta (1948, Cuba – 1985, USA), Belkis Ayón (1967 – 1999, Cuba), Ivan Capote (b. 1973, Pinar del Río), Javier Castro (b. 1984, Havana), José Bedia (b. 1959, Habana), Juan Carlos Alom (b. 1964, Havana), Lázaro Saavedra (b. 1964, Havana), Los Carpinteros (Cuba), Manuel Piña  (b. 1958, Havana), Marta María Pérez Bravo (b. 1959, Havana), René Francisco (b. 1960, Holguín), Santiago Rodríguez Olazábal (b. 1955, Havana), Tania Bruguera (b. 1968, Havana), Tonel (b. 1958, Havana) and Yoan Capote (b. 1977, Pinar del Río). This exhibition is the last to be held at Casa Daros, whose doors will be closed by the end of the year.

Curators Hans-Michael Herzog and Katrin Steffen selected works produced between 1975 and 2008, covering a period of over 30 years, aiming to represent the most important aspects of the Cuban production of the last decades. Most of the participating artists live and work in Havana.

The main concern of all the exhibited artistic considerations and strategies continues to be the island of Cuba, its culture and history. The singular government, the precarious economical situation and the blockage remains in the centre of these artists’ attention.

The works of  Lázaro Saavedra, René Francisco and Tonel are placed within critical distance from reality, thus establishing ironic and sarcastic political and social analysis. The specificity of Cuban relations and contradictions are present in the works of Ivan and Yoan Capote. A ludic conceptualism characterizes the drawings and projects of Los Carpinteros. The poetical tension between longing and experience appears in the production of Manuel Piña and Juan Carlos Alom. Javier Castro’s videos observers and depicts the opinion of the people. BothAna Mendieta and Tania Bruguera, with their radical performances, make feminist statements against a male dominated society. Marta María Pérez Bravo analyses the iconographic context of the syncretic religion santería. Finally,José Bedia, Belkis Ayón and Santiago Rodríguez Olazábal approach the imaginary, mysterious, and supernatural world of African-Cuban religions.