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APRIL 27 - AUGUST 31, 2008 |
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 The Museum of Art - Fort Lauderdale presents a landmark exhibition drawn from its Contemporary Cuban Collection, featuring the work of both exiles and nationals, including José Bedia, Carlos Luna, Tomás Sánchez, Kcho, and Manuel Piña. This multimedia exhibition of more than 60 paintings, photographs, graphics, videos, and installations demonstrates that neither time nor distance can erase the spiritual, behavioral, and cultural links among compatriots. The exhibition will also provide museumgoers with a panoramic lesson in survival – the triumph of willpower and perseverance over adversity.
Since January 1, 1959, the inner core of Cuba’s political, social, and family structures has been in turmoil. Fidel Castro and his revolutionary regime abolished or radically altered all previous cultural and political norms and created a Communist state a mere 90 miles from the United States, the most powerful capitalist nation in the world. Subsequently, Castro’s radical policies proved both controversial and disastrous, begetting, among other repercussions, the departure of more than a million inhabitants to foreign shores. As expected, the exiles never broke all ties with the island. To some their homeland became a reverie, while for many others it turned into a source of emotional pain, monetary drain, and unquenchable yearning.
 Unbroken Ties: Dialogues in Cuban Art, organized by Jorge H. Santis, the Museum of Art │ Fort Lauderdale’s Cuban-born curator and head of collection research, is culled from the Museum’s extensive and comprehensive Contemporary Cuban Collection. The curator’s intent is to reveal the existence of an acutely Cuban point of view based on shared sensitivities and concerns. His thesis is illustrated by a series of comparisons and contrasts among individual works of art stressing their direct or indirect thematic linkage, a connection that often breaks through generational as well as geographical barriers. The selected works represent three distinct groups of Cuban-born artists: men and women who were born on the island but developed professionally abroad; their counterparts who reached artistic maturity in Cuba but later immigrated to the United States; and a younger group of artists who not only studied in their homeland but also still reside there. The visual dialogues are established by more than 60 works of art by 40 gifted artists.
The exhibition reaffirms the Museum’s commitment to Latin American art in general and to Cuban art in particular. In 1993 the Museum began actively collecting contemporary Cuban art – including paintings, photographs, graphics, videos, and installations – initially concentrating exclusively on the work of Cuban exiles. That was the focus of Breaking Barriers, a sweeping 1997 survey of the Contemporary Cuban Collection that took up both floors of the Museum. Nearly a decade after its start, the collection was broadened to include works by artists who have remained on the island.
Mirroring the growth of the collection in both breadth and depth, this new exhibition expands on its predecessor by including the art of both Cuban exiles and nationals. According to Santis, the exhibition “focuses on the survival and perpetuity of Cuban values and the Cuban character beyond the island. The thesis is put forward by way of pointed comparisons and contrasts between works of art created by immigrants and works by nationals. The visual dialogues established herein often break generational, gender, and ideological barriers.”
Santis’ structure for the show is loosely based on that of a three-act Greek tragedy. “Paradise Lost” examines the Cuban paradise that now lies in ruins; “Risking Life and Limb” chronicles the voyage of Cuban exiles to a new life beyond the island; and “Unbroken Ties/New Reality” documents the range of experiences of those exiles in America. Among the most prominent artist featured, many of whom are now South Florida residents, are José Bedia, María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Enrique Martínez Celaya, Carlos Luna, Tony Mendoza, Glexis Novoa, and Tomás Sánchez, along with two second-generation Cubans, Carlos Betancourt and Andres Serrano.
Unbroken Ties was widely acclaimed upon its debut at the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach, California, where it was on view from
November 12, 2006, through March 18, 2007. “If Pablo Neruda wrote a Fodor’s Guide to Existential Cuba,” declared the Butler’s Blog on Vox, “it would take the form of Unbroken Ties: Dialogues in Cuban Art, a fascinating, lovely, and provocative exhibition… Fascinating because it dovetails with current discourses on physical borders – an ocean, a proposed fence – and emotional dislocations. Lovely because the work brims with an evocation of ritual and voyage. Provocative because it serves as a metaphor for emigrant cultures as well as a scrim for changes that brew in Cuba with the non-appearance of Fidel Castro in months.”
For its run at the Museum of Art │ Fort Lauderdale, Santis has altered the show to include works by additional artists. The Museum anticipates touring the exhibition to other institutions after its South Florida engagement.
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