Once upon a time: The Miami Generation

(…) The original idea for The Miami Generation: Nine Cuban−American Artists came from tireless promoter Margarita Cano (Havana, 1932) who, since her arrival in Miami in 1962, devoted herself to the promotion of arts and cultural life in South Florida. As part of such a big endeavor, Cano entrusted art historian Giulio V. Blanc (Havana, 1955 – Miami, 1995) the curatorial project of the exhibition, which had its seat at the Museo Cubano de Arte y Cultura (Cuban Museum of Art and Culture − MCAC, 1974-1991). It drew nine artists together: Mario Bencomo, María Brito, Humberto Calzada, Pablo Cano, Emilio Falero, Fernando García, Juan González, Carlos Maciá and Cesar Trasobares. Although they never acted as a group, (…) these artists embodied a new sensitivity for local creation and for the history of Cuban art. As Blanc well warns in the central essay, now available in the catalogue The Miami Generation: Revisited, this is a generation of individuals who left the island when very young (children or teenagers).

(…) In this sense, The Miami Generation: Nine Cuban−American Artists has the indisputable historical merit of having sighted the regularities uniting this young generation of Cuban−American artists, motivated by the pressing need of inquiring into Cuban culture and history as a form of self-acknowledgement and affirmation of their split identity. (…)

The curatorial thesis on which the 1983 exhibition was based − and which has been respected in the new exhibition open now under the title The Miami Generation: Revisited − should not be seen as a punctual approach only circumscribed to the artists included, but should be understood under a wider perspective referring to that first generation of Cuban−American artists, those who migrated when in their childhood (which in sociology has been defined as one-and-a-half-generation¹), whose identity – and artistic production − will be forever marked by that vital episode. (…)

1. The use of the decimal is introduced as a distinction between the first and second generations to accentuate the impact of age in the migration and integration of the individual. The so-called oneand-a-half-generation refers to the youngsters who arrived when they were twelve−years old or less. For more information, see Rubén G. Rumbaut, “Ages, Life Stages and Generational Cohorts: Decomposing the Immigrant First and Second Generation in the United States,” in International Migration Review 38, no. 3, 2004, p. 1160−1205.