Occupying, Building, Thinking

Carlos Garaicoa, Ya no quiero ver más a mis vecinos, 2006, 4:13.

USF Contemporary Art Museum - Tampa

By Ashley Knight

“Occupying, Building, Thinking: Poetic and Discursive Perspectives on Contemporary Cuban Video Art (1990-2010),” curated by Dennys Matos, offers a look at Cuban video art through the work of 23 creators from different generations, who currently reside and produce work both in Cuba and other parts of the world. This exposition offers a look at a medium that until a few years ago was somewhat marginalized in the visual arts on the island, owing firstly to the scarcity of technological resources and secondly to the limited international dissemination of the work of many of these artists.

The works are organized around the three themes expressed in the title, three interrelated segments about how to reinvent a language to differentiate what is public, private and intimate in a context like Cuba, where civil society and the individual have been replaced by the state and the homogenizing concept of “collectivity.” The artists gathered in this exhibition address the rich and contradictory social and cultural reality of Cuba based on a variety of communication systems inspired by film, documentary and advertising resources, among others.

Through August 3, 2013.