Descripción de la Exposición
Arena 1 Gallery announces the opening of MADE IN CUBA!/HECHO EN CUBA! Recycling Memory and Culture, an audacious pop-up show of more than seventy mixed media works by some of Cuba's leading artists. Opening receptions on Saturday October 17th and Sunday, October 18th are in conjunction with Santa Monica Art Studios' 11th Open Studios celebrations.
Much of the art in this exhibition incorporates recycled and found materials, an aesthetic summed up by internationally renowned Cuban artist Roberto Diago this way: "During the economic crisis, we didn't have the materials you need to paint like we were taught in school, so we adapted our art to what we could find." He and other artists discovered that this experience in the '90s changed their art for the better, broadening their vision in the use not only of new "found" materials, but also new concepts.
According to curator Sandra Levinson, the generation of Cuban artists, presented in MADE IN CUBA!, "is the most educated, most worldly, and probably most recognized ever. In Cuba, they are superstars."
Levinson is director of the Center for Cuban Studies' Cuban Art Space in New York. The Center, which opened its gallery in 1999, was the first to exhibit and sell post-revolutionary art exclusively. At Levinson's initiative, a successful suit was brought against the US Treasury Department in 1991 which made it legal to import and sell original Cuban art despite the US trade embargo. She has traveled to Cuba more than 300 times, building strong relationships with talented artists in all fields. MADE IN CUBA! is the largest and most wide-ranging exhibit of Cuban art ever presented in Southern California.
Also exhibiting will be Abel Barroso, Sandra Ceballos, Choco (Eduardo Roca), Aimée García, Ernesto Javier Fernández, Alberto Lescay, Joel Jover, William Perez, Ernesto Rancańo, Adrian Rumbaut, and younger emerging artists such as Dagoberto Driggs Dumois, Hector Frank, Marlys Fuego, and Carlos César Román.
Formación. 30 oct de 2025 - 11 jun de 2026 / Museo Nacional del Prado / Madrid, España