Photo: Michael Scalisi, “Tail Fins” Havana Cuba, 1993.
The island of Cuba lies ninety miles south of the United States, sitting pretty in the heart of the Caribbean Sea. After a tumultuous turn of events throughout the twentieth century, the island is now poised to make its return at the dawn of the new millennium. As the United States begins to rebuild a connection after fifty years of sanctions, a new world is being born, one that is being established with full respect for Cuba as a sovereign nation.
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With the respect comes a deep an abiding love, one that is evident in the celebration of arts, history, and culture. Perhaps it is through photography that we can begin to glimpse the intimacies and intricacies of this foreign land, and study its people from a wide array of perspectives. Under the Cuban Sun, the new photography exhibition at Throckmorton Fine Art, New York, celebrates 85 years of life on the island. On view now through September 17, 2016, the exhibition presents 42 works made by native and foreign-born photographers from the early 1930s through the present.
Jesse Fernandez, Fidel Castro, 1958
“Too often the world has seen only Cuba’s crumbling cities and decaying automobiles, rather than the personalities and souls of the populous, not just in Havana but in its desperate rural outposts. Now we see seven decades that portray the real heart of the Cuban people,” gallery director Spencer Throckmorton observes.
The exhibition opens with Walker Evans incredible photographs made in the 1930s, continuing to the work of Jesse Fernandez, which records Havana in the years leading up to the Revolution in 1959. Hector Garcia, Alberto Korda, Leo Matiz and Rodrigo Moya document its leaders, Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, in their early, vibrant days as symbols of self-determination that would not be corrupted by the perils of capitalism.
Jesse A. Fernández, Alicia Alonso, Varadero Beach, Cuba, 1958
With the U.S. embargo in place throughout the Cold War, the representations of the island begin to reflect an extremely dangerous propaganda war. When the Soviet Union collapses in 1989 and economic support is no longer viable, a new side of the country is exposed to the camera. Scarcity becomes the norm for people from all walks of life, creating an era euphemistically described as the “Special Period.”
Photographers felt the pinch as film and chemicals for processing and printing photographs become increasingly unavailable, making ever shot count as there is no room for mistakes. Fernandez documents the period along with his contemporaries including Mario Algaze, Juan Carlos Alom, Jose Antoni Carrera, and Raúl Cañibano, whose work is included in the exhibition.
Susan S, Banks, The Wall, Malecon, Cuba, 2009
There is a profound depth to in these images, a depth manifest in exquisite interplay between light and shadow particular to the island. The result is an intensely romantic sensibility that combines the romanticism of Latin culture with the dynamics of modern life. Taken as a whole, there is a sense that we are coming full circle, as Cuba positions itself as a model of independence and self determination by any means necessary.
All photos: Courtesy of Throckmorton Fine Arts, New York.
Miss Rosen is a New York-based writer, curator, and brand strategist. There is nothing she adores so much as photography and books. A small part of her wishes she had a proper library, like in the game of Clue. Then she could blaze and write soliloquies to her in and out of print loves.
