Walker scores major Cuban art exhibit
The Walker Art Center will host what's being described as the most significant exhibit of Cuban art in the U.S. in more than 70 years.
"Adios Utopia: Dreams and Deceptions in Cuban Art since 1950" will only be shown at the Walker and Houston's Museum of Fine Art. Walker executive director Olga Viso says the exhibit shows how Cuban hopes raised by the revolution changed over time.
"There are over 100 works in the exhibition from 1950 to the present made by over 50 artists," she said "And it is a comprehensive look at contemporary artistic production in Cuba again in the years leading up to the revolution to the present moment."
The show opens at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston in March 2017 and then moves to the Walker in November.
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Viso says the pieces display the remarkable Cuban creative output.
"So really important paintings, sculptures, installations, photographs, performance-based works. Art across all media that really look and embody the full range of artistic practice in Cuba," she said.
Viso says the show follows the history of the island nation, beginning in the years before the Cuban Revolution.
"So the exhibition begins with artists who are responding to the euphoria of the new revolution, the new government and the aspiration to create a social utopia. The artists who were supported by the Cuban government are included as well as artists who might have experienced silencing or suppressing during that time period," she said.
The show continues with the times after the onset of the U.S. embargo against Cuba.
"As you flow through the '70s and '80s you see the emergence of a different, more veiled critique using metaphor and using humor as a way to embrace but also upend certain philosophies around the government and policies around the government that artists were questioning," Vison said.
"So you see the whole range of embrace, challenge, critique, critical questioning that happens about the experience of Cubans in a socialist, then communist, then reimagined Cuban state during that 65-year trajectory."