Art OnCuba 19

For some time now, it would seem that Cuban art’s tradition is abstraction, as it undoubtedly is in Venezuela or Argentina, just to cite some of the most evident cases in our region. So much is said about the artists who stood out in their time, associated to the different aspects of geometrics or of those who, in all justice, have been recovered from oblivion, that we could lose the perspective about the constant features of Cuban art throughout its history.

In this edition of the magazine we have wanted to bring up some figures whose work has enriched our view of the environment and have contributed to giving our artistic scene a diversity of which we can be proud; because of the problems they have touched on as well as the languages which they have used. Because if there’s something that has characterized the Cuban art of all times it is the level of its reflections on themes that interest and affect human beings, including, of course, the experiments involving art itself. Our art has never been excluding. Thus the danger of following fashions.

Therefore, this issue can serve as a sample of the enormous variety of our current artistic panorama, in which creators of diverse generations and of very different forms of expression coexist. I am enormously pleased to open with the work of Julio Larraz, whom I had been wanting to include in our pages for a long time. I am sure, moreover, that our readers will enjoy the tour we are proposing of the work of creators who have made history in Cuban art, together with young upstarts who have begun leaving their imprint, not forgetting those whose to whom we will always be indebted. Also of great interest there will be the vision proposed of the portrait by the Cuban avant-garde artists, given the interest that the theme of the face has been acquiring in the most recent Cuban painting.

As on other occasions, we are bringing up some books published in recent months, whose presence will be indispensable in the public and private libraries and in the residences of aficionados of national art. Also, given the interest current art collections is awakening, we are including a lady who in Miami has brought together a beautiful group of works that reflect her sensitivity and good taste.

Lastly, in this anniversary of the San Alejandro Academy, we haven’t wanted to miss the opportunity to pay a well-deserved homage to Professor Antonio Alejo, whose wisdom and teaching are remembered by all those who, throughout more than five decades, have passed through its classrooms.