Contemporary Art in Cuba

November 20, 2012 - 4:00 PM

Representations of Intimacy in Contemporary Cuban Visual Culture

Dannys Monte de Oca Moreda
Curator, Wifredo Lam Center for Contemporary Art

Participatory Art and the Role of the Spectator
Ernesto Menéndez-Conde
Editor in chief, ArtExperience: NYC

Moderator:
Ana María Hernández
LaGuardia Community College, CUNY

Dannys Montes de Oca Moreda will explore representations of intimacy in the Cuban social imaginary as this is refracted in specific works of art. Intimacy is integral to contemporary expressions of race, gender and social class, in the visual arts, and a means for important commentary on Cuban collectivity today.

Ernesto Menéndez-Conde will discuss forms of participatory art in Cuba. He will focus on the institutional context for these artistic proposals, alternative forms, and the cultural and political dimensions of the art scene in Cuba.

**Menéndez-Conde’s talk will be in Spanish with a PowerPoint presentation in English.

About the speakers:

Dannys Montes de Oca Moreda is a curator, art critic, and researcher based in Havana, Cuba. She is a member of the curatorial team at the Wifredo Lam Center for Contemporary Art, in Havana, and one of the organizers of the Havana Biennial. She is the author of numerous international publications and one of Cuba’s most important voices on contemporary art and culture.

Ernesto Menéndez-Conde is a curator, lecturer, and art critic. He is the editor in chief of the online magazineArtExperience:NYC. In 2009 he earned a Ph. D. in Romance Studies at Duke University. His areas of research are related to contemporary Cuban Art, aesthetic ideologies, and theories of the image. He has been published in the magazines: Noticias de Arte (New York), UNIÓN (La Habana), Art PulseWynwood Art Magazine (Miami), and Res Publica (Valencia, Spain).

Ana María Hernández (Ph.D., Comparative Literature, New York University) specializes in Caribbean and River Plate studies and is Professor of Latin American Literature and Culture at LaGuardia Community College, The City University of New York. Her publications have focused on Julio Cortázar, Horacio Quiroga, Julio Herrera y Reissig, Felisberto Hernández and Antonio Benítez Rojo. Her recent publications include an annotated edition of Fantoches 1926: Folletín Moderno por Once Escritores Cubanos (Stockcero, 2011), and an anthology of tales by Felisberto Hernández, Las Hortensias y Otros Cuentos (Stockcero, 2011). She is presently working on an edition of Cirilo Villaverde’s novel Cecilia Valdés o La Loma del Angel. (Spring 2013)